Books: Retail Superstars

Retail Superstars, Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America, by George Whalin is a marvelous little book on what’s right with retailing today. In the book each of the 25 independent stores are highlighted in their own chapter.

The book tells who started the store. who runs the store now, and what makes the store so unique. And at the end of each chapter it gives you the address, phone number and web site for the store. as well as a web site for the book where you can take a closer look at the stores.

The businesses are varied and diverse. The 25 stores covered are:

Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield, Ohio. a Grocery Store.

Gump’s in San Francisco . Selling distinctive merchandise to the elite.

Archie McPhee in Seattle Washington. selling novelty and joke items.

Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon a new and used book store.

Abt Electronics in Glenview Illinois. A consumer electronics and appliance store

Zabar’s in New York, New York. A gourmet food emporium.

Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland, in Frankenmuth, Michigan. a year round Christmas store.

Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Like dude! It’s a surf shop.

A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, North carolina, a food emporium

ABC Carpet & Home in New York, New York. Selling home furnishings.

In Celebration of Golf in Scottsdale, Arizona. A Golf shop like no other

Gallery Furniture in Houston, Texas. A furniture store.

Wilkes Bashford. San Francisco, California. High quality designer apparel.

Nell Hill’s in Atchison, Kansas. Selling quality home furnishings.

Louis Boston in Boston, Massachussets. Seller of high quality apparel.

Estes Ark in Estes Park, Colorado. A stuffed animal toy store.

Junkman’s Daughter in Atlanta, Georgia. A beyond quirky variety store?

Junkman’s Daughter’s Brother in Athens, Georgia. Similar to Junkman’s daughter but geared more to college kids.

Smoky Mountain Knife Works in Sevierville, Tennessee. A huge knife store

Bering’s in Houston, Texas. A hardware and home center.

Wanna Buy AWatch? in Los Angeles, California. A collectible watch store.

Rowena’s in Norfolk, Virginia. gourmet treats made ” by hand with tender loving care.”

The Silver Queen in Largo, Florida. Specializing in silver flatware, fine china, and crystal, as well as other silver merchandise and gifts.

Toy House & Baby Too in Jackson, Michigan. a really big toy store.

Hartville Hardware in Hartville, Ohio. a hardware store.

As different as these stores are from each other, they all are thriving in difficult times. Their stories have many valuable lessons for anybody who wants to go into business for themselves, whether they are planning on going into retailing or not.

Job Situation

I had a job interview with a company called Half Priced Books. This is the job that I hope I get. A friend who works there suggested that I apply. I put in an application and met the manager. I also talked with several of the employees and customers. I learned that the employees liked their jobs, and the customers liked the employees. When I interviewed I learned that the company treats its employees really well, and that the manager and assistant manager were brought up from the ranks, not brought in from outside the company. The thing that makes the difference in my opinion is that this company is owned and run by the men who started it, and they treat their people the way that they wanted to be treated when they were the employee.

I still plan on building my own businesses and investments and to grow my own wealth. Part of the reason I want to work for Half Priced books is so that I can learn from them how to treat my employees and customers when I am in the position to grow my business in such a manner. There’s a couple that works at the store I applied to that have engineering degrees. They are paid a lot less, I’m sure, than they could be making as engineers, but they enjoy working at the book store. That alone speaks volumes about the company.

I really would work for someone else for only one reason these days, and that’s to learn something new.

Life is What Happens When You Make Plans

When I first started this blog my goal was to write a new post every day. That didn’t happen. Then I thought, ‘Well, how ‘bought once a week?’ That didn’t happen either. So now I’m just going to do an entry every chance I get. Which is what I’ve been doing from the start.

Workin’ for the Man, or J.O.B.

Sorry I haven’t posted for a few weeks! I have been temporarily  back working at the arts center that laid me off because one of my old coworkers went in for some surgery. It was nothing life threatening, but it could have been life altering if she didn’t get it done. They needed me to supervise the volunteers who now do my old job.

