Retail Store Management Lessons – Insight on Mind Set [MUSIC PLAYING] [Text on screen “National Urban League: TakingCare of Business. Special Career Seminar: Retail Management”] PROFESSOR: A lot of times, we do consulting work, and we have an owner of a business. And they have the attitude is that I go to work. I open up my store. I open up my service bay doors. I open up the doors to the store, and I'm here. OK, come on in, folks. I'm open for business. Let me do something. A person that is a planner says it's beginning of baseball season. It's beginning of football season. What promotions can I put up? What vendors are advertising products, goods, or services and specials and things? What can I do to put together as an incentive pack for my employees to give them a reason to come to work and to take their hourly wage and may be able to pump that up a couple of dollars per hour? Is that good for them? Yeah, and it's good for you too. It keeps them interactive. it keeps them into the business instead of just saying, OK, let me hit my clock. OK, let me hit my clock to go out. I didn't do nothing. I didn't sell nothing. OK, I'll be here tomorrow. See you tomorrow, Joe. OK, Joe. No, no. A planner is-- a manager planner puts it together, make something happen. Comes in and pumps up the people. Looks at the numbers from yesterday's, congratulates the guys and the ladies that are doing good and then pumps up the ones that ain't and maybe do some retraining, keep motivated. Yes sir. AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's better to have your team on the field than to simply have them on the bench. PROFESSOR:: Right, right. I want them pumping. Very good. All right, and managing vision and purpose-- communicates the company's vision effectively. The service station, to me, Evan's view of the service station-- we've come from so far back as a neighborhood business. Years and years and years ago when I used to ride my bicycle, if I needed air in my tire, where did I go? AUDIENCE: Gas station. PROFESSOR: If I were out there running around and I need to go to the bathroom, where did I go? AUDIENCE: Gas station. PROFESSOR: If I had a little change and I wanted to buy a soda, where did I go? AUDIENCE: Gas station. PROFESSOR: Right. It was a neighborhood community business, the last of the American businesses. It really is. A lot of time, they're franchises and different type of business, but the service station has always that. It's always been that to me. OK, so I've always, always wanted to have a neighborhood service station that was mine. And your businesses are in that neighborhood, they are that business. They are that community. We talked earlier today when we first started about being community and community, community, community. The service station was always that, always was that. Now we don't do so much auto repair, but you're still my neighborhood business. Now you're open 24 hours a day. I can always go in and get something. I'm not getting the air in my tire, but I always can get gas. I can get my Marlboros. I can get my Coca-Cola, whatever I want. I know you. You know me. My kids are growing up. They want a job. Well, let me talk to the manager, you know? Well, maybe they can come in on Saturday, get a little training, and get into this business. The skillset that we develop and we learn from making sales and interacting with people, seeing how a business operates, and how business goes, dealing with inventory and merchandising, putting stuff on the shelf in the cooler, keeping my area clean outside-- you go to a business because it looks good. All the products are the same. Coca-Cola from any store is going to taste like Coca-Cola. But I'm coming to your store because you always greet me. You treat me well. You treat me well. You treat me well, OK? Makes sense? AUDIENCE: Yes. PROFESSOR: All right, very good. So these are some of things that we call the keys. The key to these competencies is your-- what? AUDIENCE: Attitude. PROFESSOR: Attitude. Whoa, what a word. What a word. You know, I've looked at a lot of college classes, with my kids and everything, putting them through college I never saw attitude 101. Anybody see an attitude class? AUDIENCE: No. PROFESSOR: You know why? I can train everything. I'm a trainer. That's what I do for a living. I'm a professional trainer. Can I train attitude? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Nah. PROFESSOR: Nah, uh-uh. Uh-uh. It's kind of like my thing with the people. You're either a people person or you ain't. AUDIENCE: Right. PROFESSOR: You either got a good attitude, or you don't. That's it. AUDIENCE MEMBER: You can manage attitude. PROFESSOR: You can manage a negative attitude? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, when I was a general manager-- PROFESSOR: Yes sir? AUDIENCE MEMBER: [INAUDIBLE] there was a movie out called [INAUDIBLE], and it was a horrible movie. But the theme of the movie was attitude is everything. PROFESSOR: mm-hm. AUDIENCE MEMBER: So that was our theme-- PROFESSOR: Right. AUDIENCE MEMBER: for that time. PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] AUDIENCE MEMBER: Attitude is everything. So it told people, look, you come in. The proper attitude is a good attitude. So you come in here. You take off whatever-- leave behind-- PROFESSOR: Very good. Very good. Mm-hm. AUDIENCE MEMBER: here with the proper attitude. Attitude first. PROFESSOR: Well, very good. I agree. When I started in the business, the guy who trained me, his name was Joe Johnson. He owned the service station on the corner where I lived. He would come by sometimes in the wintertime, and he'd pick me up, even though it was only a half a block, you know, because we got snow and things in Detroit. You know. So he would pick me up. I remember one day when we were driving from my house to the service station, he said, Evan, you know, sometimes it's hard running these stations. Sometimes customers are kind of hard, you know? But you know, this is one thing I learned, though, and I hope you learn this. This is this back in '66. He says, when I take my car and I drive down the street and I make my left turn up the driveway and I cross the sidewalk and then I drive on to the service station property, he said, now I'm at work. All the problems with my kids, my wife, my dog, my neighbor who parks his car on my grass, all that I leave on the other side of the sidewalk. Once my person is on the property of the service station, I now am at work. All that stuff is on the other side. Only thing that's important to me is my customers. Customers first, first, first, first, first, first. Yes-- [Text on screen “National Urban League. For more information go to: BeyondThePump.org”]