Alright, it is the day after Christmas and I am going to guess you had the returns program worked out in advance and you can take a minute to sit and read this. Be certain that your staff is working on your sales promotions the Company has given you for, after Christmas. Be relentless in assuring the maintenance of the store is being addressed by the team. You need to have the store ready for business as quickly as you can so the customers are able to navigate your store in the way they expect to under normal shopping.
What I am saying is, if you had your plans in place you should have started moving your store in mode for the next season. Did you have the plans ready in time for your staff to know what you wanted to accomplish? Are they standing around waiting for your direction? Remember I have been saying take your notes be ready for next year, but you need to have your after season plans ready as well.
Believe me when I tell you, if you took your notes well for last year you will not only have your plans down for the season, but you will also have the plans for what you want as you come out of the season too. It is called planning and organization, if you don't have it, you can't continue to grow your business. You can't grow yourself as a manager if you don't have a plan to work from. The failure of many managers is the inability to know where you are going. The management staff will have less experience than you and if you don't lead them, how can you expect them to learn.
It is small things like having staff meetings on a regular schedule, and store meetings to inform your team-members what your store goals are. These don't have to be long and boring or just fluff because the company says to do it. Staff meetings need to be short enough to give information, define goals and address any issues. You can then assign tasks and give direction for up coming programs. Meetings for the entire team should be informative but this is not the place to take on the individual issues of normal operations. If there is a problem with individuals this needs to be taken care of on a personal basis according to the companies standards. The last thing you want is to have your meeting turn in to a b---h session. Make them informative, let your team members know what you and the company expect and try to add a little fun. When I set up a contest between the managers and department heads against the rest of the team-members. We determined the losing team would have to do a hula dance for the next store meeting. Needless to say the losing team was the Managers and Department heads, they did a Rap-Hula and everyone loved it.
Take notes, know where you want to go, make sure the entire staff knows what you want to accomplish. Be sure you take the notes make the plans it is for your sake as well as the good of the store and company.
Take the NOTES! Please, it is for your sake. You will grow. You will succeed!
I hope I made that clear!
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