Skip to main content

Challenging ourselves to do better

My company runs an annual programme for independent retailers called the Independent Achievers Academy (IAA) that encourages them to do a better job for their customers. Last week, we launched the 2010 version by asking last year's top retailer Rav Garcha to speak to a group of shopkeepers and supportive suppliers. I made a note of his thoughts and I think it is useful to share them with you.

I am part of a family business that my father set up in 1982 when he bought a small off licence. The Independent Achievers Academy has helped me and my staff to think about how we can achieve more.
After college I worked as a financial advisor but I came back into the family business because I wanted to create something for myself.
As an independent our first challenge is how we get a customer who is passing by to come into the shop. We started off by thinking about our window and displays.
I started working in our second shop, working from 6am to 9pm, seven days a week. Our first Christmas was make or break. We had borrowed a lot of money from our family and it had to work.
In growing from one to four stores we have had to rely on staff. Good people are hard to find and we have invested in good staff. We do things like My Shop Is Your Shop and the Academy because they help with this goal.
Last year I sat down and filled out the IAA entry form straight away.
The difference between this Award and others is that the IAA is about what you do in the future. It encourages you to learn and improve.
After we won we switched off. Since then we have challenged ourselves by looking at the criteria again. We don't want to be complacent. We want to show what we can do. We have shared our success with our customers and aim to do more.
Thinking about suppliers, I think they can do more. They should visit the top 100 IAA shops and help us to improve. Suppliers spend millions on research and they need to share it with us.
Independent retailers need help with the categories. For example a Nestlé Purina representative re-merchandised my pet food range. He took out lots of product and I was doubtful and then sales doubled.
Also I met a Keepak rep at a NISA conference in Dubai and she persuaded me to stock up on Rustlers in the week before Christmas. Again I was doubtful and again we sold more than I thought possible.
Point of sale and planograms are not enough. We need a little bit more.
Today we benchmark our shops against Tesco. We take an active role in our local community. If some one asks us to sponsor the football team, we say let's do it properly, we want to be part of your event.
In terms of thinking, independent retailers are about the short term. We need to do what we have to do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Digital disruption in the UK wholesale space

“Twenty years ago I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift,” says Jeff Bezos in his most recent letter to shareholders. A blink later and he points out that the company has grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to 230,000 now. But his ambition is the same. “We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness and risk-acceptance mentality that is normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.” Amazon is great at disruption because of its customers focus and the fact that the internet means it needs none (or very few) people between its warehouses and the shopper. The threat of Prime, its membership service, is the biggest challenge facing the UK retail market and the wholesale market by extension. It is both a direct threat and an indirect threat in that is inspiring countless numbers of othe...

New look: big copy small?

The owners of B&Q are talking up how they have cut the price of a store refit from £2.5m to £1m by using wood-effect vinyl instead of wood and painted MDF backboards for displays. Managers are learning to live with grey shelving instead of a warmer-looking cream. Shoppers notice the produce, not the fixtures, suggests one executive. Up to a point! Most local retailers will extract the maximum possible life from their fixtures, sometimes taking too long to change equipment that has become tired. As in all business, it is getting the balance right. Shops need to be refreshed and with a purpose.

The secrets of persuasion: No short cuts.

The best moment in my interview with Terri Sjodin, who teaches many of the world’s top corporations how to sell persuasively, is when she smiles at me and asks to hear my “elevator speech".   My mind literally goes blank. The author of Small Message, Big Impact , her new book on how to craft powerful messages that persuade people to listen to you, has thrown the gauntlet at me. There was nowhere to hide. I had just told her how I had used her book to write out my three minute speech to open the Local Shop Summit. She listened patiently to my pitch, thought for a moment, and said: “I bet you had an illustration in your mind of an independent who really capitalised on your ideas and has taken them to the bank.” I could swear she was reading my mind. I blushed and nodded. “So you should open with this story,” she said. “Start out by saying: ‘Let me open the conference by telling you a great story with a happy ending.’ So the audience will say to themselves: ‘He is goi...