Consulting Services for the Independent Retailer

Business Seminars

1. 2010 & Beyond - The Strategic Guide

2. Developing a High Performance Sales Force

3. How to Succeed in Business

4. Identifying Operational Opportunities Through Your Financials

5. Inventory Allowance and Open to Buy Systems

6. Exceeding Customer Expectations

7. Succession Planning for the Independent Retailer - Family-Owned Business

8. The Management Challenge:  Delegate Unto Others Before They Delegate Unto You

9. Identifying and Eliminating Costly Delivery Mistakes 

10. Engineering Positive Merchandising Outcomes

11. The Mystery of the Budgeting Process

12. The Secrets of Recruiting the Best Sales Professionals

JRM's staff of retail industry experts average 30+ years of hands-on experience.  Contact us for additional information on any of the following seminars and speaker availability. info@jrmsales-mgmt.com

2010 & Beyond - The Strategic Guide

How to Survive & Thrive

Having consulted with hundreds of furniture retailers over the years, Joe Milevsky has seen companies struggle during the best of times and others excel during the toughest of times.  2010 and beyond offers many challenges but even more exceptional opportunities.  During this seminar you will gain a clearer understanding of the things that you cannot control and how to minimize your focus on those things.  You will also learn how to strategically approach the things you can control.

The various challenges for 2010 & beyond may include:

• Dealing with fluctuations in traffic - Sales perspective

• Dealing with fluctuations in traffic - Marketing perspective

• Maximizing merchandising efforts with less available inventory dollars

• Utilizing financial tools to ensure that your company stays safe and productive

• Building a great place to work and a highly organized efficient environment

• Understanding the six areas of your business that must be consistent with each other

During this seminar you will gain a better understanding of how to proactively embrace change and excel in your future business efforts.  Not only will you be shown methods for surviving tough times but also the things will allow you to flourish and achieve your goals. 

Developing a High Performance Sales Force

Learn how to develop a high performance sales team:

• Find, interview and hire top salespeople

• Properly set sales goals

• Use appropriate measurements to understand variances in individual sales performance

• Use measurements to coach improved salesperson performance

• Develop the customer experience that best fits your company’s culture

• Hold salespeople accountable for performance

• Create a positive and fun selling environment

• Keys to developing and keeping top performers

During this seminar you will learn how to dramatically improve your company’s sales performance by capitalizing on your company’s current assets,  without wasting more money on additional advertising, etc.

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How to Succeed in Business

Many of us eternally try to reinvent the wheel.  The results are often less then satisfying and lead to frustration and under-achievement. 

• Discover qualities that successful businesses have that less successful businesses lack

• Gain insight on how to develop and achieve your personal plan for success

• Develop improved skills for running your business through your employees

• Begin to develop the skills to maximize employee effectiveness and satisfaction

Gain dramatic insight on how to keep your quality of life in balance with the responsibilities of running your business.

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Identifying Operational Opportunities Through Your Financials

Company initiatives should be developed based on the company’s financial performance in all operational, sales and merchandise areas.   How do you really direct your activities to insure you are affecting the company outcomes?  This seminar will help you understand your options as you look at tough areas of your business. 

• What should I look and do at when I miss sales forecasts?

• What can I do when margins drop?

• How do I know if my advertising is effective and what components should I measure?

• Does the backend of my business perform as well as it should and how do I know?

• How should I evaluate my merchandise strategy and is it right?

• My expenses keep going up.  What expenses should I cut and how should I do it?

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Inventory Allowance and Open-to-Buy Systems

This seminar will explore the various methods for understanding how an Open-to-Buy System works and how inventory allowance is determined. 

• During this seminar you will learn how to quickly evaluate your financial statement and how it can be an early warning signal to your buying habits and potential cash flow issues. 

• Gain an in-depth understanding of turn rate not as an outcome but as a planning tool to help you determine the inventory level for your company. 

• Gain tips on how to determine how many weeks of supply you currently have on hand and what you truly need to achieve your company’s goals.

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EXCEEDING CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

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Succession Planning for the Independent Retailer - Family-Owned Business

Less than one third of all family businesses survive transitioning to the second generation and only one half survives the transition from the second to third generation.  Although it is difficult to face and procrastinated by most, succession planning is a critical process.  It is not simply critical for the business unit, but perhaps more importantly critical for the family unit.  Poor succession planning processes tear families apart!

What are the options?

• Transition to the next generation and keep the family business alive.

