The reason to walk your store!

As a store manager how often to you walk your store? Is this a lost practice? Do you know what your store looks like? Are there any areas that look bad and if they do, have you a plan to correct them?

Having managed stores that varied in size from 10 thousand square feet to 100 thousand square feet and from variety stores to big box discount stores and even a few home improvement stores. I can tell you the best way to be successful is to have personally walked those stores frequently. If your company doesn't have a system in place to do this, you need to create your own. Knowing what your store looks like is imperative to its success.

Do you have assistant managers do this? Do you make the fatal mistake of expecting them to be on top of the process, without your guidance. If you delegate this to them and not follow-up, how do they learn? We need to remember their title is assistant manager, they are learning from you. I am not telling you this because you need to stand over them or micro-manage them. You need to do this in a way that not only raises the level of appearance and operation, but it also improves their ability to recognize what it takes to run a successful store.

The very first big box discounter I worked for gave all managers a guide for doing store tours. When you visit these stores it is easy to tell which ones follow a system. Some managers followed the process when they felt like it, some made no attempt at all and it was very evident which ones had a plan that worked. I have always been a early riser and would generally get to the store well before opening and do a walk through when there was very few employees in the store.  Retail is not an easy job and it requires a lot of hours to be successful. Why not do the things that are rewarding. By rewarding, I mean the fruits of doing a tour of your store and taking action is increased sales and a better shopping experience for your customers.

Let me be real clear on what I am telling you.

1. It doesn't have to be a fancy system, but it has to be done consistently.
2. It needs to be used as a tool to keep the store looking great for the customer.
3. You need to use this as a training tool for your staff, not as a weapon to beat them down with.
4. It needs to cover all areas of the operation.

If this seems to difficult to get done, then you are approaching it the wrong way. Remember keep it simple enough to do, but effective enough that it is a benefit for the customers and the operation of your store.
While you do this you are training the assistant managers to become successful when they get their own stores. You ask why should I care if the assistants are successful? If they become successful in running their store well and the company thrives and we all keep our careers. Can it be any more important than that?