By Francis Clark
VP Business Development
Profitect

Everyone that has spent a few years in Retail understands the cyclical nature of our business. Often, a successful company enjoys quarter after quarter of growth and profitable reports and it’s easy to fall into complacency that ‘it’s just going to continue to keep on going’. But it doesn’t! What are you going to do when the music stops?

If your company is doing ‘all the right things’ currently and business is flush it might be prudent to think about what YOU need to do to protect against a change in fortune? How can YOU and YOUR TEAM be better? Get more done with less? Be more effective for YOUR company? Make a more noticeable impact on YOUR company’s bottom line?

Don’t wait to be asked ‘what can YOU and YOUR TEAM contribute’ when the chips are down...do it now and demonstrate to YOUR executive team the value that comes from YOUR area of the business.

A company that I worked for had an ‘every 3 years’ reduction in staff of 20-25% REGARDLESS of how the business was doing. First time this happened I was offended as well as surprised because my thought was that we were exceeding demand. We made the reductions, as did everyone, but discovered that within 6 months we were not just back at our previous level of accomplishment and production....but exceeding it with less people!

It was then that I realized what our Chairman knew all along....we get comfortable thinking that we can just keep on rolling and we don’t challenge ourselves or our staff. I also learned that in another 2.5 years, I’d have to have another ‘haircut’ and rather than complain, I changed the way I managed my staff. I became a better observer of who was contributing and who wasn’t pulling their weight. My personnel reviews got better. We started a ‘staff ROI’ and published it every year. The next ‘haircut’ came and went and we just got better.

Retail is cyclical, be prepared rather than surprised.

Make the changes that YOU need to make before YOU’RE forced to make them.