Last chance for the graphic novel Watchmen before movie! Watchmen is getting good reviews, mostly, but a few really negative ones. Seems they either love it, or hate it.
What's happening at Bachelor? No news is good news?
Is "It could be worse...." a good answer to, "How's business?"
That Zicam cold remedy, actually seems to work.
You know, Iraq seems to be functioning...never would've believed it.
The Blazer's Bowie...um, I mean Oden's....knees are bad again.
Previous original owners of Jackalope Grill and The Barking Squirrel, are opening Joolz in downtown Bend, in the Bistro Corlise space. What...they ran out of animals? The Mad Chipmonk, the Rabid Raccoon? (P.S. Will be revising the Opening/Closing list with one more change...)
Bulletin beats the two T.V. stations on news of Captain Sawyer's retirement; though KOHD still has more info about 'new' charges...
I no longer feel the need to point out the bad economic news; the media has caught up.
Bank of the Cascades is a penny stock? Anyone remember the huge, glowing articles about this Bank, and it's walk-on-water CEO?
Where's Central Oregon's unemployment rate? 9.9% for Oregon can't bode well...
How many tattoo shops and baby/children's stores does one town need?
These could have all been Twitters, I suppose. I don't really get Twitter.
Speaking of which, I have massively long blogs that I don't want to burden anyone with. Eyes glaze over. I try to do no more than one or two big ones a week.
Network T.V. is collapsing? This is like my favorite year: Mentalist, C.S.I. Vegas, Dollhouse, Sarah Conner, Terminator, Life, Heroes, Lost, Life on Mars, House...am I suffering the dreaded "Show Inflation?" Then again, I dropped Fringe, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Chuck, Eleventh Hour, almost dropped Life on Mars, but then it got interestingly weird. No sitcoms or reality shows....Oh, and loving (hating) Battlestar, but that's not network.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Statistical blubber
So it turns out that the downturn in the GNP in the last quarter of last year wasn't 3.8, but instead 6.2.
That's only off by....well, just a little....you know....not so much.....
ONLY 40% !!!!
But trust us, folks. We know what we're doing. (Whatever you do, don't scare people, feed them the bad news a little at a time.)
They're talking about an even bigger drop in this quarter.
But good news, people! The second quarter of 2009 should only drop 1.7%!
Yeah......right.....
That's only off by....well, just a little....you know....not so much.....
ONLY 40% !!!!
But trust us, folks. We know what we're doing. (Whatever you do, don't scare people, feed them the bad news a little at a time.)
They're talking about an even bigger drop in this quarter.
But good news, people! The second quarter of 2009 should only drop 1.7%!
Yeah......right.....
The regular connection.
I've been thinking about this whole 'discretionary spending' thing.
On the surface, comics wouldn't appear to be something that people need. And yet...
It's a regular activity on the part of most of my subscribers -- they come in every week, or every two weeks, at least every month. It becomes part of their lives, a habit, if you will.
Certainly, in the larger scheme of things, comics aren't really that expensive; ten or twenty dollars a week, for most of my customers.
And entertainment in times of trouble is more of a need than a want, in my opinion. When Linda and I were really struggling, the basic cable T.V. was the last to get cut, and the first to come back. We never gave up on reading material; that would have been unthinkable.
Anyway, I'm noticing that the percentage of customers who spend money who are regulars seems to be rising. They account for a minimum of 70% of my sales everyday, which accounts for about 70% of what I need to make my average.
There is a connection there, between me and my customers, and I know them by name and I can chat with them, and it makes the store work. It's a fragile connection to be sure.
After an initial crunch, most of my regulars are hanging in there.
On the surface, comics wouldn't appear to be something that people need. And yet...
It's a regular activity on the part of most of my subscribers -- they come in every week, or every two weeks, at least every month. It becomes part of their lives, a habit, if you will.
Certainly, in the larger scheme of things, comics aren't really that expensive; ten or twenty dollars a week, for most of my customers.
And entertainment in times of trouble is more of a need than a want, in my opinion. When Linda and I were really struggling, the basic cable T.V. was the last to get cut, and the first to come back. We never gave up on reading material; that would have been unthinkable.
Anyway, I'm noticing that the percentage of customers who spend money who are regulars seems to be rising. They account for a minimum of 70% of my sales everyday, which accounts for about 70% of what I need to make my average.
There is a connection there, between me and my customers, and I know them by name and I can chat with them, and it makes the store work. It's a fragile connection to be sure.
After an initial crunch, most of my regulars are hanging in there.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Just watching.
Because of circumstances beyond my control, I haven't made very many reorders the last three weeks. (Mostly because my main supplier has been moving their warehouse, and because my other main suppliers got huge orders from me at the beginning of the month.)
I've been sort of waiting for demand to build up -- and it hasn't. Except for the usual spot shortages. (I could've sold Walking Dead #9, a really fun graphic novel, a half dozen times if I had it in stock.)
So I've kind of watched what appears to me to be a declining economic condition with a bit of bemusement, and counting my blessings that I escaped over ordering almost by happenstance.
When or if I make big reorders waits upon events, I think.
But if everyone is thinking this way, we are negatively reinforcing, each of us by protecting ourselves.
Even Walmart is announcing they are going to have tighter controls on SKU's. (As I've predicted since the beginning, the consumer is going to have less and less choice in product -- no doubt driving them to the internet. Again, a negative reinforcement.)
