Redefining Retail W.E.A.L.T.H. with Dan Holman

Dan Holman joins Pete Mohr on the podcast today to talk about creating retail wealth - even if you aren’t a retailer, there’s a lot that you can apply to your business within the conversation of this episode!

Dan has spent more than 30 years in the retail and service industries. Specializing in marketing & business development, inventory planning, operations, and customer-driven sales management. He is an award-winning business coach with a proven understanding of what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur. Dan spent 16 years in senior management and ownership roles with multi-store home fashion retailers before joining Canadian Retail Solutions as their CEO, Director of Retail Planning.

Dan works directly with clients coast to coast representing hundreds of retail categories. He is the founder of The Wealthy Retailer®, a boutique consulting firm guiding independent retailers to growth, improved profitability, and more cash.

Here are a few things we chat about:

• Retail has changed, you need to change with it!
• Set your Winning approach with proper goal setting
• Have the right team culture
• Keep your expenses in check
• Love what you do

The link for Shawn Achor's Ted Talk that Dan mentions: https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en

Here are the links for Dan:

retailbycrs.com and thewealthyretailer.com

https://www.facebook.com/thewealthyretailer 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-wealthy-retailer

https://www.instagram.com/the_wealthy_retailer

If you’re ready to transform your entrepreneurial frustrations into freedoms by cutting through the chaos and using frameworks that help you run an even better business and enjoy an even better life, simply

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

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Book a no charge Freedom Call with Pete, to see if you’re a good fit for his business coaching or talk to Pete about speaking at your next event head over to http://speaktopete.com to find a time that works for you!

Pete's Websites:

Pete-Mohr.com
The Exit Ready Business
Kolbe Coach
Simplifying Entrepreneurship

LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/petemohr/
Instagram at ...

Transcript

Dan Holmam: 0:00

You know, this leads really well into the A in wealth, it's about being admired. In retail, we have to believe in the power of admiration. And as a retail leader, I need admiration from my team, I need add from admiration from our peers, our partners. And most importantly, we need admiration from the customer, we need to be admired. And those that are successful in retail have always set out to be famous without ever saying, I want to be famous. The things that we do on our floor, leave people in admiration of us, how we serve them, how we connect with them, how we understand them, and that consequently, how we help them buy in our stores that comes from this place of admiration.

Pete Mohr: 0:51

Hey, it's Pete, and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast, the series designed to help you change your entrepreneurial worries and wants into wins by providing the tips and tools that will help you cut through the chaos and create clarity using systems that will transform your business and life as a leader. You know, it's not easy being a entrepreneur all the time. And it's not always easy being a retailer for those of you who are out in retail. And today I had the opportunity to speak with Dan Holman. He's a retail expert, been in the business for over 30 years coaching for I think about half of those now. And he works with Canadian retail solutions, and is the founder of the wealthy retailer, which is also a podcast that I've had the opportunity to be on super interesting guy. And we're going to dig into a great acronym around the word wealth. And I think for those of you who are in retail, and even for those of you who aren't, you're going to enjoy this conversation because it applies really to every business, not only retail, let's dig into it with Dan Holman. Mr. Dan Holman, welcome to the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast.

Dan Holmam: 2:09

Well, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Pete Mohr: 2:11

But it's great to have you here on the podcast and, you know, love a lot of your takes on things and interested to dig in today with a couple of ideas around defining retail wealth. And why don't you Why don't you dig into? What's that phrase mean? And that's all around? How do we define retail? Well, Dan,

Dan Holmam: 2:32

for me, retail wealth isn't about the dollars dollars are always a consequence and revenue as a consequence of, you know, success of encounter a ton of different work a bunch of different work that we do. But for wealth, it became a guiding principle for us and, and certainly something that we try to pass on to our retailers. And wealth is an acronym that we created a long, long time ago, we created an educational series that was called the wealthy retailer, and have sort of, you know, use that as a springboard in the last several years. And we redefine wealth on an ongoing basis. And for us that define meant or for me that as I work through my my retail audience, you know, what is meant by retail wealth is really just the acronym that clearly defines objectives, output, and perhaps even performance. So it starts for me with winning, winning just simply means that we keep score, we keep score to know when we're on track, or off track. And we set out to create wins, always for the external customer, of course, that we all, you know, longed to have, but also for our internal customers, our partners and ourselves, we all have to feel the consequence of winning at this game that retail is and and simply put, we keep score, we know what the score is, every single day. Energized covers off the E and it just simply means that we are energetic in the pursuit of our vision, and energetic on the floor, on our team and in our lives. And to the degree that we practice this high energy in our stores, we see that response from customers, right, we see how they respond in an energetic environment. If your store, you know, sounds a bit like a funeral home. Yeah, dead is not what we want and ourselves. Exactly.

