Recently, I read an article in CNNMoney about Maxine Clark – the founder of Build-a-Bear. After a successful career at Payless Maxine
went out on her own and created a widly successful retail concept, Build-a-Bear. Check out the article here if you have a chance but I loved the advice she gave at the
end of the article – Enjoy!
Maxine Clark’s advice on running a retail store:
Take your
employees seriously. Every six weeks we do Chief Chat at headquarters. Employees
can ask any questions they want. We get good feedback and understand what
matters to our associates. We also do remote conferences with people in the
stores by Skype, and I go to the stores all the time.
Write the biggest business plan you can. You can always cut it
back. The first purpose of the business plan is to convince yourself that it's
an idea you really want to do. If you're not convinced, you'll never be able to
convince anyone else.
Understand the value of partnerships. In the beginning, our
vendors were willing to make a couple hundred pieces of everything. Normally
they wouldn't do such a small amount. But then they benefited from our success.
Always ask, What can we do together to get more than our money's worth?
Happy Monday!
Kate
No comments:
Post a Comment