Time Saver

Originally published in InStore Magazine, February 2007

Store owners complain of having to spend all their time in the store. Usually they think the problem is with the staff they have. As soon as they leave the store their cell phones start ringing with staff asking them questions they think they should know the answers to. Does this sound like your store?

There is hope. Consider any popular franchise. All franchises have a detailed operations manual to instruct the staff how to do the day-to-day work. What you need is an operations manual for your store.

A good place to start is to think about what kinds of questions your staff asks you repeatedly. The following are common questions:

• Who do I call to order a certain product?
• How do I write up this type of finance contract?
• What should the markup be?
• What is the trade-in or consignment policy?
• How do I ship an order ?

These are just some examples of what a new employee might ask, or what a seasoned employee such as a bookkeeper might need to know when helping a customer when the sales staff is busy.

It is not enough to train your staff by explaining everything individually. Most people will only remember a fraction of what you tell them, and you're not likely to teach each of them the same thing every time. When you're out of the store and your staff has a question, let them look under the appropriate tab in the training manual you have created for them in a three-ring binder. Why a three-ring binder? When you think of something else, you can easily update the manual. Developing an operations manual is definitely a work in progress. Don't be afraid of the size of the task. Enlist your staff to help you. This is a great way to get them to think about store procedures.

The more you document, the more freedom you will have. If you do this, soon you will be able to take a well deserved vacation. While you're gone, you won't have to worry about whether your staff knows what to do. Best of all, the work will get done your way. Putting detailed procedures in place helps to ensure you don't have all of your staff doing the work their own way. This is especially important if you have staff members who have worked in retail stores before.