TOO MUCH SUCCESS!!!

Far be it from me to tell anyone else how to run their business.

And yet, I might be able to help you avoid a few mistakes I've made over the years.

TOO MUCH SUCCESS?

Early on, someone told me the two biggest dangers in business were 1.) too little success, and 2.) too much success. I'm not sure I understood the latter at first. But I learned the hard way.

The store that Linda and I ran was very successful for the first 6 years or so. One success after another, ever increasing sales, happy customers.

So successful, in fact, that it took every dollar I made sunk right back into the store, to keep up. So successful, it often required that I stay until midnight getting ready for the next day.

Eventually, it got so I figured I was bulletproof. Linda and I split our efforts -- she went to Sisters, and her store there was, if anything, even MORE successful.

But it was also the beginning of the end, in some ways. We lost our very functional working relationship -- Linda makes friends very easily, and I'm very knowledgeable, and between us we made a very strong pair.

When I opened a third and fourth store, it really went bad. I just couldn't keep up the quality control, and I got more and more competition, and I worked myself into the ground.

Eventually, I asked myself: was I having fun? Was I making money?

The answer to both was a big NO.

I'm back to one store now, I'm even working it alone, and yet I'm not anywhere near as stressed as I was back then. And I'm probably making more real money.

Sure, I've complicated the store no end. 8 or 10 different product lines, depending on how you count them. I have to keep up with a ton of details, and it's fortunate that I enjoy lots of details.

BURNOUT DANGER.

I want to DOUBLE emphasize this point:

Success can breed burnout. You find something works, and you do more of it. It gives you an idea to do another thing, and you do more of that. Before you know it, you've got so many things going, you're running full blast just to stay in one place.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

Contrast that to the way we did Linda's store, the Bookmark. Even the name is purposely simple -- we came up with all kinds of punny, funny, exotic sounding names. But in the end, we went with a name with BOOKS in the title.

We developed a simple trade policy, a simple philosophy.

We organize the books in as intuitive a way as possible.

We do used books. Period.

Everyone tried to tell us to do coffee, but we saw that as a unnecessary complication. We sold soda for a while, and snacks, but dropped those.

If it was me, I'd probably have complicated it by now with; new books, magazines, remaindered books, accoutrement's like bookmarks and puzzles and note cards. I'd have moved things around a dozen times. I'd have played with the formula.

Instead, Linda has stuck to her original guns. And the results are a fully functioning store, that has reached enough success that we are faced with nearly too much work anyway. That is, complicating it would have made it way too much work by now, probably without the comparable recompense.

JUST SAY NO.

It's hard when you're successful at something to say no to doing even more of the same thing. It's hard to turn down what appears to be opportunity.

But ask yourself, "Is this what I really want? How much extra work with it make? Will it be a permanent change? "

Apparently, when these restaurant fixers come into these places, one of the first things they do is simplify the menu, simplify the procedures, simplify the ingredients.

I think this is good advice for any retail.

ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE

You shouldn't try, you'll never succeed, in keeping all the people happy all the time.

Customers will ask you to do many, many things. You want to please them. You've been told over and over again that the customer is always right.

Does it really make sense over the long run to pursue that one item for that one customer? To pay for postage and handling and storage and display space and inventory placement and so on?

I've taken to sending people elsewhere for stuff I don't have -- without qualms. "I think Barnes and Nobles has that..." I'll say.

"But we'd rather buy it from you," they'll answer.

"Thank you, but we really can't do it. Really, it's O.K."

A SERVICE THAT IS NEGATIVE, IS NO SERVICE AT ALL.

I eventually stopped buying off the street, for instance. Or doing any trade. Because it seemed like it caused bad feelings just too much. "You're ripping me off!" someone would say to me, after I bought his cards as a favor, as a service.

Also, anything you add, you then have to keep up. If IT'S successful, you have yet another element of quality control to keep up with.

For instance, say you have a delivery service. But if your location is generating so much business you can't keep up, why are you doing that?

The equivalent to me is online or mail order. Wait a minute. I've got more than enough to do in my store; isn't my time better used to do a better job there?

Certainly, the customer is important. But even more important is your own spirit and motivation. In the end, you'll serve the customer better by not over extending yourself.

SLOW DOWN. ENJOY.

Opportunity will always arise. You don't need to go a million miles an hour, even in the first few years. If you find yourself near tears because you've got too much to do, it would seem a pretty hefty clue that you've taken on too much.

You want to LIKE your job, you want to LIKE your business. It's a marathon, not a sprint. If you've reached that stress point, it means you've succeeded so far, but it's time to internalize.

Stop advertising, perhaps. Stop having sales. Stop doing special events.

Or even....horrors!....raise prices. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. If you've got a premium product that has too much demand, price raising to slow demand is actually a pretty smart thing to do. Don't hide your quality. (If you don't believe me, do some research.)

Another thing that someone told me early on, the closer you can ask to retail price, the more healthy your store. It not only means your store is healthy enough to ask retail, but it also means by asking retail, your store can get healthy.

WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME!

But of course they did. But I didn't listen. I could wish I had taken it slower, turned down a few growth opportunities to build a better foundation.

In a sense, I didn't have enough trust in my own abilities. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, not realizing that the iron will get hot again.

So here's my advice. Slow and steady wins the race.

Take care of the business for awhile. Get your feet under you.