Recently, I’ve been observing an NFP whose board has decided that their resale store could do better. It’s been interesting to watch them trying to get a grasp on what to do, when, why, and most especially how. It’s a horrendously big job and of course, with not only staff, volunteers and management but board members too chiming in, everyone has a different priority and a different ax to grind and (remember, this is an NFP!) different stakes in the end results.

At the same time, a small historic museum association I’ve been a part of is trying to move forward and fulfill its educational mission. Again: Many ways to go, many areas that need work, and lots of territorial issues.

As a volunteer source of work and wisdom in both scenarios, I researched how to plan out the refreshing of any large, complex organization. I ran across a game plan a downtown merchants’ association used to revitalize their shopping district. I think this will help both groups. It consists of four steps which we’ll cover this week. I’m gonna look at it from a resale store perspective, since I doubt many of my readers have a history museum to worry about.

Okay. Step One, when faced with a large task of turning what might seem to be an ocean liner around, is:

Clean it up:

Of course this is literally cleaning…

it’s amazing how old dirt becomes invisible after a while, and yet new eyes (not only new management, but customers every day) see what you have learned to overlook.

Get that hanger dirt GONE. Take some old-fashioned wax paper. Ball up a foot or so of it. Use said ball to wax/clean metal hang rods of the dust, dirt, metal powder…you know, that black stuff on your index finger when you pick up an armload of clothes.  Side bonus, besides clean rods: hangers slide more easily, less squeaky-squeak to grate on your nerves.

Wet-broom. Get edges and corners of carpeting clean by dampening a straw broom and sweeping the hard-to-reach edges and corners before you vacuum. Dust balls up, then the vacuum sucks ’em up.

One word: microfiber dust cloths. Keeps glass and mirrors and chrome shiny. Eco-correct too, since they need little to no cleaning product beyond water.

Another word: razor blades. Gets sticky glue off your glass doors when you take down all those credit-card company logos (believe me, no one’s needed to know “MasterCard Accepted Here” since the last century), left-over tape off your sales desk, gum off floors (who ARE those slobs?)

But cleaning it up can also mean:

Moving messy stuff out of sight. Put it elsewhere, tidy it up, or hang a curtain in front of it. Start with your sales/ acceptance areas since everyone sees them. Move on to any other place customers might peek. That last, seldom-used dressing rooms which has become Fibber Magee’s closet (talk about last century!)?

Deleting unnecessary stuff. Pix of the kids and dog and last month’s birthday cards? Belong in a private area, not all over your selling area. This is a retail establishment, not a family room. Tinsel trim from 3 Christmases back? A wall decoration that’s been there so long everyone thinks it’s grey and fuzzy when it’s red and shiny?

Replacing what needs replacing. Your business card holder’s been mended with tape for the last 6 months? The threshold has lost its screws? The dressing room curtains are limp, and every third hook is gone?

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden…or a planter or two…make them the pride of the sidewalk. Surely a pot of mums and some mulch can’t be so impossible to go get. Add some growing things inside your shop, to Habitize your Store.

Stop making do. Yes, you heard me. That shelf unit you salvaged out of a dumpster back when? It’s not adding to the perceived value of your merchandise now. Do your future a favor, and replace it with something more in keeping with your image. Show it to sell it. Believe me, you will make more than enough to pay for it by showcasing the Limoges or the layette items on a fixture which makes them look good, not like castoffs.

Cleaning it up is a good place to start making any sort of changes for a lot of reasons.

It’s generally non-threatening. Things can always be cleaner. It’s something “we” can all work on together, fostering the development of  comradeship between experienced and new stakeholders. People who scrub together, stick together. It’s educational. Digging deep into the recesses of a shop can bring to light old things and ideas which did or did not work, resources long forgotten about (you mean we had a three-way mirror all along?) It yields immediate results so everyone can agree that headway is being made.

Tomorrow, we’ll take the next of our 4 steps and Spruce it up.

Continue the series: Step 2, Step 3, Step 4.