Sometimes it feels like I’m dispensing silver bullets and magic pills.
As a resale consultant I get a lot of requests from shopkeepers asking my opinion on something that’s bothering them. I’m always hesitant to.
give lengthy opinions because I don’t want them to blindly follow any general advice. If I knew more about their shop, my advice would be much more targeted. But thoroughly knowing their situation means hours and hours of consultation work and not all shopkeepers want to invest in the effort of being a consultee.
I am leery of offering silver bullets to my peers. What’s a silver bullet? That’s when a shopkeeper thinks if she just does one thing, all the werewolves will die.
For example, if someone asks how she can get more customers and I suggest she use her business Facebook page in a specific way, she’ll think that will solve all the reasons why she doesn’t have enough traffic. If she’d invested in a consultation, though, I could have delved further and realized that she doesn’t, for example, have consumer-friendly hours or that she doesn’t use her mailing lists.
The “silver bullet” she thinks I gave her is just one aspect of her problem, not the complete solution.
And there’s another danger in asking for a quick and easy solution, that the recipient will think she’s been given a miracle pill. Just swallow it whole, and all the bad stuff will go away? Actually, you encounter people using that miracle pill thinking all the time.
How often have you mentally rolled your eyes when some person in your shop says “I could open a shop like this…
… I LOVE garage sales!”
…or maybe it’s some self-proclaimed big shot who says “I own a warehouse that’s just sitting empty, so
… I should open a used furniture store.”
The miracle pill they believe in? Love or financial break. Neither of which, as you well know, is near enough to succeed in resale.
“Miracle pills” swallowed whole isn’t a prescription I’d want to hand out. Just owning my manual, for example, isn’t gonna send your kids to college or you on a world cruise. Just like the vitamin pills my DuH buys me, they
“…don’t do any good in the bottle.”
In other words, use the manual daily and supplement your specific diet with our Products for the Professional Resaler, taken as needed.
Oh, and don’t swallow whole the loving advice you get from relatives, or the off-hand comment by a customer either. “I think you should…” might be a great idea… just don’t expect the nugget of wisdom to solve all your problems in one fell swoop.
Apply all remedies to the holistic entity your business is.
What silver bullets or magic pills did you swallow, and how did that work out for you? Comment below, if you like.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
We have used Kate’s advice for years. The set markdown schedule stops the stupid pricing questions dead in the water and prevents the flea-market style dickering people from bothering me. I just tell them that we have a set markdown schedule and IF that item is still here at the set time, it will be marked down. It becomes their choice whether to wait or not and, most of the time, they buy the item.
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Kate, I am going to ask for your expert help before my hair goes any grayer! I am getting really frustrated at the people that ask me to mark things down and give them a discount. So far I have been VERY nice about it but I am ready to explode at the next one that asks me. I have signs posted that prices are firm, but fat lot of good it does. My prices are fair for my town and granted I am not high end but 75% of my stuff still has the tags on it. I am really picky on what I take and most people are glad that I am, but there’s always two or three that want me to mark my stuff down and to give them a discount or ask me why I have this priced at that and so on. I am getting very frustrated and I am really close to not being nice. Did this happen at your store and if it did, how did you handle it?
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Martha, it’s easy to get your dander up when people ask you to reduce your prices; I know, it irked me too. But perhaps keeping in mind that these people are NOT saying “your prices are too high”… they’re saying “I don’t want to pay that but I want it” will help you keep it all in perspective. In other words, it isn’t you, it’s them, so no need to fret. A simple response to “will you take less for this” is a smile, a rueful shake of the head, and a quiet “no” will suffice.
As for what I did in my shop? Since I had set, scheduled markdowns, I’d simply say “Well, if you’d like to take a chance that no one else wants this item, it will get marked down in a while.” That satisfied me (I never HAD to say NO, just give them an alternative) and it gave them what they needed… a chance to say “fine I’ll wait” or a graceful out of “well, I GUESS I like it well enough to pay FULL PRICE”… to which I’d reply “Good choice. It’s worth every penny.”
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The magic pill I use is called Auntie Kate’s blog. It reminds me that the first year may be hard, but if all these ladies are making it then I just have to keep tweeking until I get my formula right for my area. I just bought your guide for pricing (and I’m wondering why each one I buy I feel like I’ve just been hit with a non-stupid stick) and I’m hoping to clean up my intake process and learn to say no better. I’m so bad at saying no that it’s gotten me behind. (At least I acknowledged I had a problem BEFORE I bought that tractor trailor…lol. Glad I’m not that FAR gone.) So, really, no pill, just a few bricks of rock hard knowledge to the head now and then.
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I do whatever your Manuel tells me to do. I will stray away a little but I always take a lead line and never spend too much money. We just celebrated our 1 year birthday. We have many new friends and adopted family members. Couldn’t have done it without you!
Cyndi Schmidt
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