• Keep the family business alive but run it through outside management.

• Sell the business to employees through an Employee Stock Option Program (ESOP), etc.

• Sell the business outright.

• Do a Going out of Business Sale.

There are several reasons why family businesses do not survive the transition to the next generation.  These reasons include

• A poor business model – the company is not set up properly for long-term success

• Poor business performance – the company will not financially survive the transition

• The reason for owners’ reluctance to let go and procrastination to deal with succession issues include the following:

  • Facing the loss of power, prestige, influence, etc.

  • Potential reduced income

  • Retirement

  • Ultimately to face up to the prospect of death

• Unattractiveness of the business to the up and coming generation – the up and coming generation observe the stress that mom and pa have been under and believe that there must be something better for them

• Little or poor planning processes – even where above bullet points are non issues, most transitions still fail due to poor business and family planning

During this seminar we will focus on the critical issues that surround the transition to future generations.  We will share with you comprehensive strategies for the selection process of both asset distribution and company leadership, how to proactively deal with family situations resulting from non-selection, how to develop an environment that will encourage future generations’ interest in the business, how to understand when to let go, and basic estate planning concepts.

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The Management Challenge:  Delegate Unto Others Before They Delegate Unto You

The Choice is Yours. The stress of growing a successful business can only be mitigated through managing your people.  Small businesses can only grow by delegating responsibilities the way successful larger businesses delegate.  We hire employees simply because we do not have enough time to do everything ourselves and simultaneously grow our business.

JRM Sales and Management has worked with hundreds of retailers of all shapes and sizes.  It is clear as to why some companies do not achieve the level of success to which they aspire while other companies are able to excel.  

During this seminar we will show you how to excel while discussing: 

• How to get everybody in the company on the same page.

• Developing and respecting lines of communication.

• The importance of having appropriate job descriptions.

• How to communicate employee performance and coach improvement.

• Better understanding of multi-directional accountability.

• The importance of resolving conflict.

• How to improve your teams’ effectiveness in problem resolution.

• How to ensure that task completion dates are met.

• Develop tools to assist employees in promptly completing tasks.

• Proactive recruiting strategies.

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Identifying and Eliminating Costly Delivery Mistakes 

Delivery mistakes or exceptions are very costly in both dollars and customer satisfaction. And most delivery issues or exceptions are 100% preventable. Eliminating or reducing these exceptions will have a dramatic impact on your bottom line. In this workshop you:

• Will learn how to significantly reduce delivery exceptions and increase customer satisfaction and the profitability of your warehouse and delivery operation

• Will learn the 15 most common delivery exceptions or mistakes in the retail industry

• Will learn how to track and identify these delivery exceptions

• Will learn how to identify the source of the problem and correct

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Engineering Positive Merchandising Outcomes

Ineffective merchandising strategies lead to negative sales trends, cash-flow issues, as well as overflowing warehouses and stores.  Learn powerful merchandising strategies that will lead your company to dramatic performance improvement. 

• Determining your target market

• Creating a slotting plan, merchandise plans, & war rooms

• Implementing nail-down strategies

• Implementing item elimination strategies

• Utilizing open-to-buys

• Pricing strategies

• Competitive shopping

• Vendor relationships, buying, and market strategies

• Sound re-order buying processes

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The Mystery of the Budgeting Process

Most independent retailers do not produce an annual budget.  Professionally run, successful companies produce budgets and work their budgets to facilitate positive outcomes rather than simply accept less than positive results. 

Discover processes that will keep your business safe.  Learn how to:

• Create and understand how to use a budget.

• Establish a chart of accounts that will define company safeguards.

• Benchmark your company’s performance.

• Set reasonable, achievable and detailed financial goals.

• Hold management team members accountable for their performance to budget.

• Build company initiatives to effect positive financial performance.

• Make your profit more predictable. 

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The Secrets of Recruiting the Best Sales Professionals

As business analysts and consultants we constantly hear “I can’t find good salespeople”. 

The fact is they are all around us.

• The reason we don’t see them may be because we may not know what we are looking for in a salesperson. 

• When we interview them they sell us, but when we put them on the sales floor they can’t sell our customers. 

• Many don’t last very long, or worse, they might last too long, are unproductive, and create conflict in our organization. 

• The fact is that some organizations do a great job of recruiting the best sales professionals.

• Learn their secrets and gain a greater understanding of how to increase the probability of a successful

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