Dear Retail Leaders, You're Too Good at Your Jobs
Maybe get comfortable failing
When this newsletter posts, I'll be in NYC. I'm speaking on a panel called "Faces of Retail," hosted by my friends at NewStore.
I was going through the notes today, and one of the questions was something like, “How can we get CFOs to listen to us and add resources to the stores?”
As I was jotting down notes, I thought, "Stop working so hard."
That was my initial reaction.
Maybe, let go of the unimportant stuff and be transparent: “This is too much for our team. We can't accommodate.”
I know, it sounds kind of wild. I don't expect you to do this (I wouldn't, either). But, hear me out. There's a lack of transparency between HQ and the stores.
Perfection won’t get you more payroll.
We prepare our stores for unrealistic executive visits. We make everything clean and shiny and add obscene amounts of payroll for the dog-and-pony show, but this actually hurts everyone.
The executives leave happy, but then they think they can give you more to do because you seem to be doing it all with a crappy payroll budget.
Stop making it all perfect.
I made sure my stores were clean and organized. I had a plan for everything, even if there were tasks left undone - there was a plan. Employees and customers came first, and then we handled the rest.
I’ve navigated executive visits with stacks of shipment teetering in the back room (organized). I’ve led the higher ups through shoe stock rooms. They were piled high with new stock that needed to be sorted.
See a trend here?
Keep it clean. Keep it organized. Have a plan. After that, be transparent about the workload and the staff levels.
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As store leaders, we’re trained to say YES to everything. We’re taught that if we say no, we could hurt our chances at a promotion. That may be true. But saying yes to everything means other tasks may suffer.
When you say yes, you’re saying no to something else. Our attention cannot be everywhere all at once, no matter how much we’d like that.
When tasks (or asks) are dumped on you, take a step back and consider your strategy. How will you get this all done? What will you do first? Can you delegate part (or all) of it? To whom? What have they got on their plate?
Once you have your plan, if there is something that is impossible, speak up. You can express your thoughts in a diplomatic manner.
“Hey boss, about project X. We’re working on project W right now and we won’t be finished until Friday. Can we start project X later? Are we approved to add payroll here?”
See?
Stop working so hard.
Start speaking up for yourself and your team in a mindful way. If all the store leaders in your district did this, your boss would see more clearly when the task load is too heavy.
We do ourselves a disservice by keeping quiet, suffering, and saying yes to everything.
Get comfortable with failing.
It’s not fun. I’ve failed a lot in my retail career. I once had a pop visit the day after Cinco de Mayo. It was a disaster. My store was next door to a very popular Mexican restaurant, and we were totally slammed on Cinco de Mayo.
It was me and two other associates. Our business was +30%. We recovered as best we could, and I opened the next day, so I knew what I was walking into. I was not expecting the visual team from corporate to show up.
They were mad. I got in trouble. But I got more payroll.
So, sometimes failing actually gets us what we need.
Be careful with this advice. Use it only when needed. Break the glass in case of a fire, so to speak. But think about what you’re working so hard on and where you can ask for support.
It may sound wild, but the retail industry cannot survive by working everyone into burnout. It won’t work. It isn’t working. Let’s change it.
Kit Campoy is an author and retail expert with two decades of experience leading retail teams. Today, she freelance writes for world-class SaaS Retail Tech companies.
Absolutely! Pretending to be perfect will lead to a perfect mess in the end for ALL concerned!