Pete Mohr: 4:26

I mean, I love that even even in our conversations that we have, Dan, you and I, I mean, you can feel that sort of energy too. And I think that's an important piece of retail is to have everybody you know, with that sense of energy, that sense of excitement, that sense of interest, not only be interested in others, but be interesting as well. Right? Absolutely.

Dan Holmam: 4:46

And I think one of the critical points of recognition here is that energy is the demonstration of passion. Yeah, you know, the more energetic we are, it's passion that feels that energy On our retail floors, nothing is more important than being high high energy and and that level of excitement that keeps people connected to us in the store. You know, this leads really well into the A in wealth, it's about being admired. In retail, we have to believe in the power of admiration. And as a retail leader, I need admiration from my team, I need add from admiration from our peers, our partners. And most importantly, we need admiration from the customer, we need to be admired. And those that are successful in retail have always set out to be famous without ever saying I want to be famous. The things that we do on our floor, leave people in admiration of us, how we serve them, how we connect with them, how we understand them, and then consequentially how we help them buy in our stores that comes from this place of admiration.

Pete Mohr: 5:58

Yeah, like that. A big part of what we try to do with our retail stores. And for those of you that that are listening to this and don't know, we have some retail stores called utopia. And one of the things from that admiration side of things. And we do like you said, we kind of do it on the back end without publicizing a whole lot. But being a real part of the community, the different associations and the different involvements around that. And I think when you're when you were saying, you know, I never really looked at it from from the A, the the admiring perspective that you have. So I like that perspective. But I do think that that's an important piece of, especially for people that are in small town, or in those small town retailers of being a part of the community so that you can be known as, as a retailer that is admired in the community, it's a little harder to do in the bigger cities, it is, but it's still not impossible.

Dan Holmam: 6:46

But think about a bigger city being drilled that down to where your neighborhood is, you know, what's your catchment area for your store? Where do people come from, and become admired in that community? And Pete, I've heard you talk this, I've said this forever, retailers are the lifeblood of a community. And that part of that admiration is the connectivity to community, which which carries a social responsibility, doesn't know whether it's your your rotary clubs, or your Kynapse, or your kinsmen are some vulnerable members of your society, that you're out there sharing what your audience shares with you.

Pete Mohr: 7:28

Are you making every decision in your business may be feeling a little overworked and overwhelmed? Do you ever wish you had someone to go over the big decisions and entrepreneurial choices you had to make? Well, maybe this sounds familiar. Your partner at home doesn't want to hear about business anymore. And your friends don't know what the heck you're talking about. And maybe your team at work well, even though you have an open door policy, they're not always as open as you'd like them to be? Well, there's good news. I have room for two more one on one coaching clients next quarter. And, you know, here's how it works. We'll get together on Zoom either every week, or every second week to discuss the strategies and frameworks that will clarify your thinking and advance your business and entrepreneurial life. It's all about the five P's, your promise your product, your process, your people and your profit. Once they're better aligned, you'll enjoy a better life and business. Remember, you own your business and it shouldn't own you. It's time to reduce the frustrations and increase the freedoms. So if this sounds interesting, go to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash Call to book a freedom call with me and we'll see if we're right fit.

Dan Holmam: 8:45

They contribute to your well being and we need to in turn contribute to our community's well being. So certainly being admired really well said being admired has to be, you know, as part of your community as well. Cool. All right, sliding on over to L L is all about Lean. And lean is this belief in needing to slim down in everything we do. We're lean in inventory, word lean and expense, word lean, enabling us to be nimble, you know, to be able to adapt quickly to this changing landscape. And practicing this philosophy of Lean needs to be occupied in every retail store. I don't need more to do more. I have to figure out how to do more with a little bit less. And then you know I've said this dip dive dodging duck, as things are coming at me every single day. The bigger the machines aren't, you know this going through this pandemic is a pretty good example of sort of those bigger engines that are not lean. How they suffered. You know how we saw them crumble a little bit. Well, the independent retailer has thrived It's because of our Lean approach in business.

Pete Mohr: 10:04

And that one ties back to the winning part two, and where you're tracking things and doing all that stuff. And it's hard. It's hard to understand lean if you're not doing that. Right.

