Leading in Retail

The Humor and Art of Retail Leadership

Brian Travilla

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781643507682
• eBook ISBN: 9781643507699
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Today's retail climate is fierce. There has never been such a competitive retail front that is forcing companies to try nearly anything to survive. This is why leadership plays such a pivotal role. The Humor and Art of Retail Leadership brings us a compelling lesson as to why there is indeed a difference between management and leadership. Also taking a deep dive into personal development, self-reflection, and homage to all the retail workers and leaders who have survived the clopen. From

Chapter One

Why Retail?: Defining a Pathway for Challenge and Success

High expectations are the key to everything.

—Sam Walton, founder of Walmart

Retail is kind of a funny business. I can’t think of a business more up and down than retail sales. Thinking about how nearly everything hinges on the retail sector market, from stocks to GDP, retail has its hands in nearly everything. Yet within the retail world, there is quite a diverse segment of employees.

Let’s start with my humble and rather blissful beginnings: the hourly associate. None more valuable, the hourly associate clearly is the mortar that binds the bricks of any retailer. I was hired as a part-time housewares associate in 1992 for the ripe hourly wage of $4.50. This job was grueling. I was simply associate no. 98611 working in a large department store. I had earned a 9 before my true associate number due to the fact I could earn a small commission if, and that is if I sold a warranty on small home appliances and ceiling fans. I would ask every customer, “For $4.99, this $19.99 toaster is covered for two years! Would you like to add this to your toaster?” The customer typically replied, “No!” Needless to say, I was a grunt that felt quite defeated each time I offered this gosh-darn warranty. I would often gaze at the full-time commission associates (typically people in their mid- to late forties) and wonder just how they got that far up in the store. I would retreat back to my dungeon of a department as I only had six pallets of freight to process within my 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. shift.

Those commission-based associates would earn more from one sale than I would earn in a week, breaking my back, wearing a tie I had no clue how to tie. (Back in those days, my dear millennials, neither Google nor the internet was around to learn this kind of stuff.) So a square knot it was. Yet I was, and continue to be, a dreamer and said to myself, “One day, I will be their boss.” How ignorantly cocky of me to skip over the sales portion and go right to boss, eh? So I banged out pallet after pallet and quickly realized this was clearly not for me. Those darn splinters you get when you have to pick the pallet up are just brutal. Oh, be careful of the nails too.

Another one of my duties included mixing paint, and I absolutely hated this task. Imagine it is a Saturday, and some great DIY dude walks in and says, “I want six gallons of exterior paint, and I want um . . . eh . . . errs . . . this color.” “Right away, sir,” I kindly replied. When I approached this 1947 manual death trap of a paint mixer, it never worked. I would mix the paint precisely as how I was taught in thirty-second training seminar, and the color never matched. After about nine or so gallons, I got it right. “Danger! Danger! Boss en route!” Just as I conquered the paint, my boss would literally chew me out for damaging so much paint tint. I received a good old-fashioned threat, yell, nearly a scream, and “Fix it next time or you’re fired” chew-out. Let’s just forgo the root-cause analysis and go right to personally threatening a sixteen-year-old that was working like a rented mule. I then officially fell in love with retail.

As time passed, I learned the value of communication with customers. In fact, those darn warranties were a personal challenge to me. No one sold too many, and I was determined to sell these versus work pallets. (Could this be the start of critical thinking? Let’s not get too confident just yet.) I quickly learned why customers buy things and found the right way to simply offer the right solution: they officially needed a two-year replacement warranty! I was able to start conversations with customers three times my age on the proper usage of a fan or toaster and connect the dots of ease and convenience with our warranty. In fact, I made it a goal to sell a minimum of five warranties per shift. Funny thing is, when my sixteen-year-old mind established a goal, I started to meet this additional sale challenge. I watched my fellow compadres work freight like crazy, and I volunteered to help those “pesky” customers. Whenever I saw customers, I would jump to help them. My peers would laugh and oddly keep working while I marathoned customers as long as I could. I sold so many warranties that my boss approached me and asked what I was doing differently. I simply replied, “I’m ensuring they get what they need versus what they want.” He didn’t believe me as he snarled and walked away. Remember, I earned roughly a quarter to fifty cents for each warranty I sold, so now I was making some serious money. I was averaging $6.00 per hour versus my laborious peers at $4.50. Hmmm, goals. I was starting to learn that hard work is great, but selling and talking to customers is far better!

My store manager even made the rare appearance from his office to ask me (impersonally looking at my name tag prior to talking), “How are you selling these warranties?” I offered the same reply, and he simply said, “Nice job. One day when you are older, you can sell in the commission departments.” I said, “Thanks, sir, but I would rather manage the department.” He didn’t talk to me again.

This was a humbling lesson for me at a very young age. While I had the vision to lead early in my career, I didn’t see (yet) the value in earning my way to the top. This might sound a bit old-fashioned, but working your way from the basement on up is an admiral approach. Mind you, it is the long way around the lake, yet it offers a great deal of experience.

