From the Editor: Smooth Operator

Smooth Operator

Great stores follow the same advice they give to customers: RTFM.

Think moving a store is hectic? Try moving a magazine.

Mobile Electronics was sold by a traditional publishing company—and by traditional, I mean they produce more than 25 magazines and 10 trade shows as their legacy business—to what was then called the Mobile Electronics Retailers Association, or MERA. Since then, the organization has lost some weight and dropped the ‘R,’ though you still hear diehards using the four-letter acronym from time to time.

But because MEA isn’t a traditional publishing company, it contracted with a small publisher (and by small, I mean ONE magazine and ONE trade show) to put the magazine together.

Aaaannnnndddd, that’s when the trouble started.

When you’re a “one” operation—one product, one person, one service—you can create processes and come up with solutions to problems that are specific to your one thing. But double that one thing, and those processes don’t work for two, or three, or four. Car stereos and school buses? Not a whole lot in common.

The publisher had no clue about the intricacies of car audio, security and safety, and had to accommodate a different staff (namely myself and a few other industry gearheads) and our out-of-the-box personalities. Suddenly, tried-and-true processes that were the bedrock of their smooth-running operation were no longer applicable.

Needless to say, the small, efficient publishing company went through a yearlong, painful growth period. The company had to create broader processes. A scheduling book became a scheduling platform. Whiteboard notes migrated to a cloud-based app. Monthly meetings became weekly planning sessions. And after a year, the publishing company was a different business, with defined procedures that allowed the company to take care of two industries, and even scale to cover more.

How was your experience adding a location, moving from one employee to two or more, or going from one trusted product line to multiple lines?

Many small businesses in our industry do what’s called organic adjustment, which means changing processes or policies on the fly as issues come up. And in talking with a lot of retailers over the years, that’s where they are today. However, this is not true process development. It’s just a bigger, augmented version of the “one” operation.

If this defines you, I don’t blame you at all. It’s definitely defined me at several points in my career. It’s because we’re creatives, and by nature, creatives are inefficient. We want to paint oneoff Picassos rather than mass-produce Picasso prints. Business models inherently go against a creative nature, so it takes effort to create a repeatable, scalable system around our creativity.

Every business scales in some way. But how you manage the process determines how well you can take advantage of opportunities. Having a predictable business model carries three major benefits:

1. People involved in the business have a roadmap, know what’s expected of them and feel more secure in a defined work environment.

2. It’s a lot easier for a manager or owner to evaluate and adjust the performance of a person, product or service.

3. Onboarding of new people, products and services doesn’t upset your store operation.

So let’s look at the three steps needed to put our process together.

1. Determine. Take a deep dive into each aspect of your business: staffing training, inventory, security, service, appearance, etc. For each of these, start from the end. Define your desired result first, i.e. you want to create a uniform staff look and feel for your customers, or inventory should be on the shelves sorted by brand. Then think about the steps needed to get you there. These steps should accommodate every product, person or service in your business. If they don’t, make them broader until they do.

2. Document. Once you’ve outlined objectives and related steps for different parts of your business, save them. Create a manual in a format that can be viewed from any electronic device. Your “manual” can be as simple as a collection of PDFs in a Dropbox folder, or a managed online solution like Process Street. The point is that it can easily be referred to from anywhere and distributed to new staffers or affiliates.

3. Deliver. Start your own, possibly painful process. Make it a requirement that every person understands and follows the new guidelines. During your transition, attach incentives (and reprimands) to adherence. When questions come up about policies, refer staffers to the manuals. And keep in mind that it’s a dynamic document: If it makes sense to add new procedures or policies to cover unforeseen circumstances, do so, and communicate the additions to the people involved.

And most important, lead by example. Sometimes the toughest change involves those who grew the business from its roots, and staff will only buy in if the owner buys in. Be a stickler until you’ve created the business model and store culture that works for you.