But what you gonna do?
Have to watch the bottom line.
I've been sort of waiting for demand to build up -- and it hasn't. Except for the usual spot shortages. (I could've sold Walking Dead #9, a really fun graphic novel, a half dozen times if I had it in stock.)
So I've kind of watched what appears to me to be a declining economic condition with a bit of bemusement, and counting my blessings that I escaped over ordering almost by happenstance.
When or if I make big reorders waits upon events, I think.
But if everyone is thinking this way, we are negatively reinforcing, each of us by protecting ourselves.
Even Walmart is announcing they are going to have tighter controls on SKU's. (As I've predicted since the beginning, the consumer is going to have less and less choice in product -- no doubt driving them to the internet. Again, a negative reinforcement.)
But what you gonna do?
Have to watch the bottom line.
Book bits.
Funny animal books always sell.
Used poetry books sell like crazy, new poetry books not so much.
Good, quality Children's chapter books sell almost immediately.
Almost all art and/or coffee table books have a bit of scuffing or dings...must be why we get them.
Classic authors just don't show up enough; nor good history books.
Diet books and business books are almost the same. Simple answers. If they all worked we'd be both rich and skinny.
There is a constant call for basic addiction books.
"How to" save a marriage books sadly come into the store in clumps.
There is a "How to" Christian book on every conceivable subject. Brighter teeth, skinnier bods, and fluffier hair.
We get way more conservative political books than liberal political books.
They make a travel book about every little tiny hamlet in the world.
Philosophy books don't sell as well as I'd expect; health books sell better than I'd expect.
There are a lot of books in the world.
No matter how many car mechanics books you have, you will never have the model the customer is looking for.
Quality cook books and gardening books come in more than I'd expect.
There is a very fine line between pop psychology books and new age books.
Too many sports books.
Western books sell very well -- must be the only media left where they are strong, but it doesn't matter how old or beat up the book is.
Mystery readers read lots of mysteries.
Science Fiction readers read lots of S.F.
Romance readers read lots of romance.
(I may add more of these as they occur to me.)
Used poetry books sell like crazy, new poetry books not so much.
Good, quality Children's chapter books sell almost immediately.
Almost all art and/or coffee table books have a bit of scuffing or dings...must be why we get them.
Classic authors just don't show up enough; nor good history books.
Diet books and business books are almost the same. Simple answers. If they all worked we'd be both rich and skinny.
There is a constant call for basic addiction books.
"How to" save a marriage books sadly come into the store in clumps.
There is a "How to" Christian book on every conceivable subject. Brighter teeth, skinnier bods, and fluffier hair.
We get way more conservative political books than liberal political books.
They make a travel book about every little tiny hamlet in the world.
Philosophy books don't sell as well as I'd expect; health books sell better than I'd expect.
There are a lot of books in the world.
No matter how many car mechanics books you have, you will never have the model the customer is looking for.
Quality cook books and gardening books come in more than I'd expect.
There is a very fine line between pop psychology books and new age books.
Too many sports books.
Western books sell very well -- must be the only media left where they are strong, but it doesn't matter how old or beat up the book is.
Mystery readers read lots of mysteries.
Science Fiction readers read lots of S.F.
Romance readers read lots of romance.
(I may add more of these as they occur to me.)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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.
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.
I'm liking Obama.
Despite appearances, I'm not really all that political. I think of myself as a pragmatic liberal; but I don't have a whole lot of faith in government's ability to get much done.
But I don't completely discount the possibility, either.
I was firmly in Obama's camp, I thought Palin was a disaster, but I kind of like McCain. But...it seemed to me that we needed big changes, and Obama was the best possibility of that.
Anyway, his speech last night was very impressive.
I don't want to fall into Obama idol worship. Just as I think it's silly to expect him to fix everything in a month, I think it's even more silly to declare him a success.
I'm going to take a wait and see attitude.
Yeah, I know he didn't write the speech on the back of an envelope, Lincoln like, but still -- isn't it nice to have a President who is eloquent? Just from a writerly standpoint, it's really refreshing.
Again, I'm not quite ready to fall into the 'great man' framework, Doris Kearns Goodwin notwithstanding.
I think he's pointed in the right direction. But there's still that little problem of only 58 Democratic senators.
Then again, Republicans, keep acting the way you're acting, and I think the voters will take care of that in 2010.
But I don't completely discount the possibility, either.
I was firmly in Obama's camp, I thought Palin was a disaster, but I kind of like McCain. But...it seemed to me that we needed big changes, and Obama was the best possibility of that.
Anyway, his speech last night was very impressive.
I don't want to fall into Obama idol worship. Just as I think it's silly to expect him to fix everything in a month, I think it's even more silly to declare him a success.
I'm going to take a wait and see attitude.
Yeah, I know he didn't write the speech on the back of an envelope, Lincoln like, but still -- isn't it nice to have a President who is eloquent? Just from a writerly standpoint, it's really refreshing.
Again, I'm not quite ready to fall into the 'great man' framework, Doris Kearns Goodwin notwithstanding.
I think he's pointed in the right direction. But there's still that little problem of only 58 Democratic senators.
Then again, Republicans, keep acting the way you're acting, and I think the voters will take care of that in 2010.
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