Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged sea of sameness, small business on July 13, 2011| 1 Comment »
This article is from gaspedal.com, which I read religiously. I’d link directly to that web site, which is Internet Polite Etiquette, but they seem to having some issues today. But do visit, and get their emails… they always make me think about how ideas can be adapted to the resale and consignment industry.
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A great logo is worth (more…)
Posted in Shopkeeping talk, tagged email, small business, web on May 24, 2011| 5 Comments »
Not particularly the announcement I’d make, but you get the idea.
What do you do if you can’t easily and quickly make a page on your web site (or goodness gracious, don’t even have a web site for your consignment, thrift, resale shop!), but
MORE folks than just (more…)
Posted in I've been meaning to tell you, Shopkeeping talk, tagged small business, starting a consignment shop on May 23, 2011| 3 Comments »
“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit.
“No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was going to be when I began it. It’s just that something happened to it along the way.”
When you started out, you had a mind map for your business. It seemed like such a straight-forward business plan. But now, your strategy for your consignment shop, buy-outright boutique, or not-for-profit thrift store more closely resembles the Hundred Acre Wood rather than a treasure map. Diversions (Tigger’s Bouncing Place) and reactions to past conundrums (Where the Woozle Wasn’t) are taking up all your brain’s territory.
Posted in Not-for-Profit Resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged advertising, sea of sameness, shop local, small business on April 11, 2011| 4 Comments »
Do you publicize your good deeds and the helping hands you extend to a broad spectrum of local assistance?
It’s one thing to donate clothes to a church’s free clothing pantry or to give $1 per bag sold at your bag sale to the emergency shelter. It’s another thing to let your marketplace know that you are fully vested in, and active with, people helping people right here at home. That, when they patronize your business, they are taking part in a network of loving concern that reaches not only their lives, but their neighbors’ as well.
Toot your horn. Modesty only becomes those who sit back and don’t do anything to interweave their lives with others’.
Be bold in declaring that when folks do business with you, it benefits not just them, but also your community. Step up and say
Posted in economics of resale, Shopkeeping talk, tagged display, small business, starting a consignment shop on March 31, 2011| 2 Comments »
Tara brought a new way of communicating a very important concept to Sharing, the TGtbT discussion board for resale professionals, the other day.
I’m a details person, meaning I like all the details to be done and done right. HOWEVER, I don’t have time to take care of every detail myself. Because payroll is a difficult one for me, I hire that one out and take care of the ones myself that are inside my “talent circle”…things I’m good at, that I can handle quite well myself, and that focus my physical, emotional, and mental energy in a way that makes me have MORE energy, not draining me of energy (like payroll and acct’ng stuff does).
Is it an expense I could get rid of? Yes. But at what cost?! In the beginning years of my biz, I wouldn’t have “splurged” on such a thing. Today it is a necessity to hire out some things that deplete me or just eat up my time, taking me away from the things that ONLY I can do. Hope that helps!
I love that phrase, talent circle…and even more, I love the concept. Why, indeed, do things that drain you of energy? Farm them out to someone who does it better and with more ease than you do, and spend your energies doing what YOU do BEST. When you are free, time-wise, mentally, imagination-wise, to do what you do best… you earn the right (and you are free to earn the cold cash) to hire someone to do what s/he does best, to take the load of onerous tasks off you.
How many consignment and resale and even charitable thrift shops (with their supportive corporate boards), have not reached their potential, or even totally failed because they didn’t focus on their circles of talent, but instead slogged through the sucking quicksands of things they were not good at/ hated/ held them down from soaring to the heights of their true talents?
Tara owns Born Again Resale & Consignment in Idaho.
Too Good to be Threw is the flagship site of the TGtbT Family of Sites for the Professional Resalers
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 