My sister in law opened a brick and mortar retail business a few months ago, specializing in bedding and linens. She doesn’t have any business experience, let alone a high school diploma. To put it simply, she has no idea what she is doing, and her business isn’t doing very well.
Are there any books I can recommend to her to help her educate herself past her current strategy of “if you build it they will come”. Her business isn’t even in a good location in the city, as it only has summer traffic.
Thanks in advance 🙏
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I’d be happy to answer any questions and give some free guidance. I’ve run my own brick and mortar retail shop with 15 employees for 20 years now.
Unfortunately the hardest part of retail is that first year and trying to get people to walk in. Requires conviction and not have a great location is an issue.
What sets her linens apart from online retailers and other linens? What marketing is she planning on doing to express what her products are and why they are better, to the correct audience? Why did she even choose linens? Was there a demand of sorts that wasn’t being met by current retailers in the area?
Build your conviction, build your story, hone in on what sets you apart, and do whatever it takes to increase volume in the beginning, word of mouth is still the best marketing.
Once those steps are complete she can start talking about finances and margins and getting organized.
She has one brand that others in the city don’t offer, and it’s quite good quality, so that’s the only thing that sets her apart at this point, other than the location which is outside of downtown, so it’s a plus for people in her community that don’t want to venture downtown.
There’s no strategy, no story, no marketing plan whatsoever. I don’t even think she wants to spend any money on marketing, from the conversations I’ve had with her. She used to make rugs on a loom when she was young, so that’s a great story IMO, but since they grew up poor she feels embarrassed about it. We live in a small city in Europe so a lot of resources aren’t available here.
She wanted to open a clothing shop but someone told her linens would be better because there isn’t as much competition in the city.
I’m trying to push her to do some marketing, to educate herself a little bit about business, but she just sits around waiting for people to come into her shop. That’s her only strategy. To be honest I don’t think she’s read a book in her life (not trying to be rude just honest), so I’m looking for titles that have been translated that she can listen to at the very least. I’ve put in a ton of free labour for her, thousands of dollars worth of help, from her branding to marketing and even setting up her website. There’s only so much I can do to help her.
I’ll throw in a few ideas.
First, her competitive advantage has to be the service and care she provides to her clients. The ability to find the perfect sheets for each person all the while they have fun shopping. This kind of service provides the ultimate marketing: word of mouth.
Second she should do whatever it takes to get her google reviews up. This builds a lot of trust.
I hate to say it but I doubt there are any books that can really teach someone how to have an entrepreneurial mindset. You just have to have conviction and be hungry.
Once business takes off there are more academic things to look at that can help organize the books and streamline processes etc.
At this stage, it is critical for her to work on marketing her business and sales skills. She can look into joining a local chapter of Business Networking International, where members are typically other small business owners who are committed to help each other.
In my opinion, she doesn’t need to worry about books right now. She needs to focus on treating every single person that walks in as if they’re the most important thing in the world. And ask for referrals!
When the concrete dries, so to speak, correcting mistakes gets real expensive real fast.
“….business isn’t even in a good location….”
“….only has summer traffic.”
“….her business isn’t doing very well.”
A book isn’t going to help. She needs to engage a retail consultant and get that person “on-site” to determine if there are any practical ways to improve upon the poor location.
Otherwise, she may have no alternative but to bite bullet on lease and find a suitable location for the store.
For books she can try: Business Management 101, Intro to Marketing, Managerial Accounting 1 and 2, micro and macro economics, global business perspectives, business information systems, business math, and psychology 101.
This should be a good start. In the meantime she needs to market the heck out of business.
This is great, thank you 🙏