Zu schnell expandiertes Einzelhandelsgeschäft retten

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I sell golf clubs to angry men and Yeah, a lot of that. And yeah, it's just kind of yeah, a lot of a lot of anger. But anyway, did 2.4 this last year. 5 years ago I lost my focus and decided to over-expand and I have I mean yeah, you should probably put my picture up on that

0:26>> [laughter] >> thing right there. But anyway, yeah, so I have one retail store that's been open for 36 years, one that's been open for 5 years. At the 5-year split when I did the second location, I had a key man that was amazing that allowed me to then go off and start the second one myself. I also have the internet business warehouse, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, the problem now is that over the last 3 years my sales in my original location have slowly trickled down while the one where I'm at is growing rapidly.

0:59My guys are telling me, oh, you know, it's the market, it's politics, it's tariffs, it's you know, recession, it's all this stuff and that's why we can't sell it. We've sold to everybody in our market, we're saturated, which is BS, right? There's no way they're saturated. Right? So, we're an hour and 45 minutes apart and here's where the crux of the question comes. The location that I'm at is in a tourist town, beach, lot more money, disposable income, people don't have a problem paying for our goods and services. The other location is in a much more blue collar area, old, you know, whatever. And so, they're using that as an excuse and telling me that you know, we just we've we've tapped the market, we've saturated, these people won't spend money.

1:39Right, he left. Yeah. So, it was not it was a logical decision at the time because you were appropriately talented as in the guy was good and then you left and you did another thing, things are good. He left, now it looks like over-expansion because it's like the guy's not there anymore. So, I think the the question is like what well, what would you like to do? Well, I mean, Ed wants me to bury two of the three arms in the ground and that's fine, I get it. But I just want to put I just want to put better leadership in that first store and cuz I can only be there one day a week. I can't be there often. So, I want to put better leadership in that store and/or coach up the leader that I have there now and hopefully get them back on point cuz they're I mean it's 36 years of history.

2:27Not saying that sometimes you don't have to just let something die. But we're the market leader in that market and there's no reason why we shouldn't. We're only a little bit off of our sales from a couple years ago, but we're not growing and not growing is dying in my opinion. I agree. So, options, right? So, you have get one of the guys who currently work for you at your hot location to move over.

2:52Get somebody who's at the new location, sorry, the old location who's a quote leader there to step up. Little tougher. And then you have kill everything. So, what stops you from taking somebody from your current high-performing location cuz you can always take up the slack if it's you there cuz you're there, right? And they've seen how this one's humming and working and what you're doing behind the scenes. Cuz I'll bet you if you had fresh eyes when boss isn't there, you'll find out quickly if you have a stud from location two going back to location one that they'll tell you like, oh, they're not even insert thing that's obvious that they're not doing to make money.

3:27So, the reason why I can't do that now is because my key man at the new location is leaving tomorrow when I get back to move to Atlanta. So, that's So, now I have to go hire for that. The other The other guy I lost 3 years ago and we've just sort of yeah. So, so what's really interesting about this cuz and I I didn't say this earlier, but it's I'm very little talking to whoever's asking the question and I think it more of like talking through the person to everybody else here.

3:54One of the the like business will be limited by your ability to trap attract talent. And the longer I've been in business, the higher my or the lower my bar for tolerance has been and the higher my bar for excellence has become. And so, the best talent is always in the future and that's what I always have to remind myself that every single time and I you think it's not true, but like when I look back at my team from 3 years ago to now, I'm like, my god, my team is so much better now. And at that time 3 years ago I was like, my god, this team is so much better than it was 3 years before that. And so, this the crazy thing is that 3 years from now I will look back on the team that you guys met today and be like, my god, I can't believe that was the team. And so, what's interesting about that is that the bar the bar only should go one way. And so, it sounds like you had it right like and maybe it was like you got lucky with the key man guy, but it's how do we repeat the successful action, which may mean that like not being okay with the mediocrity is the thing that's limiting the business and especially in a brick and mortar, it's half service, half products.

4:58It's probably 75% product, 25% service. But the culture of the store is still going to be dictated by the leader, right? What he or she determines to be good enough or acceptable in terms of effort. And so, you obviously have a standard and that's why that store is, you know, cranking. But you're definitely in, you know, a hard spot, so I'm not going to pretend like, okay, everything's going to be great. But you actually are more similarly in this position in the swamp because your profit margin that you have right now, you're going to have to bet on the other location to keep it alive.

5:32Alex Hopefully that was inspiring. >> [laughter] >> Well, it's like you have this much cash. It's like you got this much cash. You have to be at the one cuz the other guy is leaving. You have a hole there. We either kill it or we have to we have to invest money into it, you know? Yeah. I would just encourage you to keep the bar as high as possible and I would say that the the inkling that I've gotten when I hire now is I need to be pulled rather than thinking like, I'm in pain, I want to stop this pain. I have to it has to be I really want this person. And until and like it's an easy reminder that I put like on my on my computer if I'm doing it like a Zoom call or whatever is that I have to I have to want the person, not I have to want the pain to go away from not having a person.

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