Management |
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| 2012 |  5 Tips to Make Your Store a Holiday Success
For most retailers, the 4th quarter and holiday season are when the real money is made. With that in mind, TDmonthly Magazine asked specialty retailers, “What are your top tips for boosting sales and ensuring success during the holiday season?” See their advice... 11/1/2012 |
|  Approaching customers in a "Good" Way
In my role as a retail consultant I’m often asked, "How should I approach a customer?"... 11/1/2012 | |  Avoid Holiday Burnout with these 7 Retailing Tips
With all the demands of retail during the holiday season, including longer hours, employees calling in sick, and dealing with gift returns, it is easy to throw up your hands and become the Grinch. But you can’t let that comfortable old “grinchy” feeling in or it will cost you sales... 9/1/2012 | |  Retail Sales: 9 Ways To Improve Your Selling
You’ve probably heard it said of someone, “They could sell (snow, ice, a refrigerator) to an Eskimo,” or something similar to that. But how did they get that way? Is the ability to excel at retail selling an instinctive talent that one has to be born with, that can’t be learned?... 8/1/2012 | |  Retailing Tips: Handling Rowdy Kids
Excited children are an everyday component of operating a specialty toy store, but occasionally a child goes out of control — becoming dangerous to a business and its profit margin... 4/1/2012 | |  Retailers: Increase Sales by Juggling Customers
Slow sales have produced a retail sales force that is used to working with just one person. It’s like a juggler who can only keep one ball in the air. That can cost you sales – big time.... 4/1/2012 | |  How to Find Your Soul Employees, Part II: Training
Once you've found the right people, how do you teach them all they need to know about toys?... 1/1/2012 | |  How to Find Your Soul Employees, Part I: Hiring
Looking for a way to improve sales in the new year? Ask Creative Kidstuff CEO Roberta Bonoff what the key to success is and she can boil it down to one word: staff... 1/1/2012 | |  Four Ways to Boost Employee Morale
In the current economy, some of your best employees may be working out of necessity, not passion. How can you keep them motivated and enthusiastic about their daily tasks?... 1/1/2012 | | |
| 2011 |  10 Things You Must Know to Run a Great Toy Store
To determine verified sales and business strategies, you need the advice of hundreds of retailers and experts.... 8/1/2011 |
|  Manage Your Time, Part II: Preparation & Vacation
One of the prime reasons to take time to organize is so that you'll avoid some of the costliest mistakes of running a toy store: over-ordering, under-ordering and ordering too late or too early... 5/1/2011 | |  Manage Your Time, Part I: Create More Time
The holidays are coming, there are 400 boxes to unpack, payroll is due, a trade show is around the corner, and your manager just came down with the flu... 5/1/2011 | |  The Worst Advice Ever ...
Opening and running a small business not only creates anxiety in the proprietors, but in family, friends and total strangers. Sometimes, this superfluity of emotion erupts in well-meant advice that doesn't really do anyone any good.... 4/1/2011 | |  What Every Retailer Ought to Know About Five-Fing
Yes, employees stealing. Oh, I know, not yours. I used to think so myself until…I was working with a small boutique hotel... 2/1/2011 | |  Stop Managing Time, and Start Managing Yourself
You can’t manage time. Time just is... 1/1/2011 | | |
| 2010 | How to Find Your Soul Employees, Part II: Training
Once you've found the right people, how do you teach them all they need to know about toys?... 12/1/2010 |
| How to Find Your Soul Employees, Part I: Hiring
Ask Creative Kidstuff CEO Roberta Bonoff what the key to success is and she can boil it down to one word: staff... 12/1/2010 | |  How to Manage Your Time in Three-D
For many years I have been teaching about the horizontal and vertical aspects of productivity. “Horizontal” represents the ability to quiet distractions and maintain a complete and total inventory of things to do across the whole spectrum of our day-to-day engagements... 11/1/2010 | |  Stop Micro-Managing Your Mind
One of the greatest traps in growing a business is also a pitfall for self management: if you don’t trust your system, you can’t let go of operational details and you’ll limit your ability to create at a bigger level.... 10/1/2010 | |  Don't Sabotage Your Business With Busy-ness
Recently while coaching a leader, I discovered another level of the busy trap — the syndrome: “If I can just do something that feels like I’m working with focus, I don’t have to deal with the angst about all the other stuff I should be doing.”... 9/1/2010 | |  Take a Cue: Good Customer Service is Like Billiard
Ever played pool? It starts off with all the balls together, the cue ball comes along to break them up, they scatter and the game commences. That’s what I expect in a retail store... 9/1/2010 | | |
| 2009 |  Retailing Tips: Revising Your Business Plan
A business plan is a living document, meant to be revised periodically. It is your one-, three- and five-year plan, which, at any given time, should reflect your plans for the next few years.... 9/1/2009 |
|  Retailing Tips: Ordering What Customers Want
All retailers are faced with an inventory dilemma. Spend a lot of money now to have fully stocked shelves and a great product selection, with no guarantee that customers are going to want what was purchased, or go with products known to sell and take customer requests, possibly driving away shoppers... 6/1/2009 | |  Retailing Tips: How to Interact With Customers
There is nothing wrong with letting customers browse your store and spend time looking, touching, and playing with the merchandise.... 4/1/2009 | |  Retailing Tips: Allocating Post-Holiday Cash
In my retail store, there were several holiday seasons where sales exceeded our expectations. If you don’t have a plan for this situation ahead of time, you can find yourself spending wildly and blindly — to the detriment of your business.... 1/1/2009 | | |
| 2008 |  How to Get the Time You Need
If you’re feeling stressed and not very playful, you’re not alone.... 6/1/2008 |
|  How to Close Your Store and Move On
Optimism can cure a slew of predicaments, but how do you know when it’s time to shut the “Glad Book” and face the facts?... 5/1/2008 | |  Retailing Tips: Handling Rowdy Kids
Excited children are an everyday component of operating a specialty toy store, but occasionally a child goes out of control — becoming dangerous to a business and its profit margin.... 4/1/2008 | | |
| 2007 |  Retailing Tips: How to Minimize Theft
Dealing with theft is a reality of retail. Although most specialty toy-store owners say theft is minimal, any theft is still a loss... 10/1/2007 |
|  Specialty Stores Stock Up on Sharing
Mary Horne made a drastic career change when she purchased J. Christopher Toys in Jonesboro, Ark., in March 2007... 9/1/2007 | |  How to Keep Your Toy Store Thriving
Running a toy store isn't easy. High costs and competition snuffed out at least one neighborhood specialty store within the past two years... 5/1/2007 | | |
| 2006 |  How to Find a Great Rep
Every sales rep sounds great, noted Jay Kamhi, president of Kamhi World, but how do you separate those who are all talk from those who deliver?... 12/1/2006 |
|  How to Tell If Your Rep Is Cheating
Sales reps can make or break a toy business, so TDmonthly Magazine grilled manufacturers and retailers to find out how to determine if a rep's thinking more of his own bottom-line than of yours... 12/1/2006 |
