Falling in love all over again ... with your store

The other night was magical. We enjoyed a good wine, listened to great music and danced the night away long after the clock had struck midnight. No, this wasn't a night out with my husband but a wonderful night in ... with my store.

We all get to the point where our shops look, well, shoddy. It's not that our employees can't make the displays look beautiful or that the new merchandise isn't catching our clients' eyes. It's just that in the all-encompassing game of retail, you can't always rely on trustworthy, paid employees to do what you have in your heart and soul, something that costs you nary a dime — expressing your own creativity.

My realization came a few weeks ago when I entered my shop and instead of my usual frantic in-and-out "Did anyone call me?" and "What's my next appointment?" type of communication with my employees, I had a rare window of time. I walked around MY store; the store I built with nothing but passion and a belief in what I could do, and saw it looked pretty sad. Don't get me wrong; we have the most amazing merchandise anyone could ask for. The attention to the merchandise had simply been overlooked in the daily grind of checking in boxes, marking off purchase orders, making tags and all of those non-romantic things we all must do to bring product to the selling floor. So what happened to that romance? I asked myself, was the spark still there between my store and me? With that, I made a date with my store and opened my eyes to the fact I hadn't been keeping up my end of the bargain.

As retailers, we began our careers with stars in our eyes. We would bring the most beautiful product to our selling floor, carefully display it and make it irresistible to our clientele. Just as newlyweds would rather overlook yucky details of life such as paying bills and doing laundry, we retailers truly believed in the beginning this love affair with the concept of our shop would sustain us and always be exciting. Fast forward to the present and just try to squeeze in a few hours where you can revel in being surrounded by new product and have nothing but time and money to plan the displays and merchandising needed to sell it. Yes, reality bites!

It's easy to start relying on re-orders and to expect all of those gorgeous goodies to continue to fly out the doors, but just as in any relationship, it takes two to tango. As I say over and over again in my seminars and in my book expecting your clients to buy rarely works, but encouraging them to do so almost always does. I had become the negative version of my own example, expecting the merchandise to sell itself with no input from me.

I'm the first one to say it's hard to wear all the hats necessary to run any type of retail business, and very easy to take shortcuts when they are presented. Our shops feel the difference in less than fabulous displays and a lackluster presentation all around. The good news is that those of us who are savvy enough to realize that love conquers all know all it takes is some uninterrupted time with our stores to make that romance come alive again.

So, I kept my date with my store. I had revolving CDs of Rod Stewart, Discolicious and a little bit of AC/DC just to keep me on my toes and I blasted the stereo, danced myself silly and redesigned each and every square inch of my shop until the wee hours of the morning. Was I exhausted the next day? Absolutely. Did my sales show the fruits of my labor? You'd better believe it! My employees were totally psyched once they saw how the vignettes had been lovingly recreated; I had a chance to reconnect with my merchandise and see what had been selling, what I needed and what should be ordered. My clients fell in love all over again with their favorite store, just as I had. A day or two of feeling a bit bleary was minimal considering the maximum impact I had on my store and my relationship with it.

Just as we all need a little TLC to keep us jump-started, so do our stores. Think of time spent on your store as the way you feel after an especially delicious pedicure. You could set the world on fire with your pearly red toes, right? Our shops deserve our input, and we as retailers need to remember why we decided to make the plunge into this crazy, frustrating and oh so fabulous world in the first place. It was a wise man (or woman) who once said you should love what you do, and expect the riches to follow. If we fall in love all over again with our stores, how can we not succeed? Live well, love much and watch your cash registers ring all the way to the bank. Happy selling!