I’m really quite glad that this happened because it taught me I really don’t like working for someone else, and I hate having a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke.) I’ve learned that when I work for myself I can get up at 4:30 in the morning, and be wide awake, alert, and  ready and excited to start the day! Which usually happens. I find that when I work for myself I forget to stop and eat, or to take breaks. (I’ve taken to setting a kitchen timer as a reminder to eat and take breaks.) I also find that I’m more tolerant of people.

Just the opposite happens when I’m working for someone else. I had to be there by 9:30 to set up so we could open by ten. But instead of jumping out of bed eager to get going, I’d roll out of bed at 8:30, after hitting the snooze on my alarm clock several times. I never set the alarm clock when I work for myself. I don’t need to. I could hardly wait for my 15 minute breaks. and for lunch to roll around. and I realized that when working for myself, I set the standard of how customers are treated. but at work, I’m taking my cue as to how I treat the customers and others, by how my superiors treat me, my coworkers and the customers. Which, unfortunately, isn’t very good.

I learned some very important lessons for dealing with my business, too. When an employee tells you that something about his job doesn’t work, listen, and make the changes being suggested when, and as soon as possible. However, make sure that your employee is completely trained, and knows what he or she is doing. For instance, I tried to explain, for four years, that the ticketing system for the theaters didn’t work for the museum space, and that there were several museum systems advertised all the time in the trade publications that were designed to do what we needed them to do. However, once the front end staff was laid off and they had to get volunteers to do it, they realized the system sucked and got another system, mind you not one designed for museum spaces, but another old system that was lying around, out dated, and just as unusable as the first. The volunteers are complaining about this “new”system, and they still can’t figure out why things aren’t working. If they would have listened to the original staff, and now to the volunteers the front end service to the museum would be working better. I realize that there are stupid crazy things in all jobs, but you’d think that fixing the problems right the first time would save the business thousands of dollars and make it more profitable by making things run more smoothly. That’s been my experience so far with my own business and something I don’t want to forget if and when I grow out of being a one man show.

I also realized that when you listen to your customers, you can gleam all sorts of information and ideas to grow your business. When a customer says, “I just loved such and so, I could just imagine blah, blah, blah…” The ‘I could just imagine’ was the warning that they were going to give you an idea to improve your business, whether they knew it or not. The ‘blah, blah, blah…’ part was the part you should have been listening to, the little acorn that could grow your business into a mighty oak! sometimes the ‘blah. blah, blahs…’ are a, “high holy crap! I should have done that!” Kind of thing. Other times it’s a glimmer of an idea, something you have to think about and play with to get something out of it. But there’s always something, even if it’s little. A whole bunch of little improvements, can make a bigger difference than a really big improvement, over the long haul.

A dissatisfied customer can help you, too, if they have a legitimate complaint. At the museum, we here all the time from customers how our signs are hard to read and understand. this is a legitimate complaint. The signs don’t have enough contrast in color, and most of them are vertical, and read from bottom to top, instead of reading from top to bottom, or being horizontal and reading left to right. I’ve heard a thousand time that the reason the vertical signs read from bottom up, is that in some cultures it’s a bad thing, it’s a symbol of going to hell. However, if almost every customer asks where something is, then says there should be a sign, then after you point out the sign says, “Why is it upside down? shouldn’t it read from the top?” you have a problem. One that needs to be fixed. Your customer doesn’t care if  something is a taboo somewhere else, your signage is not doing the job it needs to do here, and is therefore, a waste of money, time, and effort; and is going to cost a crap-load of money to fix!

Now there are people who like to complain just to complain. Like the woman who after touring our galleries this week, complained that we didn’t have anything but contemporary art in our museum, and wanted her money back. Our museum has “contemporary art” in it’s name. The museum’s tag line talks about bringing you the best in “contemporary art”. Our goal is to bring you the best in “contemporary art” and to showcase up and coming “contemporary” artists. I apologized, and asked her what we could have done to help her understand we were a contemporary arts facility. She had no suggestions, and nothing else to say. And she left without her refund because I showed her the one clearly printed sign in the place that she was standing in front of “No Refunds.”  I did much better dealing with this woman than I would have six months ago. Mostly because I’ve learned much more than I realized by owning my own business.

