Your pay day

Too often in local small business retail we have seen retailers think their pay day is the day they sell their business. Those who run their business as if every day is they pay day sell for a better price, and they have made more money along the way.

Today, the best way to extract value from your businesses is to make every day your pay day, to not rely on your pay day being the day you sell the business.

Here is what make every day your pay day means: think about what you do today as providing you the only income on which you can rely. For each thing you do, ask: how will this make me money, make the business money?

Too often, we see people in retail doing things because they have always been done rather than because they earn income.

Focusing on profit today will give you a better result today and make your business more valuable tomorrow.

Here are some suggestions for making every day your pay day:

  1. Run with the leanest roster possible. Just about every retail business we review has capacity to lower labour costs.
  2. Automate what you can.
  3. Make sure that everyone working in the store is trained on what you sell.
  4. Make sure that everyone working in the store knows the goals of the business that day, that week. If you don't have specific goals, set them.
  5. Have your best people working on the floor, helping customers spend more. People buy on the floor, not at the counter.
  6. Have ever-changing displays that attract people from outside the shop.
  7. Have compelling displays in-store that encourage people to browse beyond their destination purchase.
  8. Always have impulse offers at high traffic locations.
  9. Set your counter for good margin impulse purchases. These are items shoppers easily understand and happily add to a basket.
  10. Charge more every time you can. Loyalty programs such as discount vouchers, bundling into hampers, multi buys such as 2 for 3 and other opportunities enable you to do this by blocking price comparison.
  11. Buy as best you can.
  12. Grab settlement discounts every time you are able.
  13. Promote outside your store using online and social media opportunities.
  14. Promote to attract new traffic through events in-store at least once a month.
  15. Leverage adjacency information. Chase a deeper basket – people purchasing more each visit.
  16. And what you work for today, keep an eye on the horizon for things you can do today to make the days on the horizon more profitable.

Be responsible for the profitability of your business. Don't blame your suppliers, your landlord, your employees or some other external factor ... it all comes down to you - the decisions you make and the actions you take.

If you relentlessly pursue profit with a clear focus you are likely to see profit grow. That's better than waiting to make money when you sell because that's less likely to happen in this market.