This Thing Has Legs
It’s only round two, but y’all really bring the action! It’s clear how dedicated you are and that the growth mindset is important to you and how you do business.
Why else would you take an hour of your day to pick each other’s brains on how to be better?
Key Takeaways
We had a lot of tangible takeaways from this month’s mastermind, so be on the lookout for links and downloadable assets!
Marketing Mastermind Takeaways:
- Events and marketing leading up do wonders for sales and community involvement, but they take time and energy. Helpful to hire out some aspects (i.e., mailer distribution, graphic design).
- A mix of traditional and digital marketing work well for promoting events (i.e., mailers with 20% off coupons, some social, and email).
- Small communities + local buy-in = huge email open rate! 30-40%!
- SOCi is a huge time saver if you’re doing all social in-house but need to pay attention to specific brands or events that your store doesn’t have a huge customer base for. Know your customers; know your sales trends.
- Many of the innovators do marketing in-house but it can be overwhelming if they want to focus on other parts of their business. Finding the right person is important!
- Outdoor signage is crucial for catching attention in a world flooded with digital ads, bonus points for the nostalgia a leaderboard brings to communities!
- Not all platforms are equal: tend to have older customer base? Facebook does well. Using Instagram to draw in a younger crowd.
GM Mastermind Takeaways
- Huddles are important for team engagement.
- Having huddles right before opening and in the afternoon for the younger team (i.e., high school and college) is a good cadence.
- Peer-Peer conversations are helpful for solving challenges and celebrating big wins!
- Even if the whole team can’t join, huddles are important. Post summary for others to see.
- Use role-playing during huddles to work through challenges.
- On-the-fly training moments can be helpful. Example shared of an upset customer turned into a real-life role-play with GM and team members. Judy’s Law!
- Mix up your huddles! Creative twists like stretching, dance break, fun fact, and quotes, create opportunities for the team to participate in out-of-the-box ways.
- Take a photo for accountability and the opportunity to show off team personality and creativity.
- Rotate huddle leaders for training opportunities and to create empathy for what it’s like to lead.
- Most have managers leading.
- Team huddle template examples in your email.
Owners Mastermind Takeaways:
- Management meetings are so important: you don’t want GMs to feel like they’re on an island.
- It’s all about effective communication for making management really work
- Ask how until you get to the meat of the issue. Dig down to discover the real goal, and make a plan. HOW will we meet this goal?
- No blame. Only “how can we do better next time?”
- Rand recommended the books Radical Candor and Thank You For The Feedback as tools for creating a culture where people can communicate effectively in the moment.Cadence varies, but having something scripted is important for management meetings.
- Less than an hour, directed, pre-meeting questionnaire for specific talking points.
-
- It’s important to recognize employees and celebrate victories: “The team on the floor are your biggest asset.”
- Victor Vroom’s Motivation model is helpful for inspiring leaders in management teams.
- Vroom suggests that an employee’s beliefs about Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Valence interact psychologically to create a motivational force such that the employee acts in ways that bring pleasure and avoid pain. Check out this video we found!
- Encourage managers to take themselves out to work together outside day-to-day!
- Celebrate managers in different ways: dinners, retreats, etc.
- Post-retreat exit interviews and surveys are helpful.
- Management team meeting agenda in your inbox.
B2B Sales Mastermind Takeaways:
- People Cloud is looking to be a valuable CRM for B2B accounts: access to audience segmentation, list building, built directly from Ace segmentation codes.
- Collect emails of the folks that actually come in and pick up the products, along with the management/admin who does the ordering. You can add all these to the same account on your online account management tool.
- Creating connections on the floor can turn a $200 sale into $2,000: get people in the door.
- “The best thing you can do is make it experiential retail. Make your relationships four-dimensional: touch, hear, see it up close… That’s what people want.”
- Events are a great way to get people in the building – they may not know you have something until they swing by!
- Utilize local relationships for vendor donations for giveaways, connect with the community, and show each other you’re there for each other.
- VIP events with big vendors and demos are worth the coordination.
- Some more event ideas:
- Weekly grilling: “We’ll feed you and your team!”
- VIP for biggest buyers: Close down the store, cater, giveaways, vendor demos, etc.
- VIP Event information in your email.
Are You On Board?
Does the idea of a monthly meet-up with other retail hardware stores sound valuable to you? Are you interested in sharing resources, asking questions, and participating with your peers on-demand with an exclusive slack channel?
Join Us May 17, 2023 for our Next Mastermind
Need help signing up? Send us an email: hello@hardwareinnovators.com