I went back this few weeks because of my immediate supervisor and the people that I used to work with that are still there. We are friends, and I hope it stays that way. But these last couple of weeks served as a reminder as to why I’m willing to give up the “security”of a job for the FREEDOM of being my own boss. A trade that is well worth it.

Gett Off Your Buts

Many times our biggest problem with getting ahead in life is our buts. “I would start a business, but… ” ” I would love to have a happy home life, but…” ” I would like to lose this extra weight and be healthy, but … ” “I would love to tithe more to my church and help my charities more, but… ” ” I want my kids to go to the best schools, but…”

Our buts are nothing more than excuses for our laziness. And sometimes our laziness is nothing but a cover for our fears. Buts are what keep us from doing what we know we should.  So the next time you hear yourself say”But” stop and figure out what you really mean by that little word. If you say,”I would really like to start a business, but I don’t know where to begin.” Do you trully not know how to start developing a business idea? Or do you really mean, “Starting a business is risky, and a lot of hard work, and I could loose my shirt,  and my wife might get mad at me and leave me, and then I’d have to go crawling back to my old boss and tell him I was only joking when I told him to kiss my a** and that I’d really like my job back, please, but if he didn’t give it to me I’d be on the street and living in a card board box and begging for money outside the MCDonald’s, la, la, la, la, la!”

If you really mean, “I don’t know where to begin.” Search online, “How to start a business.”, or go to your local chamber of commerce. find a S.C.O.R.E. office in your area. (Service Core Of Retired Executives.) Find your local SBA office. (Small Business Administration.) Go to the library or book store and get Starting a Business For Dummies.  Just don’t let your but stop you any more if you really truly want something.

Book: Increase Your financial IQ

Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ, Get smarter with your money, is the thirteenth book in the Rich Dad franchise written by Robert Kiyosaki. The books forward is by Donald J. Trump, then there’s the author’s note, and finally, the introduction- Does Money Make You Rich?  I suggest that you read all three of these before reading the 10 chapters that make up the body of the book. the Forward, Author’s Note, and  Introduction give you some basic insight  to Mr. Kiyosaki and his way of thinking about money. They also have nuggets of information that come in handy while reading the rest of the book.

Chapter 1. What Is Financial intelligence ? In this chapter he talks about how the rich and the poor both have money problems. for the poor it’s not enough money, using credit when you are short of money, the rising cost of living, the more you make- the more you pay in taxes, fear of emergencies, bad financial advice, and not enough money for retirement. For the rich it’s having too much money, needing to keep your money safe and invested, not knowing if people like you- or your money, needing smarter financial advisors, raising spoiled kids, estate and inheritance planning, and excessive government taxes.  Now the question is, as Mr. Kiyosaki put it, is “Which money problems do you want?”

He talks about solving money problems and how solving money problems makes you smarter. How the rules of money have changed, and how the rich and the poor each handle these problems.

Chapter 2 is a brief overview of the five financial IQs presented in the book. They are: #1: Making more money. #2: Protecting your money. #3: Budgeting your money. #4 Leveraging your money. #5: Improving your financial information. Mr. Kiyosaki talks about how they interrelate and build upon one another, and how each is just as important as the others.

In chapters 3 through 7 he talks about each financial IQ individually.

Chapter 8 is titled, The Integrity of Money, in this chapter he talks about three definitions for integrity, they are: 1. Soundness: An unimpaired condition. 2. Incorruptibility: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. 3. Completeness: The quality or state of being complete or undivided. And how all three are needed to discuss money and integrity.