I eventually started to sell as a 100 percent commission sales associate. No more pallets! Talk about competitive. I was eighteen and selling furniture with the big dogs, the alpha males and females. How could this be difficult? Perhaps I overlooked a small data point. I didn’t even own any furniture at eighteen years old. I was still living under the wing of my mother. Nonetheless, it was my time to shine. I learned quickly to make conversation with people and practice one key attribute of salesmanship: you must always use your name when you introduce yourself to anyone that is a potential customer. Why? People will feel more comfortable with people they know. Your name is the first and foremost path to comfort within a sale.

Let me give you the playing field so you can understand the nature of this business. On any given Saturday or Sunday, there were at least ten to fifteen sales associates all vying for the same dollar. Many of these sales associates have families, bills, dreams, and responsibilities. Here I am, eighteen, with nothing to lose. Needless to say, I wasn’t the fan favorite. Working on commission teaches you a few things.

1. Get comfortable shoes.
2. Your feelings are left in the break room.
3. The first no from a customer always means there is a need for more information in order to make a buying decision.
4. The best customers always visit you on your lunch, and some other lucky person gets your sale.
5. People come and go.

I had to quickly learned how to sell and make money. Yet I wasn’t satisfied. I felt the desire to lead and coach my fellow salespeople. Even though I was young and rather ignorant, I knew I wanted to lead others versus sell products. There was one problem though. Our department had just received a new manager, and she was determined to make a big splash, and I was sure to get a promotion. Damn. I continued to sell, make a great paycheck, and watch every move this new manager was making. In time, it was clear that this manager was not enjoying herself. She was more accustomed leading noncommissioned associates. She did not have the tough conversations to getting into the guts of the business. The sales force was eating her for lunch. Leading commission associates is similar to being a prison guard in the jail yard. Only the strongest survive.

After about a year, I was still selling and skipping lunches to catch the pesky customer that always seemed to visit during this time. But now I was a fully functional, mildly successful, and cocky-as-the-day-is-long nineteen-year-old young man. I had seen it all, or so I had thought. From near fistfights to associates smoking too many cigarettes to more BS stories than I could handle, I was indeed ready to earn that shiny gold name tag, Manager. One day I came to work and was ready to start my shift. My now fourth store manager called me to his office and asked if I was happy with the company. I replied with a subdued, “Yes.” He asked me if I felt I was ready to be a manager. I exclaimed, “Yes!” He made a phone call and confirmed with I suspect was a regional or district manager and then looked at me and stated that I was now the manager of the second largest department within the store. All for a significant salary of twenty-five thousand dollars. I instantly responded with, “I accept, and thank you.” I was in what I will call thirteenth grade at a local community college, and as I accepted this new position, I was delighted to immediately drop out of college and start my rocket-launched career as a manager at approximately nineteen and a half years old.

As you can imagine, all my coworkers now instantly hated me. I was the person in charge and could tell them what to do and when to do it. I will admit I was cautious to let any type of power go to my head, for by nature, I am a pretty mild dude. Everyone still hated me because I was now a manager and no longer a friend or coworker. This was a trying time for me personally and quite isolating. Opening, closing, working all the time by myself, and watching my friends always going out after work was hard. I had to decline any offer to join because I was their leader and wasn’t permitted to mix with the employees. This granted me time to reflect on my past and build a plan for my future. Keep in mind, I had left school to be a full-time manager and felt my life was coming together professionally in a very rich way. Yet my personal life was imbalanced and, well, very lonely.

As I was ascending through the junior ranks of management, I started to tackle more complex issues that continued to develop my technical skills. An absolutely fantastic regional vice president (whom, to this very day, I admire and owe such a great deal of gratitude to) observed me during a store visit and saw a glimmer of hope. I was being sent to other stores to help with merchandising and sales education. Then I was assigned to work with newly promoted managers on the basic training of how to be a manager. Wow. How in the heck did I land this? Here I was at twenty years old teaching! My regional vice president at that time must have seen some kind of potential in me as I was making the journey to becoming a leader.

I flew to Chicago to visit my father late summer of 1997. I was eager to visit a store within my company located near his home office, wanting to see a big store in a big city. I was amazed that this store was two stories and had more associates than I had ever seen. To my delight, I saw a former peer manager in Florida that had transferred to Chicago. We caught up, and I shared just how amazed I was with the glamour of the big city and the intensity of the business. Growing up in Florida, we just didn’t move this fast. My friend said that he had heard that human resources was looking for candidates to transfer to Chicago. In a reflective and quite naive manner, I burst out, “I would transfer here in a heartbeat.”

On the Wednesday prior to Black Friday of 1997, I received a phone call from a human resources manager asking me if I had expressed an interest in moving to Chicago. “Yes,” I said. She then offered me a position as a large department manager at a store that was going through a large remodel to chart a new course for the company within Chicago. I paused for roughly three microseconds before replying, “I accept.”

Within an instant, my life changed in nearly every possible way.

We will get back to me a bit later. For now, let’s move on to learning more about the differences between leaders and managers.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

—Plato

Chapter Two

Managing versus Leadin...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19