Danny the Desk Sitter As the off season approaches, we realize that our employees who are working the winter months will not have near the customers as they do in peak season. Do you have a Danny working for you? Is it really okay that we pay our staff over the winter to sit at…
Preparing for the Year End Inventory Because inventory makes up more than half of your assets, Inventory control is a key component to running your business as lean as possible. Dynamic inventory management will maximize your cash flow provided that you are committed to managing the process. Sales, profitability and cash flow are directly related…
Make Year End Physical Inventory Less Agonizing Year end physical inventory is the process of having your staff physically count your pool & spa business’ entire inventory to ensure an accurate accounting figure on your tax return. This also provides an accurate starting inventory for the upcoming season and insight into discrepancies. These updated counts…
Don’t Let Your Employees Be ZombiesI love watching Zombies on TV… not in my store! The Walking Dead is my favorite TV show. The story is spine-chilling, the characters are engaging and the zombies are creepily well done. However, I certainly don’t want the walking dead in my retail stores taking care of my customers…
Handling Hard to Please Customers How you and your staff handle hard to please customers in your pool and spa business can make or break whether they are a returning customer or someone who will bad mouth and complain about your company. One of the meetings and training sessions that I like to have with…
Play Ball! A few years ago I was trying to think of what would really motivate my pool and spa staff. What could I offer them that would really excite them to increase sales? They all work on commission, but I wanted to instill a fun atmosphere that drove them just a little but harder.…
Know Your Margins You can have a growing pool and spa business, but without adequate profit margins, your growth efforts really take you nowhere. It is important you know your margins and know them by product or service type. You want to be sure you are promoting and selling your highest margin products and services…
Wheel of Success For many years, I have run my pool and spa business and my software company based on my own variation of the Balanced Scorecard strategic planning and management system. My version adds inventory to the other four components of my vision and strategy. I personally feel that inventory has a life of…
Why Creating a Marketing Plan is Important Companies that are successful in marketing invariably start with a well thought written marketing plan. It may be half a dozen pages or three dozen pages, or more. Things change, markets evolve, and customers come and go so your plan should be done in advance for one year.…
How To Have Fun With Training Consumers will be more apt to choose your store before purchasing online or at a big box store if you have a knowledgeable staff and exceptional customer service. To implement a complete training program you must commit to a written plan to coordinates dates, various locations, trainers, topics, presentations,…