Chapter 9, is about Developing Your Financial Genius. In this chapter he talks about left and right brained thinking and the subconscious brain and using all three. Mr. Kiyosaki also talks about finding your genius and learning what your intelligences are.

Chapter 10 is titled, Developing Your Financial IQ, Some Practical Applications. In this chapter he does just that.

Robert Kiyosaki does reference some of his other books such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant, but he describes what he’s talking about from these books that you’ll get the point without having read them. ( Although they are good, too.)

This is a great book to get and read. It explains so much and is a quick 197 pages.  I feel that if I get one good bit of information out of a book then it was worth the read. I got information page after page with this one. (Now I just need to put that information to work.)

Sorry

I can’t believe that I missed a whole week of posting on this blog! I wanted to do every day but that hasn’t happened yet so I’ll just do my best.

I hope hope that every one had a great Independence Day here in America this July 4th.

Compound Interest and the Rule of 72

Compound interest, how does it work? Even Albert Einstein confessed that he did not completely understand the mathematical mystery that is compound interest. It does work though, and there is a simple formula to figure out your results.

To figure out how long it will take you to double your money at any percentage rate simply divide 72 by the interest rate you are earning. So, for instance, say you have $1,000 in an online savings account earning you 3 percent compound interest. to find out how many years it will take for that $1,000 to become $2,000 divide the 3 into 72. Three goes into 72 twenty-four times so it will take you 24 years to double your money. At 5 percent, it will take you 14.2 years to double your money. At 10 percent it will take 7.2 years.

Basic Skills for Building Wealth

Part 1 in a series.

I am learning that there are some basic skills for building wealth, and just like anything else worth doing, the better you get at these skills the better you’ll be at building wealth. Wealthy people use these skills and improve these skills every chance they get.

The first skill that wealthy people are good at is controlling their money. They know how they got their money, they know where their money is going, and they know what their money is doing. They understand that savings has two definitions; Saving by setting aside a sum of money from every revenue stream. (Pay yourself first; the ten percent rule.) And saving by getting the best quality for the best price. Someone once asked J.P. Getty the secret to his   wealth and he responded, “I buy my summer hats in the winter.”  In other words, he was always on the lookout for a bargain.

The second skill that wealthy people seem to have in common is that they know how to make money. Most wealthy people don’t work jobs, they create them. They look for new opportunities and act upon them. their idea of making money and our idea of making money is vastly different. The wealthy don’t see working a job for ten dollars an hour as a way to make money. However, paying someone to do a ten dollar an hour job so that they can make fifty is a great way to make money.

Wealthy people understand the value of setting goals and priorities, and planning. Wealthy people understand that having something to aim for is far more effective, so they set goals. They set short term goals; daily, weekly. and monthly. Mid-range goals; six months, yearly, and two years. And long-range goals; five to ten years and beyond. Many a guru say, “Start with the end in mind.” Meaning start with your long-range goals first, and work your way down to your short range goals. This way you know where you need to be at each step of the way.

Now the wealthy prioritize what needs to be done to reach those goals at each step of the way. They figure out what needs to get done, in what order, and what the steps within each priority need to be taken, and in what order. Then they plan when to do each step. the plan is the flexible part. Things don’t always the way we want them to, sometimes you have to take a detour, and sometimes an opportunity arises to jump the goal forward. This is where you go with the flow.

What I’ve Learned From This Blog

I havnt been at this blog for very long but I’ve learned a lot. So here are ten things I’ve learned:

1. Writing a blog on a specific subject is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
2. It takes more time than I thought it would take to write a blog.
3. I’m not as well organized as I thought I was.
4. Posting every single day is not as easy as it sounds.
5. Research takes a ton of time.
6. People actually take the time to spam the comments section with stupid ads.
7. The more I learn about blogging the more I learn I don’t know.
8. I thought I’d review a book a week, now I’ve decvcided it will be more like a book a month… or every two months.
9. Bloggers are cool people, and very supportive of new newbees.
10. Blogging is addictive! Very!