How can you still make the fourth quarter work for you? Let’s start by pulling out the goals that you wrote nine months ago. Are you on task for achieving the goals? Have you already met them? Or are you so far off you’re not sure how you’re going to meet them?
Wherever you are on that path, be honest with yourself. There are still post-pandemic differences in how people shop and what they expect. Don’t blame yourself and throw in the towel, but instead evaluate the situation. Ask yourself some questions.
What has been working? Is there a product or an event that has been so successful you wish you could do more of that? How can you replicate or extend the good stuff?
What has not been working? Are you done with it? Do you have to keep doing it? Have you done everything you could do and it’s still not working? What would be the worst thing to happen if you stopped selling it or holding that event?
How are you actually answering these questions? Do you have statistics and data to back up your answers? Or are you simply working on a whim or a hunch? In today’s business environment, we must search for answers in both ways.
Recently I had to decide if I could or should replace my longarm quilting machine I use for rental. I pulled the data. What is my income from rental? Working with those numbers, if I put all future dollars toward paying for it, how long would it take me to pay off the loan? I also compared the floor space the longarm machine takes to the wide-back fabric sales in the same time span. The revenue was fairly equal, but my profit on the longarm space is much better than on the fabric because I continuously have to purchase fabric to continue to sell more. Once I’ve purchased the longarm, I have very little expense associated with it. Another valuable data question I couldn’t calculate is the sales I get from my rental customers simply because they are in the store. I also did a gut check, and between the numbers and my gut, it was clear purchasing a new longarm was in my future.
Let’s finish the year strong!
Table of Contents
- Invite AI to Join the Team
- An Inclusive Mindset
- Turn Toward Perspective Customers
- How to Hire for a Great Fit
- Shop Thrives by Building Community
- Hot Picks
- Materials Matter
- It’s Not Too Late to Protect Your Brand
- The Survey Says…
- Designer 15
- Best Behaviors
- Trade Show Benefits
