The Gray Cat Blog
A comprehensive collection of blogs designed to assist small business owners and multi-unit operators.
You may think about your business 24/7, but chances are your customers do not. Hard to believe, right?
I am a big believer that the successful businessperson is always considering how they can “conne...
Customers who may have patronized your new store when it first opened may now be looking past it due to familiarity of surroundings. Savvy retailers need to shake it up a bit on occasion to continue t...
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!” – – from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
As a small business owner, you may wonder why one wo...
Recently, I celebrated my nineteen-year anniversary as a management consultant. It has always been a life-long dream of mine to be on my own and in 2004 I realized that goal. I had spent some twenty y...
“Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think that their children are naive.” – Ogden Nash
Children have been marketed to for years. Retail industry titans have recognized that targeting ...
When it comes to managing a profitable operation, knowing your key financial drivers of the store is paramount. Developing a “Four-Wall Analysis” is a helpful tool to better understanding both revenue...
Eureka! A new product is born!
Created in your kitchen or the garage, it is your dream, your vision. It’s your baby. Now what? How does one go about selling the product through the retail channel? Se...
“Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs the T-shirt. Spaceballs the lunchbox. Spaceballs the coloring book. Spaceballs… the flamethrower! Kids love it. A...
As you have probably gathered from reading my other articles, I am a firm believer in planning for success. Whether it is operational excellence, de-branding a store or outlining your procedures and p...
There comes a time in every multi-unit retailer’s business cycle that they want to launch a new product that requires a reconfiguration to their store. I am not talking about a raze-and-rebuild, but r...
Whether this is your first industry convention or you are a seasoned pro, I am a firm believer that establishing a well-thought out plan in advance of attending an industry convention is key for optim...
Growing your enterprise can usually be accomplished following two paths: a) organic growth – the process of building your overall portfolio of stores through the development of ground-up store build o...
