Retail Column: A Lack of Initiative or Over-instruction?

Those of us who are often defined as workaholics have most likely heard many times that we should learn to pace ourselves. There may be truth in that, but it is not the way that we are going to look at pacing today.

Instead, we are going to look at PACE as an acronym through the eyes and experience of Dave Wendland, a consultant with Hamacher Resource Group. Dave uses pace as a sign of the traits of the best small business owners.

The P in PACE stands for passion. While not unique to small-business owners, passion is definitely the strong point of these individuals. “I always wanted to own, or manage, a liquor store or wine shop,” is a phrase that most of these people have either said publicly to their friends and customers, or to themselves many times.

This is also what makes a local store different from a business like Total Wine & More. Your business may be a corporation in name, but in spirit your store is the fulfillment of a dream, as well as what was perceived as a need within the community you serve.

The A in PACE stands for awareness. The awareness is for the needs and changes within your community, as well as the changes in your customer base and changes in the preferences of your customers. The awareness extends to the changes in distribution of products. Personally, a local shop introduced this writer to a craft beer that is produced in the northeast part of the country. Visiting the store one day, this beer had been replaced in the cooler by another craft beer. Thinking the favorite had been moved to a different cooler, the surprise was being told the beer was no longer sold by the store.

Now the beer was sold by the grocery store chain that dominated the market. The grocery store also works on smaller margins than the local store is willing to accept. The result being the discontinuation of the favorite craft beer and a new craft beer introduced in its place. Ah! Something new to try!

C stands for curiosity. As a lifelong retailer, it has been this writer’s experience that someone in the liquor business can learn more by observing a different type of retailer. It could be clothing, hardware, crafts or any other type of retail in a mall, shopping center or free-standing building. As you visit these other stores, what gets your attention? What causes you to walk down a specific aisle? How are other customers in the store reacting to what they see and experience?

What gets your attention will get the attention of other people. Chain stores and mass merchants spend a lot of time and money designing how merchandise is sold. All you have to do is watch. Picasso is credited with saying that good artists copy and great artists steal. Having a store in which people spend more time and more money than they planned is an art form. You can be an artist.

The last letter is E which stands for energy. Notice we said energy, and not hours spent in the store. Remember the comment about wanting to own or manage a store? You are in that position today. Never let that excitement and energy go away.

The plus to the energy is that it becomes contagious with your employees and your customers. Perhaps the best compliment this writer ever received came from an individual who had been a customer for many years. Meeting this customer on the street several years after we sold the store, we were told, “I don’t go to your store now. It is not you anymore; your employees have all left; the atmosphere is different.”

The customer said he was now shopping with a large chain store.

Dave Wendland said the PACE acronym was representative of the best. We think it is a good way to measure yourself.

Tom Shay is a lifelong small-business owner and manager. He has authored 12 books on small business management; a college textbook on small business financial management and co-authored a book on retailer/vendor relations.

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