My Favourite Podcast Episode — and How It Has Helped My Business (Part 2)
Picking up where we left off in my first journal, My Favourite Podcast Episode — and How It Has Helped My Business (Part 1), I’ll jump straight back into the rest of Robin Sharma’s points!
Release Magic — and Nothing Else
As Sharma says in , It’s all about the product. Sharma states: “Release only MAGIC”. In other words: put out only pure poetry. This touched me so deeply we actually had a mural created in our office with this exact wording, “release poetry”.
Jen and I see hundreds if not thousands of products every sourcing trip. It’s so tempting sometimes to pick something off the shelf at our factories and include it in the range. However, we’ve learnt over the years that near enough is never good enough. If a product just does the job it never works for us. Our best products are those we’ve spent loads and loads of time perfecting, by going back and forth with the mould maker or the production team to make it perfect. We tweak and tweak and then tweak again!
The same applies for you. You must see thousands of products every trade fair, get sent endless amount of emails and catalogues and be chased to view new ranges all the time! And of course price is tempting and we all need to make a good margin to survive. But you know what ends up on the sale counter are usually items where the magic just isn’t there. Let your store release only magic!
Fave quote: “Create a cult around your products!” (I think we may have done this with our face vase range!)
All the Feels
The next topic is around creating a truly human experience in store. And this starts with hiring people who love people! We all need to create connection and belonging and this starts with the person working in your store.
I used to work for Ralph Lauren in my early twenties as a Merchandiser and Trainer. Part of our training when we opened new stores was to never let the customer leave empty handed. They should feel when they came into an RL store that they were coming home.
I witnessed this core company belief when, many years later, I visited a RL store in Chicago while on holiday. One of the sales consultants was chatting to me and asked where I was going to be eating whilst visiting the Windy City. I mentioned a restaurant we were going to that night. Cut to a few hours later and when we arrived at the restaurant, the manager said, “Richard from RL called ahead. We’ve given you the best table in the house and the first round of cocktails is on him.”
I didn’t even buy anything in the store that day!! But when I left Chicago I went to the RL store and bought gifts for the friends I had been staying with. It left such a remarkable impression on me that I still get warm feelings about that human experience, over 20 years later.
We all have the power to make someone’s day, especially in a customer-facing role. Push your store to make human connection and belonging one of your key goals.
Protect the House, Not Just from Copycats
Robin Sharma’s final point rings so true to me. And it is this – Protect the House. This is all about how when you are at the top of your game and really in the flow then there will inevitably be those who copy you. Want to guess why? Well, everyone copies the best.
I think we do pretty well in protecting our house and that isn’t with legalities such as patents, copywrites and trademarks. It is with you, our customers, who stay loyal and believe in us.
It’s in our choice of not spending our time obsessing over copycats but rather using that energy to create more magic. And it’s with the unspoken agreement with so many people who believe in doing the right thing and will buy from us rather than the imitators. So thank you for your loyalty!
Fave quote: One of the DNAs of legendary is originality.
I’ll sign off here with one of Robin’s favourite abbreviations.
NSI = NEVER STOP IMPROVING.
Keep up that obsessive attention to detail and relentless improvements. That’s how you build a world-class company!
With love, matcha and wine
JJ
As always, if you have any specific questions or topics you’d like to me to write about, drop me a line!