Dan Holmam: 10:12

Right. Right. And I think that that's part of the measurement that's part of being smart. How much do I need to achieve my goal? And whether that's in inventory, or in labor expense, or an advertising? It's how much? You know, how little do I need? Versus perhaps how much do I need, try to do a little more with a little less luck. And then retail, the T is tenacious, and retail is all about tenacity, we have to treat setbacks like they are anomalies. When we get knocked down, we get back up and we continue in the pursuit of our vision, every day in retail, especially, you know, if we're leaning on the measurement, we will recognize a bit of a setback, it's our ability to treat that setback, like a one off and keep charging towards our vision that allows us to become wealthy in retail,

Pete Mohr: 11:04

that's the big part of the leader, right, the leader has to step in and lead that charge.

Dan Holmam: 11:09

Yeah. And then lastly, in retail wealth, it's all about happiness. And I was introduced to Shawn Achor, several years ago, Shawn acre, a fabulous author, if you have five or eight minutes to kill, search out The Happiness Advantage on YouTube, he's got a great TED Talk. And we really adopted this philosophy of happiness ahead of all, in our businesses, and anybody that I've worked with, I'm very clear about, you got to be happy. First, you're happy and Shawn will sort of lead us to, to this path that we were taught to work harder becomes successful, and happiness will follow. And it's the exact opposite and in retail, you know, we we live on a roller coaster Pete, you know, we wake up in the morning at the highest of highs from yesterday's performance. And tomorrow, we'll wake up at the lowest of lows, and we have to find happiness, you know, I call it the the bipolar roller coaster in retail, the greatest retailer in the world. And tomorrow, I don't know how I'm gonna pay my rent. And that's how volatile we become. And, and by us focusing on happiness, happiness, you know, defined as a feeling of contentment and satisfaction. You know, we find happiness every day in retail, we move the needle forward,

Pete Mohr: 12:28

we become wealthy, you know, your whole team feels it around that when you have that culture of happiness. That's where things really begin to be group fun. And as opposed to individually fun. And the power of group fun. Your customers feel it, you're they come in the store, and they understand that everybody, there's happy, everybody there likes what they're doing, everybody, there's actually there to serve. It's this feeling and this power builds momentum. And I love the ancient wealth, the happiness side, that's a good one.

Dan Holmam: 12:59

And I think that leaders have to lead people, you know, it's go as I go, never go, as I say, and so you have to be this happy, upbeat, find the positive build from positivity in your stores, not negativity, we want negative, it surrounds us, if that's what we're looking for, it's everywhere. If we look for happiness, we will find opportunities that we didn't know existed. And that's got to be about every leader in your retail stores, or in any business, recognizing that they have to be followed. And it's go as you go, be happy. Now wealth will follow

Pete Mohr: 13:44

defining retail wealth, the guiding principles of simplifying retail, I love that. Well, thanks so much for being with me here. And I want to give you the opportunity to sort of let everybody know if they want to talk a little bit more, find out a little bit more about what you do, and all of that sort of stuff. So give us a little bit of how to find Denholm.

Dan Holmam: 14:03

Yeah, the easiest way to find me is the wealthy retailer.com lots of information about us there. We've got all our social channels are active. We have a weekly podcast, the wealthy retailer on all your favorite podcast platforms, Dan at the wealthy retailer.com love to chat with anyone always open for a conversation.

Pete Mohr: 14:22

Thanks, Dan. It's been great to have you here and appreciate the time today.

Dan Holmam: 14:26

Thank you have a great day. You too.

Pete Mohr: 14:32

Well, thanks so much for spending some time with Dan and I here today and think about how you can apply the acronym wealth in your business whether you're a retailer or not. I think a lot of these things really apply to every business not only retail, W is for winning, E is for energy, A is for admiration. L is for Lean T for tenacious and H for happiness. If you Just take a sheet of paper right now and put down a two or three things beside each of those. What are you doing to win? What are you doing to raise the energy? What are you doing for admiration? What are you doing to become even more lean? What are you doing around the idea of tenacity? And what are you doing around happiness, all of these things really wrapped around being a great leader, a great manager, a great entrepreneur. So love the conversation with Dan today. And that's what we're trying to do every time with every episode of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast, because after all, as I say all the time, you lead your business and it shouldn't be leading you. So remember, that clarity creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum, and it's tools like this that help you create the clarity of what you need to do, and how you're going to move that forward. So if you like the podcast, please share it with your friends, and subscribe to our simplifying entrepreneurship YouTube channel. I'd love your feedback in the comments there on YouTube and will personally respond to each one. I'm interested to hear about future topics that you'd like me to cover, and future guests also that you'd like to hear from so you can help me out by subscribing to the podcast on Spotify or Apple and rating and reviewing this episode on Apple by leaving us up to a five star review that really helps the algorithm so that we're seeing to more people so really appreciate the reviews. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook and the links are in the show notes. Lastly, you can check us out on the website at more dot coach that's mo HR dot c o ACH and until next time, make it a great day

Unknown: 16:48

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