To Be Relevant, You Need To Be Around

Whether it’s investing in new POS Software to make your business run more efficiently with less effort or reducing your overhead so you are a survivor and not road kill, you have to do what it takes to be around and relevant. This is not an easy time for small business people, but you have probably seen it before and you will probably see it again. You might have been in business in the 1970’s when the oil crisis, savings and loan disaster and 22% interest caused a 45% decline in the stock market or the late nineties when the dot com crash cause a 30% fall off and after 9/11 when we saw a 25% drop in the market value. The business people that went through this and adapted to the events usually came out stronger when the economy made the rebound that it always does. I will repeat, to be relevant, you need to be around.

Quit brooding and start doing the basic things that will keep you relevant. Do a once over on your store design, maintenance, layout of merchandise and employee training. All merchandise that has been in your store for any length of time needs to be put on sale for whatever you can get and that money reinvested in quick turning, high margin items that are totally different from what the big box retailers carry. If you have tried to be something to everyone, stop!! Do a departmental income statement in your POS Software and carry and enhance the high margin, quick turning inventory. Do a vendor performance check in your retail stock ledger and say adios to those that are bad money makers. Remember your slogan for next year, "To be relevant, you need to be around."