Wikipedia says a headwind reduces an object’s speed and increase the time required to reach its destination. Don’t I know it! The headwind slowed me down when I was already tired. I debated whether to call my mother or my husband to pick me up. Mom would be sympathetic but she didn’t have a bike rack. I’d never hear the end of it from David (he rides the trail in half the time it takes me).

Are you battling a headwind? Some days, even if you’re on the right path and doing the right thing, life feels like swimming upstream. What’s slowing you down? Chances are, you can’t change it any more than I could change the wind. Are you going to push against it or give up? Ironically, a headwind is favorable in takeoffs and landings. Sometimes an opposing force is just what we need to force us to change direction.

Who do you call when the winds blows? There’s a time for sympathy, and there’s a time for unyielding “you can do it” motivation from people who have been there, done that and kicked butt along the way. Choose your confidants carefully, and weigh your words when someone comes in the middle of their storm.

Despite splashing through a fresh puddle of dog pee on the trail, I made it home. Exhausted, but stronger. And ready to do it again tomorrow.

The “Word of the Week” is written by Amy Lively of The Lively Merchant, R&A’s partner in providing these thought-provoking weekly witticisms.

Having a website that is dynamic, search engine optimized and has layers upon layers of content is not going to drive in business alone.  However, having multiple followers on your Twitter, hundreds of fans and mentions on your Facebook and ping backs on your blog post do not line people up to buy your product and services either.

When I was giving the keynote address at the “Unfinished Furniture Association” annual trade show on July 11th I spoke about the topic “New Economy.  Same Hard Work“.  In this presentation, I touched on how traditional and web based mediums are not counter culture to each other but work together to achieve marketing success.

In this new economy.  There are no quick fixes.

No longer can any one advertisement be thrown out and bring instant results.  The consumer just doesn’t buy on a whim anymore.  Why would she buy off of one advertisement?

There are three questions that are essential when assessing your current media mix and advertising planning:

1. Does your strategic plan focus on marketing? Marketing and advertising are two separate ways of communicating.  Marketing focuses on OFFERING SOLUTIONS to the customer.  Advertising focuses on SELLING SOLUTIONS to the customer.  Today’s economy requires marketing to the consumer—not advertising to her.
2. Does your media mix include digital and traditional medias? Digital medias are rapidly growing and creating more return on investment every single day but it is not an absolute solution.  Traditional medias are dieing and are not nearly as effective as they have been or ever will be again but they are not dead either.  With a strategic plan that focuses on marketing in place your media mix will have to include all the ways that your customer can find out about you that accomplishes the best bang for your buck.  One medium and one direction does not bring results—it brings headaches.
3. Do you have someone helping you out? Retailers are doing too much in their stores today and now combining these digital and traditional mediums together is going to create even more tasks to implement.  It’s time to let someone through the door who is going to help take you where you want to go.  With a strategic plan that focuses on marketing and a media mix that includes digital and traditional mediums the time you are going to have to work on marketing planning and execution is going to dwindle because there will be traffic in your store.  Finding someone internally at the store or hiring outside services will allow you to do what you do best—sell furniture and loads of it.

A key thought process to ditch while these strategic processes are implemented is that success will not come over night.  Hitting the panic button and abandoning ship will lead to consumer confusion about who you are and will make it that much harder to make the transition again.

Which fad are we as an industry going to hold onto?

Exclusive medias separate from one another? Or, maybe we can find a way to make it all work together to get us the best results possible?

I’m clueless about cuteness, as said daughter frequently points out. “People just don’t wear things like that anymore, Mom,” she explains. I’m slowly catching on. Sometimes all it takes to send me back to the closet is her not-so-subtle eye roll or exasperated sigh. (Other times, I wear unapproved goods just to tick her off!)

I am never going to have the flair of a teenage fashionista. And you know what? That’s okay. Unless, of course, it’s my job to make teenagers buy fashion… then I need all the help I can get.

What do you do when you need a clue about Ms. Jones’ heart, mind and soul? Who’s your advisor about her lifestyle, her passion, what she loves, what she hates, what makes her buy, what makes her cringe? We’d be remiss not to mention Meet Ms. Jones™ demographic studies and customer personas, but you don’t have to spend a cent to get a glimpse into Ms. Jones’ world.

Start by taking your team on a field trip to your local bookstore. Ask for the 15 top selling magazines. As you flip through the glossy pages, make note of the topics in the cover articles, the predominant colors, the angle of photography, advertising layouts, fonts and decorative elements, language and idioms.

