Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

The brand is just about EVERYWHERE… good or bad. I mean, for heaven’s sake, when I want to impress upon my resale, consignment, and thrift shopkeepers how they are probably tossing away more money than it would cost to be a Sponsored link at HowToConsign.com, I use the example of “costs less than your daily Starbucks.”

(We’ll ignore the fact that I personally, having received a Starbucks gift card as a thank-you for working on a charitable committee. still haven’t found the time or impetus to USE it, over a year later…)

And we will put aside my dislike of the cloning of America (and the world!) with look-alike, corporate-run, who-gives-a-**-about YOU businesses, to learn what we can from them (after all, they pay the BIG BUCKS to their PR people, right, while we scratch out a little more time from OUR jobs of “President of Everything from PR to TP”) and to observe:

These stores decided to CLOSE for three and a half hours on a Tuesday night to “take a meeting” because they had ISSUES with customer service…and it became NATIONAL (international?) NEWS.

And blogfodder like you wouldn’t beLIEVE. Examples:

• http://gawker.com/361504/starbucks-employee-lessons-learned-during-shutdown
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602699.html?hpid=topnews (notice the URL; It includes “top news” )
• http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/02/13/starbucks-nationwide-to-close-for-emergency-re-training-feb-26/
• http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4350603&page=1

Even when the “spin” was negative: THEY GOT NOTICE.

And that’s what we can learn from Starbucks. Make whatever you do NEWSWORTHY (fer cryin; out loud, closing because your staff needs training? How UNnewsworthy is THAT?) A news article called your consignment boutique a THRIFT STORE? How could you turn THAT into a PR scoop?

Of course, the Washington Post and ABC Network probably won’t be covering little old Hometown consignment shop … but betcha you can get your Hometown papers, blogs, and TV stations to cover YOU with the right stir of your coffee stick…