The Gray Cat Blog
A comprehensive collection of blogs designed to assist small business owners and multi-unit operators.
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...
“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...
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...
“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...
Establishing a Franchise Advisory Council (FAC) as a formal communications system to ensure franchisees input with regard to store marketing and operations is a natural stepping-stone for a growing...
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...
Labor management is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of running a profitable business. Servicing the customer with too few people on staff and sales will be negatively impacted as...
Upon opening their first store, many single-store operators come to an often premature conclusion that they are going to franchise. While this may be a noble end-game goal, what is often missing...
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...
“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!...
Organic growth by a retailer is an exciting time for the company. Reinvesting earnings into the expansion of their branded stores through new construction communicates that a) business has been...
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...
