What if you have to have “that” conversation? It is around performance.  The hard part is that it is about numbers.  Completely objective.  Not what they did or did not do with the customer.  Did they hit their number, their target?  And if this is three months in a row, this is a conversation that […]

I am in the habit of identifying three types of people on your team.  All are composites and generalizations with the intention to see a variance of both how they perform and how you need to interact with them.  There is “Skippy” who is a challenge because while he is engaged and ‘happy’, he does […]

What if he or she, meaning the team member, is smarter than you?  Really, yep…what if?  They do this and that.  They make really great decisions and you look at them and think (please don’t say out loud) “you are pretty amazing, please don’t leave.”  By the way, they will.  Retail is not the industry […]

OK, so what if someone checks out?  Here is what I mean.  In an article in the Globe and Mail on 8 June of this year, author L.M. Sixel espouses “Keep employees engaged or they may ‘retire’ on the job.”  This author presents or presented a case that has been discussed in some way or […]

Everyone has a bad day.  Sometimes it can be a very bad day. Recently Aurora, CO had a very, very bad day.  You don’t plan for those kinds of days.  As a parent and as a human being, I cannot not say this, even though it has nothing to do with retail store management, this […]

Sorry.  Did I make a mistake?  What if you make a mistake and write another blog about mistakes?  Or did I? Yep.  Probably.  Ask my wife.  Despite my short falls, I have a love and desire for the nature of managing and leading others.  When doing that, I make mistakes. At this moment, I am […]

Do over.  Right?  Or is it mulligan?  I was listening to music today and felt compelled to write this thought, this blog.  What if you make a mistake? While the easy question is have you ever made a mistake, the better question is what you did with the learning when you made it?  Ask my […]

What if they come in and don’t want to buy stuff? Excuse me why I giggle just a little bit. Don’t want to buy stuff? Why are they there exactly? So here is what you might say or think… They have a product question. They have a return or repair. They are looking or just […]

This is an important and often asked question by store managers.  It relates to the fact they have days off (imagine that) or are not in the store all the time.  How do they know the team is doing it?  This is in a way the quintessential question, What if I am gone, are they […]

“I cannot seem to find any good people.  What if I cannot find a good candidate?” I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this from small to large companies.  I have to wonder many things.  Where are you looking?  What has caused this need?  How complicated is your job? And just how […]