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Grow your business through employee training, improving company communication and morale and inspect what you expect through mystery shopping reviews.

The Race to the Bottom

As reported in the business-news aggregator service Morning Brew, “Kohl’s stock fell as much as 18% after it missed Q3 earnings and slashed its fiscal 2019 profit outlook. CEO Michelle Glass blamed a race to the bottom for promotions and warmer weather in September.” Retail news this week hasn’t been…
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Lessons from Nike’s Amazon Departure

Earlier this week, Nike announced that the company will no longer sell its products through Amazon, saying, “As part of Nike’s focus on elevating consumer experiences through more direct, personal relationships, we have made the decision to complete our current pilot with Amazon Retail.” That pilot program began back in…
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A Service-First Sales Culture

According to a Gallup poll, as quoted in Shep Hyken’s article, “Five Ways Salespeople Can Contribute To A Great Experience,” salespeople are the lowest ranked profession outside of members of Congress. That there’s such a large negative sentiment to overcome for successful sales is a bitter pill to swallow. As…
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Does Your Business Offer Enough Upgrades?

Unless you’re running a charity or volunteering, most business owners are in the game to make a profit, and most of your employees work to earn a salary. Enhancing your business’s sales are crucial to making both goals a reality, so let’s take a look at how you can encourage…
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Why Should You Be a Mystery Shopper?

If you’ve ever thought about becoming a mystery shopper, but aren’t entirely sure whether it’s right for you, here are some reasons you might want to give it a go: Try New Things One of the most exciting benefits of mystery shopping is that it’ll often lead you to restaurants…
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What the Filet-O-Fish Teaches Us About Competitive Intelligence

Do you know the story behind McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish? For a restaurant chain the specializes in burgers and a handful of chicken products, the inclusion of this one seafood item sure looks sticks out on the company’s nationwide menu. To learn why, you needn’t look any further than Today I Found…
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Selling Your Business Culture to Job Candidates

Inertia is a powerful force—not just in physics but also in people’s lives. As such, you might not be surprised to learn that your potential new hires often need more than the lure of higher pay and better benefits to make the move from another business to yours. After all,…
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Sourcing and Sorting Your Job Candidates

Last week, we took a look at developing a hiring scorecard, a way to analyze your different staffing positions so you can develop the right criteria for filling them. Because a strong team will differentiate your business from the rest of your competitors, let’s continue taking a look at Zach…
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The Hiring Scorecard

We’ve long maintained that your staff is one of the chief differentiators that separates your business from the rest in the competitive landscape. As we wrote back in 2017, “having a great staff will empower your business to offer great customer service, to offer a personal touch that seems so…
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How to Compartmentalize

Considering that most managers work in excess of forty hours each week, it’s no wonder that separating work life from your home life is such a challenge. How can anyone avoid mixing the stresses of one with the other? No one wants to take a tough day at work home…
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Three Simple Tweaks for Better Customer Service

Whatever your business’s wares, whether cuisine, cars, groceries, or something else, your first and most important product is your customer service. How your customers are treated and the impression they’re left with when they leave are the most important factors for both repeat patronage and evangelism. Your impressive selection of…
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Good Habits Are the Fuel that Drives Your Success

As George Brontén states in his article, Why Your People Keep Missing Quota—And What to Do About It, “goals are more often missed than attained.” He explains, “Goals, without underpinning habits” are “bad for you.” Why are they bad? The Problem of Goals Without Habits To summarize, Brontén argues that…
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