“You don’t know what you don’t know”

What you can learn from other small businesses

Ever hear someone say the title of this article in conversation? We will expand on the title by stating, “How can you know what questions you should ask when you do not know enough about the topic or situation being talked about?”

There are likely to be plenty of situations where this could apply to each of us in our lives. Starting with experiences in elementary or primary school and continuing and progressing into our current experiences. Perhaps one of the most frequently occurring circumstances would be when you are speaking with your physician about aches and pains or medical challenges you are facing.

Another could be in talking with an attorney when you create a will, trust, or other legal document as well as any situation which requires your having legal advice. How do you know what questions to ask?
And, since you are reading American Quilt Retailer and are likely the owner of a store, there is a similar situation that could occur with an accountant or tax preparer. While we would have plenty of these situations with our personal life, there are many more because our business requires the usage of these individuals.

As a fourth generation retailer, this writer’s experience is that situation of “not knowing what you don’t know” continues far beyond that of just wanting to know what you need of an accountant. Because of the many “hats” you wear as an owner, there are many other areas of business management that will present just as many, if not more, opportunities for the need of education to make your business be profitable and work efficiently.

The growth in the usage of the Internet seems to bring a proliferation of individuals and companies who are experts who offer their services at solving every challenge. Some will want to work to have you be aware of every opportunity your business has faced or could possibly encounter.

While not attempting to discount or toss all of them aside, the experiences of this writer is there may be a solution closer at hand that could be more relevant to your wants and needs.

As an example, after speaking at a trade show, a couple approached me and had a question to ask. During the presentation we discussed the numbers of hours people spend in their store and what that amount of hours would translate to in a per hour wage.

The couple said, “We were thinking about what you said and were doing some calculating. Our store is open seven days a week but we are only in the store Monday through Friday as we have a very good staff. When there is a trade show we often go to the city a few days in advance to be tourists and we stay a few days after the show to see more of the community and rest.”

“We were calculating what we pay ourselves and between our salaries and the dividends we take from the business, it is always more than $250,000 a year. We have a question. Are we normal?”

How would you answer their question? To me they are not “normal” retailers; they are extraordinary. As everyone in the room were retailers in the same trade, if this couple were advisory, wouldn’t you want to listen to what they do to make their business work?

Let’s take this situation as an example of what you could do with your business. Look around your community and surrounding area. Is there an individual who has a well-run pharmacy? They face a lot of challenges with chain and online pharmacies. Yet this local pharmacy is successful.

Look further and find someone with a well-run clothing store, hardware store, floor covering business, and other locally operated retailers. You could likely also find successful people with service businesses such as insurance agencies and auto service centers.

All of these are non-competing with you and with each other. However, they have found ways to be successful in the same community your business is in.

Perhaps this could be the best group of advisors you could find. And, you could be one of the best advisors they could find. This group can become a self-made advisory group for each other. With some discussion you will find that you have more similarities than you have differences in your businesses in addition to pulling your customer base from the same community.

As an example, most pharmacies have the pharmacist located in the back of the store. The hardware store, offering services such as key making and repairs also have their service center in the back. These are natural draws to bring customers to the back. The best of businesses have found that customers coming for services have a tendency to ignore the rest of the store until they have walked through all the merchandise and taken care of their service needs.

This poses a question to all businesses. Do you merchandise your store to be attractive from front to back as well as back to front? For the customer who has taken care of their service needs is now open to “seeing” the merchandise for sale. Does your business service sewing machines? Where is your service center located? And how is your store merchandised? Perhaps the pharmacist and the hardware retailer have just taught you a lesson in merchandising!

While not endless, there are a lot of ideas and experiences to be shared among all of you. Our recommendation is the creation of a local advisory group. We are suggesting a group that meets for breakfast. Be sure you pick a local restaurant as all of you are local independents and we should be doing all we can to keep our money spent with other local businesses.

At most you will want to meet in alternating months. After all, each of you are already busy operating your business and have plenty of work to do. With your active participation in this group, you are asking of the others and yourself for additional tasks to be taken on.
As you create this group, so as to not develop into a waste of time, there will be stipulations about attendance and participation that each of you should agree to.

Each of you should agree to attending a certain percentage of the meetings over the course of each year. The group will not achieve and maintain a high quality without the active participation of each member.

There should be a requirement regarding each of the members bringing ideas to the meetings. When people are “taking ideas” and not “giving ideas” there is little value in this person being a part of the group.

There is also the need for each member reporting their results from trying the ideas being shared. An individual who is saying that an idea will not work for them is an individual that is going to suck the energy out of the group.

With requirements such as these, expect there will be some turnover in the membership of the group as unfortunately there are those retailers who are quite content in being miserable. Encourage, and let these people go away.

With a successful group you may find the group can develop and grow in new ways. One example is adding a component of being a business book group.  There are many books that provide a lot of information that is relevant and useful in your business. There is a list of many books applicable to small business ownership, management, and sales on the profitsplus.org website.

As compared to watching the news or reading a newspaper, reading books and discussing the content with other business owners can be the best investment of your time.

Over time, as the group develops a higher level of trust with each other, you may find the group begins to share their concerns with each other that there may be solutions coming from other members of the group.

In addition to this local group, there is a second group you can benefit from helping create. While you will benefit greatly from a local group, you will also find a tremendous benefit from a group of retailers within the trade. This retailer was taught by his father that the difference in attending a trade show and making money or attending one that is just an experience comes from the attitude and effort put forth by the retailer.

There was an experience we would have before I would be sent to a trade show. My father would hand me a pen and tell me the pen was full of ink. When I returned from the trade show there was to be less ink in it. This would be because I would have written orders at the trade show.

“We do not make money from your looking. We make money from your buying correctly”, was his message. This writer knows of the president of a company in the upper Midwest who makes the effort to tell anyone who refers to his event as a “trade show” that it is not such an event.

“This is a buying market; not a trade show. No one makes money by looking”, are his comments.

Anticipating there are shows you attend on a consistent basis, begin by looking for another retailer that you have seen many times at the show. Introduce yourself and ask to take a coffee break to explain your idea. As you visit, find the similarities and differences in your stores. You will want this retailer to be someone you do not compete with.
This partnership begins before the trade show with each of you agreeing to review and share the promotional material you receive from companies displaying at the buying market. Also share the list of vendors you plan to see and the special market offers that have caught your attention.

Anticipating you will arrive the evening before the market opens, schedule a dinner to have time for a relaxing meal. This partnership works best when it is based on both business and a personal friendship.

As you each work the market, you should plan on sharing meals and coffee breaks with each other so you can talk about what each of you have seen and ordered between each of these breaks.

Also plan on having time for each of you to take the other to see particular vendors and make introductions to new possible product lines. Depending on how strong the partnership becomes, you may want to share dinner together for a review of your individual and joint efforts during the day.

You may find there are product lines you want to add to your offering but cannot because the minimum initial, and/or reorders, are larger than your store can handle on its own. This partnership could be the occasion where the two of you alternate placing and receiving the order and splitting it between the two stores.

Many will find they want the evening hours to themselves as some like to visit the city the market is in while others will want some time to rest or review the material and write orders while in their hotel room.
Between markets, as the merchandise arrives in your store, you can also share photographs of how the merchandise is displayed along with your comments of how well the merchandise is selling in your store.

The process is repeated before the next market. You may even find your new business advisory partner attends an additional market they find to be of value to their store that you are not attending. The partnership becomes as strong and important as two owners want and need it to be.

You may not know what you don’t know, but with the help of these individuals we have suggested, the answers to these known and unknown questions may rest with these individuals who can become the best advisors and coaches you can find for your business.

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