00:00.00
retailjosh
Welcome back to today's episode of retail initiative I'm excited because I want to share a little bit of a personal story that happened a few years ago and a mindset shift that I made that really has helped me in growing my business and so we're going to queue the intro and then hop right into it. The rules of retail. Change it 1 by 1 corporate retailers were closing their doors and some call it the data of retail.
00:40.72
retailjosh
All right? So a few years ago um I was starting to work with a business coach and I remember I had like meeting after meeting and they gave me really good advice and things that I should have been listening to but it was in a group context and so a lot of the The advice wasn't just to me. It was to other people and I remember thinking this? yeah like he has a good point but it doesn't really apply to me because my business is doing x y and z and these these people are doing a b and c have you ever felt like that where. Ah, you're hearing something that's pretty good but you're like man but my business is too unique for that I'm not a normal retail business. You know we have a service or we do embroidery. We do this other thing. It's just so different or I have a brick and mortar. So all this e-commerce stuff that people are saying I can't listen to. Because things are different have you ever I don't know if you felt like that way. Um, it's something that I have to think about a lot and here would is something that I want to encourage you towards is thinking about how much good advice. Do we pass up how much good advice. Do we pass up. In the name of saying that our business is unique and so think about it like if I talk about why experience is the most important thing to your ecommerce store that the experience that you offer your customers is important. Um, but we jump to. Starting to think about our in-store experience and we adopt this false belief of well my my experience in my store is so unique. There's no way that could ever be conveyed online. There's just no way and so we shut it down and what we end up doing is we close off really what could have been an amazing sales channel. Close off what could be a really unique way to serve our customer because we've adopted this idea that it couldn't work and so how do we determine when that is or isn't the case. Well first I think that we need to really step back and say is the thing that we are saying makes us unique. Is it a part of our brand identity which is good when that's the case we're we're focusing on what makes us unique and that is the and part of it being like your unique selling proposition. What do you do better than anyone else. You know my company helps brick and mortar retailers gain traction online. And so look if I'm going to be picky about anything. It's going to be how do I communicate that in an effective way so people hear it and they know it and believe it no matter where they read about me but there are other times where we might be obsessed and in a thing that's just an unnecessary complication where we're complicating things in our brand.
03:27.61
retailjosh
We don't necessarily need to and we do it. Um I think we I'm a complicator you can ask my team whenever we're launching like a webinar or whatever is I have to think through all the possible things that someone could go through instead of thinking. Okay well what are 90% going to go through and how can we. Really make that experience as good as it could possibly be so let's just assume let's give it the benefit of the doubt that what we are really obsessing over in that piece is the right stuff. Well, that's good next we want to start to say okay, this piece of advice this business coaching or book or whatever um instead of jumping to hey my business is unique. This doesn't apply is we can first say. Okay, what question is it answering what question is this answering and do I have a similar question in my own business that this might apply to. So if we're talking about how do we increase traffic to our site. Well you might be doing things on Facebook and if the advice is on Instagram and what we're hearing is with Instagram is there still something that we might be able to learn from that advice from it I'd be willing to bet that that's true The second thing is we could look at the not only our common question but is there even good nuggets that we can take from the advice and I think this is something that should be the case of any podcast. Any business book is we want to start with the what could what can serve me. What can really help my business grow. What can help me move the needle and getting closer to my goals rather than what won't work I think when we take that mindset of what's not going to work and then trying to take the rest of it is if we really think about it. Everything can not work. Everything there's nothing in business that is worth doing that. There's not a reason not to do and so if we can start with a mindset of what if it could work what if it could work when when we have this kind of perspective we hear this idea and we think about. Hey, let's build out an incredible online experience that serves our customers just like we do in our store instead of saying well that doesn't work my process everything about my store is so unique we say but what if it could what if it could well imagine what it could be like if someone visited your website and felt. Just like they do in their store. What if it could and so that's a great place to start and then we can start asking questions like well what do people feel when they walk in my store and what makes them feel that way. Maybe it's the way they're greeted. Maybe it's where their eye goes. Maybe it's a smell. Well we can start to say what imagery or what copy or what function.
06:20.29
retailjosh
Might Elicit a similar feeling on our website. So I hope that this is helpful for you and serves you I think that it's a powerful question to say what if it could work and when things are really unique about our business to say one is it as unique as we think it is and 2 is there a common question or a common answer that I could pull out that's going to help me really understand how it could serve my business so I'm grateful for you listening to this episode if you are enjoying it please rate it leave a review. All that stuff is beyond helpful and helping other people. Ah, discover this and so we're grateful that you're here and I will see you next week
