Change: ways to add momentum to your business

One person cannot be the sole catalyst for change. Great ideas can come from anywhere. You have to trust your team.

These thoughts on leading change from Richard Gerver, formerly a star head teacher and now a travelling speaker, form a cornerstone of Change, his exciting new book published by Penguin.

Gerver is a maverick and most independent retailers will warm to him immediately from the pacey prologue. Change is a short book. It is beautifully presented and filled with ideas that will encourage you to live your dreams and to connect to other people.

“We have all got to stop assuming we live in unique little silos that nobody else could possibly understand,” says Gerver.

He recommends that you take time out from your shop to explore the world and learn half-a-day at a time from other people’s experiences. His book is not about self-help nor is it a management book. What Change does do is give readers ideas on how their ideas about developing their businesses (and lives) are worthwhile.

As a head master of a small school, Gerver had to manage everything himself. People used to bring him problems and feel they had done their job leaving him to solve them. What he found was that his real role was to refuse to be responsible for everything. The more risk he took in empowering the people who worked for him, the better results they achieved together.

His book is packed full of interesting stories followed by questions and suggestions about what readers might want to do next. At one level, readers can substitute shop staff for teachers and customers for schoolchildren. This works powerfully.

“Kids, like customers, are not stupid. You ignore them at your peril,” says Gerver. “They don’t like being passed off with something that you, yourself don’t particularly care about.”

Teachers used to do things because they were told by people at the top that they were safe things to do. The children saw through this and did not respond. What we had to do was change the focus and say we’re not here for the government but for the children, says Gerver. So we built the school for the children, to make it as exciting as Disneyland, so they were queuing up every morning to come to school.

Similarly with your customers: Gerver encourages you to trust your instincts and to do what you think is right. While he respects rules, he also believes in adapting them if they don’t work.

Change is “not a how-to manual that says if you do this, this will happen. What I want is to actuate open-ended questions and to sit back and watch the power that leads to dramatic transformation”, he says.

Gerver’s book is about an outlook on life that will suit the sensibilities of many independent business people. He observes that “knowledge that is not passed through the heart is dangerous.” If you like this idea, you will like his book. Reading it will challenge and encourage you to be a lot braver about making your own decisions, about delegating and about listening to your customers.

Three secrets of great merchandising

Look at the ceiling and top wall of this McDonalds restaurant. There is a picture of two good looking healthy people having fun and some bright primary colours. Ask yourself what is the purpose of this picture? In the latest issue of Retail Newsagent in a feature on merchandising, Andrew Knight of RI tells its independent readers that they need to think about using sharp pictures of non-packaged products linked to people consuming goods. Perhaps this has been taken to the next level by the fast food chain - that is selling the feeling of being happy and healthy rather than the products. A second, related tip from the same feature is made by most contributors - it is vital to keep windows clean and clear of clutter. "I believe that less is more," says Roli Ranger, a retailer from Ascot, Berkshire. He has posters for promotions in between the windows that are regularly updated and discreet signs in the windows. Third, a highly visible well-stocked promotion at the entranc

Overcoming a price disadvantage

Planning for his speech at the Independent Achievers Academy last week, Theo Paphitis asked an assistant to buy a basket of six essentials from a Tesco, a Londis (independent operator in a symbol group) and a One Stop (Tesco's CTN/convenience chain). Tesco was cheapest by a big margin. Second came Londis. The most expensive was One Stop. Mr Paphitis understands the power of the supermarkets and he says the way to counter them is to focus on how to make the experience of shopping with you more relevant to shoppers or more enjoyable for them. John Heynan, sales director of Molson Coors, told Retail Newsagent at about the same time that occasional beer buyers will pay 13 per cent more for their beer in an independent convenience store, provided the retailer targets them appropriately. Tesco has carved itself out this 13 per cent head start. Looking at pricing, if Tesco is 100, then Tesco Express is 108, One Stop is 112, a good symbol group is 115 and non-affiliated independents

A sign of retail stress perhaps

It must have been four months since this window was broken in the Tesco Express on Pentonville Road and I simply cannot believe that it has not been fixed. This is the sort of lack of focus that independent shops usually get criticised for. The only purpose in sharing this image is to encourage those independents with high standards who are finding the going tough that they can do better than this.

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