Now watch television. Google the top shows, and set your DVR or rent an entire season on DVD. How do the characters talk? What do their homes look like? What do they wear? Who’s advertising during prime time? What do they talk about? Take advantage of the millions of dollars and mindboggling research that’s already being spent to woo Ms. Jones.

Unlike wearing my favorite t-shirt to the grocery store in spite of daughter’s scorn, Ms. Jones won’t excuse your faux pas—fashion or otherwise.

The “Word of the Week” is written by Amy Lively of The Lively Merchant, R&A’s partner in providing these thought-provoking weekly witticisms.

Built to Serve is based upon the fact of building an organization where there is a higher power above profit and traffic.  That higher power is empowering the members of your organization to move beyond a “financial career path” and into a “servant hood career path”.

One section of the book  Sander’s outlines the concept of “players in an organization” verses “fans in an organization”.  The section explains the difference between players and fans at a United store:

…An  elderly farmer wearing tattered overalls and sporting a well worn John Deere ball cap walked into the store and came straight to me.

“I’ve come to town from my farm about an hour away, and I need my juice,” he said.  Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I could tell he had something specific in mind.  “What kind of juice do you like?” I asked.  “It comes in a bottle,”he replied.

Knowing how many juices we sell in bottles, I decided the easiest thing to do was walk with the man to the juice department so we could find it through the process of elimination.  However, before I could share my plan, the farmer said, “I had it special ordered several weeks ago for my wife.”

“Oh, I see,” I said.  “Do you know who you spoke with regarding the special order?”

The farmer through for a moment and then said, “No, I don’t have any idea.” I offered the farmer a seat and a cup of coffee and then proceeded to the office in hopes of identifying the team member who had taken his special order.  The first person I ran into was the point-of-sale-clerk.  “Do you know who might have taken a special order for juice for a farmer living outside of town?” I asked.  She thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, I remember.  Britain Brewer took that gentleman’s order.”

As you might expect, her answers provided the relief I was looking for. “Where Britain?” I asked.  “Britain is on vacation and can’t be reached,” she said.  My heart sank.  My relief was short lived.  I searched the back room for anything that looked as if it might be a special order for juice but had no luck.  By now, I was emotionally preparing myself to walk onto the sales floor and explain to the farmer that his one-hour commute to the store was going to result in no special-ordered juice.

As I gather my thoughts, one of our young sackers stopped me and asked, “Are you looking for some juice?”

“Yes I am! Do you know where it is?” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” the young man said, “Britain was leaving for vacation this morning, but he came by the store before he left and set the juice aside with a note taped to it.”

The sacker took me to the front of the store and small office used for storage; immediately, I spotted the juice with the label.

On the note was written: “This juice is a special order for Mrs. Atwood.  I expect her husband will pick it up while I am on vacation.  Britain Brewer, Assistant Manager.” The burden was lifted, thats to Britain’s conscientiousness–even in the face of a family eager to go on vacation.  I proudly presented the juice to Mr. Atwood and thank him for shopping United.  When I returned to the office, I made a note to myself regarding what had happened.  “Britain Brewer,” I wrote, “is a player, not a fan.”

This passage made me think about retail today.

We as an industry have a choice to make.  Do we want to become players in this new world of commerce where the customer controls the brand?  Or do we want to be fans of all of these new technologies but not embrace them in our industry?

Sanders made a statement regarding players and fans in organizations:

Players buy the mission; Fans undermine it

What is this new mission we all face?  Have Ms. Jones find our brand to be relevant and a cut above the rest.  If you don’t go all in you are just a fan in your marketplace and Ms. Jones will see it.

Are you ready to go all in?

She would try? Trying wasn’t good enough, I needed a promise. There were other places I could go, so I needed to know if my order would be ready by Friday at 5:00 pm for a basketball tournament, and not a minute later.

Yes, it was my fault for waiting too long. It was my fault for not calling ahead. I understood her dilemma and was sorry for her stress, but why did her problem become my problem just because I came to her to solve a problem? The real problem was, she would not say, “No.”

Do you ever tell Ms. Jones no? Is it a better service to say no than to say yes and fail? What can you do when you can’t do anything? Can you call your competitors to find what she wants? Can you rack your brain and search your racks to find an alternative? Or are you willing to sacrifice your staff and stretch your resources to “try” to leap through Ms. Jones hoops?

