I had a hankering for donuts the other day, but most of the usual places were out. I found a store that specialized in donuts and checked went in. They had none on display, but they had a sign with all the varieties.

I gulped at the price, over $2 each, but my hankering won out and I got two regular glazed donuts. (I like plain or old fashioned or glazed, but not so much the fancier stuff.)

Well, it turns out the donuts were huge; maybe twice the content as the usual donuts.

So worth the price. 

But the sign showed donuts that looked even smaller than normal. 

As a store owner I always notice what other small establishments could do to improve. I wanted to say, "Put some of these out for display so people see what they're getting!"

 But I bit my tongue. I came across a phrase recently that struck home. "No one likes unsolicited advice."

Now, I'd like to think I'd be open to advice that might help, but I know that in the past people have said things that cut a little. In most cases, there was a good reason why I wasn't doing what the person suggested.

Peace out. 

 

My doctor has approved Wegovy pills for me, but she's concerned that I'll lose too much weight. I told her that I was basically a 200 pound man in a 170 pound body.

I was 200 pounds for many years. I finally went on a campaign to lose twenty pounds and eventually stabilized at 180. I was there for several years before I had my heart attack.

A couple years after that I decided to go down to 170, so that I could fit into an entire closet of almost new clothing that I'd bought when I was younger or that my Dad wore.

I did this by calorie counting. I have a pretty good rough estimate of how many calories I'm imbibing as a running total. I cut back when I've overdone it, relax when I'm at my base. 

I recently tried to get down to 165, and while I reached that for a short time, I've been bouncing between 167 and 171 ever since. 

I'd like to say that I'm a disciplined eater, but the truth is that, except for pastries, food is just fuel for me. I'm conscious I need to eat but I don't need too much. I nibble a lot instead of full meals. For instance, I learned at the store that my lowest energy level is about 5:00 in the afternoon, so I always try to eat something around 3:00. 

At best I'd dare lose another 10 pounds, and even that might be too much.

So I'm going to do a reverse calorie count. Instead of trying to stay under 2000 calories a day (and usually failing by a little bit), I'm going to try to stay slightly over 2000 calories a day.  

Reordering every book that sells.

Dylan mentions every time he reports the day's totals that he got lots of compliments on our selection.

I'm actually impressed myself. We seem to have in stock the specific book customers want more often than not, which is a pretty nice achievement for a 1000 sq. ft. store. 

The other thing that impresses me is that reordering almost every book we sell seems to work as a tactic. I mean, it shouldn't, except in the broad sense that if a book sold once it's likely to sell again (?). I probably add about 50 new release titles per week, and fill in another 50 slots with mid-list books I've stumbled across. 

Common sense would tell you that adding 5200 books a year would quickly overwhelm the store--which is constantly threatens to do. But I do go through and weed out older books as needed. Sometimes a mid-list book completely stops selling at all. Or they suffer store damage. Or...whatever, you know when it's time to retire a book. 

But I'm not really trying that hard to take any books out. It happens when it has to happen.  

Whatever we're doing, it seems to work. I don't actively seek out mid-list books, but it seems that they constantly pop up on the radar. Someone mentions a title, or I see a review or and article, or I'm reminded of a book that I've read, or whatever. 

Except for the guessing which new releases I need to get, the rest of the inventory is completely intuitive and original. No algorithms, and I think it subconsciously works with customers who are tired of seeing the same books in ever store.  

It's also fun to have that book that unexpectedly sells.