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We saw this wonderful flowchart for a maintenance project. A sure-fire guide to trouble-shooting a problem. Just three Yes or No questions.
First question: "Does it move?" That's easy. Answer Yes or No.
The next question is key (and spoken like a true professional): "Should it?" Again, answer either Yes or No.
That incisive analysis then leads us to the appropriate choice among three potential remedies:
Duct tape, to stop it from moving.
Or, WD-40, to get it moving.
What an elegant (and entertaining) summation of a workflow. There is much to admire, actually. Its clarity, and ease of use. Just answer "Yes" or "No."
Appealing, isn't it? (Sounds like a great AI solution.)
Of course, business owners must make decisions beyond operational maintenance issues. Here’s an elegant process for clarifying issues that are more strategic.
For instance, how might three ingredients - milk, flour, eggs - be combined to make breakfast?
A Venn diagram is the tool for the job.
Here’s the key: It doesn't try to tell you what to cook. Instead, it shows the outcomes of the different ways you could combine those ingredients. Then you decide.
Combine the flour...with the milk? Get batter.
Combine the egg...with the flour? Get pasta.
Combine the milk...with the egg? Get an omelette.
Combine all three? Pancakes!
For a business owner, the maintenance flowchart may be very useful for fixing things that are broken. But when Owners must make more strategic decisions, or choose what opportunities to seize going forward, the insights and perspective quickly provided by a Venn diagram can be far more useful.
Food for thought…
Let's assume your stores have been closed for weeks now.
We recognize how conscientious you are. So, after paying what you can to your employees (and yourself), the next most-worrisome dilemma is your rent.
As you likely have discovered, a common choice for many landlords is to offer to defer your payments. But that means taking on more debt, as those payments are only being postponed to a later point in time. You need a better solution than that.
The Retail Owners Institute® has developed a retail strategy for "Inventory Management Going Forward." As we often do, it was recapped as an unassuming chart (see above) identifying the Five Stages of Merchandise Mix Management, from "Before COVID-19" to the "New Normal?"
Each of us, our households, businesses and communities are in different stages of shutdown due to the coronavirus. While we cannot speak to when this will end, we do have some ideas for dealing with the "fog of uncertainty" that hangs over us all.
YOUR GOAL: QUICKLY GET TO A FIRST DRAFT. Face it. Sales are dropping. By how much? For how long? Nobody knows for sure. But, you can make some assumptions, some educated guesses. Put those into the 3-in-1 Cash Flow Calculator.
These totally volatile times cause a lot of opinions and fears to be swirling around. Seeing "what if...?" can be very helpful. All in just minutes. On your own.
Some thoughts from Nordstrom leadership that are spot on!
That's what Nordstrom President and Chief Brand Officer Pete Nordstrom told Puget Sound Business Journal columnist Patti Payne on April 23, 2020. And what he succinctly stated is exactly the challenge – and opportunity – that is confronting all retail owners. In order to answer whether you should re-open once you can, you first must be very confident in WHAT kind of retail operation you will be re-opening. The only certainty of the aftermath of the pandemic is that everything will be different. Given that, what better time to re-imagine your business?
Retailing is so great. Every retailer is an optimist, a people-person, and a bold risk taker. (We know; been there, done that.) Every retailer wants to get their stores re-opened, and their staff people re-employed. Granted, there are many arguments, pro and con, about "Re-Opening the Economy." And in a number of communities in the U.S. and elsewhere, some re-opening of stores and restaurants is occurring.
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