If that order is not done by Friday, my tourney team will kick butt in whatever I can find at Walmart, and it will be a long time before I let that store let me down again. I may not be right, but I promise I will remember if they were wrong.

The “Word of the Week” is written by Amy Lively of The Lively Merchant, R&A’s partner in providing these thought-provoking weekly witticisms.

Other times I hate “new.” New policies, new rules, new ways of doing things. Um, not so fun.

We’re in the middle of a whole lot of new around our office, and I’m struggling to keep up. It’s all good, don’t get me wrong, but “new” can be stressful, too. In fact, many of the Top 10 most stressful events in life all revolve around something new: being newly single, newly married or newly bereaved; starting a new job; having new children; moving to a new house. Toss in a new economy and a new generation coming of age, and you’ve got one stressed out country.

We’re coping with this newness in our office by acknowledging new feelings of stress and fear. Straight up, we tell our new people we’re developing new ground rules and we’ll make new mistakes. We’re tapping into new resources and connecting with new teachers. Kyle, the President at R&A Marketing, was kind enough to come to our office and demonstrate how they use new internet technology to stay connected. There’s a new idea for you: equipping your suppliers so they can do a better job!

What’s new around your place? How are you handling it? Does change make you want to take a long nap or does it keep you awake at night? Do you shoot new ideas down in flames or do you hear them out? Is your employee manual called, “The Way We’ve Always Done It”? Do you encourage people to make new mistakes to find new solutions?

If you couldn’t think of anything new you’ve attempted recently, you might want to take a new look at your organization. Ms. Jones couldn’t care less about your rulebook, but she does like to see a new look and play with new technology.

When trying to find a new way to light homes, Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Don’t give up on your 9,999^th try.

The “Word of the Week” is written by Amy Lively of The Lively Merchant, R&A’s partner in providing these thought-provoking weekly witticisms.

Situation: Most likely your plans before 2008 involved retirement. Due to the economy that year of retirement most likely changed.

Problem: You are doing way too much in your store right now. It was a fact of life. Jobs and dollars had to be cut to make the business work. As a business owner you took on the brunt of responsibility and ultimately you got tasked with more than you were used to.

How to Fix It:

Your goal of retirement should not change.  However, plans help keep organizations moving and growing.  Formulate where your business is going to be five years from now.  With this plan in place you will see a sense of urgency from your staff to achieve whatever goal you have put in place.

1. If you have family or employees in the business who are interested in ownership begin determining how you are going to transfer your business to them…or not.
2. When do you want to get out? Don’t worry about when you think you can get out. Pick a reasonable date and then execute a plan to achieve that date. It is hard to follow a map when you do not know which direction you need to head.

Situation: What worked last time does not cut it anymore.  Ms. Jones has found new ways to shop and find the product she needs.  Unless you can fit into the new way she can shop—she is not going to shop with you.

Problem: The marketing conversation you used to have…doesn’t apply anymore. Marketing is now a two way dialogue where Ms. Jones determines who and what you are about. She wants to hear and see what she has already experienced in the marketplace. She does not want you to tell her what she is going to experience—especially when your reputation precedes you.

How to fix it:
1. Build your web presence.  Do what operationally fits the identity of your store.  Don’t jump 100% out of your comfort zone.  Do new things that you find you enjoy and do well.
2. Go where you audience goes. The local newspaper may have a website that gets a lot of traffic but does your customer go there? If the answer is no then don’t get on there. It is an add on and cheap for a reason—it only helps the newspaper and not your store.

Situation: Ms Jones knows the stories you told.  She accepted the worldview that you created for her.  In an effort to create sales to keep the lights on you probably violated the stories that Ms. Jones had accepted.  Cuts in price on items and products that you were carrying violated the very fabric of the worldview your retail outlet embodied.

Problem: You cannot go back to the way it was before.  Ms. Jones will not accept it.  You have created a new worldview and Ms. Jones will not give in again.  And now, those new customers who came in as your story changed—they will not like that you are changing what they have expected you to be.

How to fix it:
1. Find your untold story. You need to the find the one thing that separates you from everyone else in your marketplace. You did not make it this far without having a secret sauce. Find it, embrace it and market it.  If need help let us help you Discover it.
2. Comb through your client database and find the people who are most likely to find this story intriguing. Don’t change based on your audience.  Change because that audience is craving it and it is something you have to offer.