Recently I took my son Trent to purchase more school uniform items. He's a growing (very fast) 13 year old, and it was time for more clothing. When the school pants no longer drag on the ground and the hem barely reaches his ankles you know it is time.
Anyhow we went to a school uniform shop nearby which we hadn't previously been to. Trent insisted we go there as they apparently stocked the longer sports shorts he wanted and the usual place we went to didn't have them.
Well what an experience it was. Firstly the shop was in a time warp. They had probably been there for decades and nothing internally had changed. You didn't know who the staff were, in fact when we finally found them they looked like they had been dragged out of bed to come to work. The only exception was the older lady who seemed to be the boss. The girls who were in their early 20's looked scruffy and were very unhelpful. They stood around watching the older lady work and only did something when she asked them to. They had no initiative whatsoever and you had to (or should I say I had to) tell them what to do.
The older lady later told me that the actual owner of the business, never listened to her suggestions to make improvements, in fact he hardly ever visited the store.
Actually it was interesting watching her in action. In her position she could have taken charge and taught those girls how to deal with the customers and let them use their initiative. Even though she was disgruntled about the owner, she could have changed her own situation. Because she appeared to be the only person who knew about the stock and styles that would suit, she was run off her feet with the customers. The least she could have done was to organise the girls so that one was at the counter handling the sales and returning stock to the shelves and the other one assisting her with the customers' needs.
The amount of money this business could have been making if it was run properly would be enormous.There's a couple of interesting points that come out of this story... 1. The older lady although she was disgruntled with the situation, didn't take charge (and she certainly was in a position to do so) and unhappily continued to work there.More than likely she had been there for years and didn't have the skills or self-esteem to make her role better. How many people do you know who stick at their jobs because they fear they may not find another one or aren't prepared to get out of their comfort zones to improve themselves? Of course, the business owner should have invested in staff training etc. however if they don't and you want to improve, would you invest time, energy and money in becoming better? Because if you're not getting better, you're probably getting worse.
2. How many businesses are run by untrained staff while the business owner is too busy to notice what is happening inside their own business?3. And why are many business owners in business? They will generally tell you they are in business to make money yet if you look at how many business are run, they may as well be in business to lose money.
And as a result of our lifechanging experience, there is no way we will ever set foot in that shop again! My son is only in Year 8 so that leaves another 4 years to go before he finishes high school. How many more times will I need to buy more school uniform items because he's a growing boy? A few more that's for sure.
And being a boy he's more than likely going to be more hard-wearing on his clothing than what my daughter was when she was at school.By the way, we also had to buy him another pair of school shoes in the same shopping strip. The staff in that store were fantastic and guess where we'll definitely spend more of our money?
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Lorraine Pirihi is Australia's Personal Productivity Specialist and Leading Life Coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including "How to Survive and Thrive at Work!"
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