Retail Store Managers Matter

When I think about the success of any team I tend to think about star players with the most visibility. The CEO, the Founder, the pitcher, quarterback or the star goal scorer. Everyone knows their names and they get all the glory. It’s just the way it works.

However, the best and most successful stars understand that their success is built on the backs of their key lieutenants and teammates. Wayne Gretzky, famous for skating to where the puck will be said “I think that from the time you start playing sports as a child you see that your responsibility to your team is to play the best that you can play as an individual… and yet, not take anything away from being part of a team.”

That’s because teammates matter.

Richard Branson the Founder of Virgin Group has talked about how important delegating has become as he manages his sprawling, multi-brand empire. “As much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.”

Trust and delegation matter.

Bricks and mortar retail operations, or any multi-location business relies on strong location and store management. I’ve found that while no one will argue with that statement, the reality is that managing a distributed workforce is challenging at best. Given the realities of the retail business, maintaining a strong local workforce, minimizing reducing turnover and driving success is as challenging as ever.

I spend as much time as I can talking to store managers and thinking about their daily lives – and how to make things better, faster and more efficient. I recently stumbled onto a blog post Gallup wrote in 2010 that delivers a powerful and important message:

Stores that have a strong manager outperform other stores. The impact store managers have can’t be overstated. They set the tone for the entire store and dramatically influence key performance metrics. – Gallup.com

Store Managers matter.

Those 3 sentences say it all. Store managers matter, a lot. They are the ones growing store sales month after month. They are the ones assigned to revive a distressed location or tasked with reinvigorating staff in an underperforming district. They are the ones quite literally opening the doors for your customers. 

This chart, from the Gallup blog post shows clearly that the right store manager matters.

Gallup Poll Results

What can you do?

What are you doing in your organization today to provide your store managers with the right tools at the right time to help them get the job done and drive your business? Retail operations executives can take a fresh look at how you are serving your store managers and think about how you can arm them with modern, mobile powered tools designed for the way they work – on the, on the floor with your customers. 

SpendBoss:

SpendBoss provides a platform that enables local store management to be more efficient while delivering corporate headquarters control, oversight and analytics to drive down costs and streamline store communications. The end result is that your store managers will have more time for the sales floor and high value activities – more time mattering.

Want to learn more? We’d love to give you a live demonstration of SpendBoss
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