Skip to main content

Inspiring you to find great employees

A thing that you notice about great retailers is how much credit they give their staff. While the big supermarkets project their credentials behind impressive (and often overstated) job creation numbers, collectively local shopkeepers match them. A reason society doesn't know this is perhaps the lack of a context for independents to-broadcast their success.

Reading George Anders' inspiring book The Rare Find, published by Portfolio Penguin, a question springs to mind: What is the reward for local shopkeepers to recruit great staff? Anders writes about world leading talent and how it is unearthed. How is this relevant for small shops? And for their potential colleagues?

Thinking about great retailers I have met, I think answers include how local shops help young staff develop, how first-employers keep track of their peoples' later career success and how shopkeepers nurture local superstars. Superstars with humble jobs like the janitor who President Kennedy met on a tour of NASA in 1961. Asking the man what he did, the janitor said: “Sir, I am helping to put a man on the moon”.

For example, one shopkeeper I know told me about a person that he employed who had severe learning difficulties. Seeing her affinity with the task of keeping the shelves in one department well stocked, he gave her responsibility for buying. Today, that part of his business and the staff member are thriving.

Reading Anders' book will help you work out what to challenge your people to do. It will also challenge you to do better. A former Wall Street Journal staff writer, Anders has access to some of America's greatest leaders. Good to Great author Jim Collins endorses Ander’s book, which provides great lists of what to do to hire good people. These lists also help you understand what could make your business successful.

The reason for this is that Anders finds that success is built around Peter Drucker's famous advice “to think through the assignment”, which means working out exactly what needs to be done and what skills your people need. Using this as a foundation stone, Anders endorses several good habits and explains how they work.

For example, he shows how the concept of "what can go right" - as practised by Dave Packard and Steve Jobs - works. This is about giving people a chance to show that they can succeed rather than worrying about failure. But there is a discipline.

For entrepreneurs the £14.99 cover price will be rewarded by reading the chapter on how venture capital works, particularly the comments of local business people who backed Jeff Bezos when he looked to set up Amazon.

And character is ever important, memorably illustrated by the success of singer Taylor Swift, who as a young teenager was promoted by Scott Borchetta because he liked her attitude. Blagging a visit with a local radio programme director in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a quick visit, she played one of her songs.

“That’s very nice,” the director said, ready to escort out his visitors.

“Thank you,” Taylor Swift replied. “Can I go on the air and play it right now for your listeners, too!”

The manager, Anders writes, was powerless to resist. This book will help you think about who you hire and how you contribute to your local community - and beyond.

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.

What do shoppers see

I read a good post (http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2009/08/28/what-do-newsagents-charge-for-faxing.html) asking what price local shops charge for providing a fax service. The blogger had attached a photograph of his sign with his prices on it. What struck me was the message on the sign. "You drop, we fax," it said. "Pressed for time, drop your documents with us and we'll do it for you at no extra charge." That is a message that will persuade most shoppers that you want to give them good value, even if they stay to do the copying or faxing themselves.