The Gray Cat Blog
A comprehensive collection of blogs designed to assist small business owners and multi-unit operators.
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...
Evaluating new sites for the multi-unit operator can be a daunting task.  The operator is constantly chasing a number of potential opportunities only to have a few select sites come to fruition.  Comp...
Come on, admit it. You wish you were a better networker. Fear not, it is time to unleash your inner networker.
Networking is one part art and one part discipline and while there is more than one way ...
Convenience store operators continue to plunge into foodservice with the hopes of stemming the tide of lower margins with high-margin foodservice offerings. While the degrees of foodservice can vary g...
With every passing day, month and year, better for you foodservice options continue to infiltrate the convenience store industry.  Slowly but surely, the convenience store industry is broadening its f...
