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Cracking the travel retail code- The success story

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Travel Retail- A Game changer for retailers.

Today brands and retailers are using travel retail for building their brands by targeting a much-focused audience.

Travel retail or duty-free retailing or airport retail are the terminologies used by modern retailers for this emerging business channel.

My article narrates some of my experiences acquired by spearheading travel retail operations and sharing some trends which I foresee emerging in 2020.

Travel retail will become the way customers shop in the future. One of the reasons is that it’s tax-free.

A number of airport retailers are increasingly looking into customer experience surveys to get a better understanding of travelers’ spending habits.

Travel retail – A modern face of retail – My perspectives.

the travel retail business

 

I got exposed to travel retail in 2017 when I was assigned the responsibility for initiating and launching a new business channel for brands handled by me as a retail practitioner.

As I got involved in business expansion pitching to various duty frees category managers and leasing spaces at prominent airports, I found that this business has the potential to overshadow the existing malls or traditional retail.

 

What is fueling growth to travel retail business?

During my recent holidays in India, I was amazed to see the booming travel retail operations not only in metro airports (New Delhi or Mumbai) but also in tier 2 cities airports (Bhopal, Goa, Dehradun, Surat)

  • The quality of airport infrastructure has drastically improved.
  • The quality of retail offerings and brands, cafes, lounge facilities, brands (fashion and accessories), book stores (WHSmith is the category leader in this segment) or even travel accessories shops have improved and they offer high-quality products.
  • Airports offer a great variety of food options (food lounges, food halls, etc).
  • Millennials today prefer to learn from travel experiences, gathering memories is more important than saving money. They believe in the quote “Travel is the great teacher”.
  • Change in traveler’s behavior, today they see traveling as a leisure activity and prefer to spend more time at the airports which offer great experiential retail.

It makes more sense to check-in early at the airports and experiences its retail galore.

Today, airports (I can say from Indian & the Middle Eastern aviation scenario) are busier than most of the prominent malls in the country.

travel retail trends

 

The picture shows an activation by MyFM in Ahmedabad thanking their listeners for making the FM station number one. The passengers received a hamper gift pack for them at the Ahmedabad airport’s arrival terminal.

 

Emerging Trend is toward luxury items in travel retail.

The reason is that passenger buying behavior has changed dramatically. Passengers research, check availability and compare prices online – and then purchase the products at the airport.

There is the emergence of electronic shops at airports selling the latest i-phones, Macbooks, Samsung notes, etc which were not common in the past.

The big game-changer has been the surge of mainland Chinese travelers.

Their appetite to learn about and visit the world and their willingness to shop when they travel have provided the industry with a fantastic opportunity.

travel retail

Interesting Statistics- Travel Retail

  • Travel Retail channels now encompass Airports, Airlines, Cruise Lines, Ferries, Border Stores, and Diplomatic stores
  • Airports have heavily increased their retail spaces and turned into shopping malls with multi-brand stores and stand-alone boutiques.
  • Travel Retail offers a shop window and communication platform with the highest frequency of customers in your matching target group.
  • A huge increase in potential customers due to consistent growth rates of international travelers. More than 1 Billion tourists crossing international borders globally.
  • More than 100 Million Chinese outbound travelers.

 

Source: https://www.moodiedavittreport.com/

 

Category domination: (global travel retail sales in 2018)

  • US$ 5.7 billion Watches, Jewellery, and Fine Writing
  •  Fashion & Accessories contributed US$ 9.6 billion
  • US$ 25.6 billion Fragrances & Cosmetics
  •  Confectionery & Fine Food pitched in with US$ 5.0 billion
  • US$ 11.4 billion Wine & Spirits

The winner is Fragrances & cosmetics category globally followed by wine & spirits.

 

Learn as to why entrepreneurs need to say NO to stay focussed, read here.

Building the Travel retail ecosystem – the role played by data analytics.

Airports provide the physical space and infrastructure; brands and retailers the retail environment and airlines provide the necessary customer data to communicate with and sell to passengers in a targeted manner.

For example- when you shop at any retail outlet at the airports, they scan your passport, hence your details other than your name, etc gets captured. Details like frequency of travel, destinations mostly traveled your shopping behavior, frequency of purchase, etc.

This data is shared amongst airlines, airport operators, travel retail operators and retail operators so that they can create experiential retail experiences in their concepts and services.

Challenges for 2020

  • High operating costs, emerging from built & run model or public-private equity models or even high bidding model.
  • Travel retail is a highly complex and concentrated business. TOP 10 Operators are generating 40% of global Travel Retail sales and keeping most airport concessions throughout the world
  • Brands are pushed to pay higher margins, resulting in low net operating margins.
  • Consumer’s perception that Duty-Free price advantage is less attractive.
  • External factors like travel caution advisories in cases of geopolitical issues, impact the entire travel retail sector.

Learn how to franchise your business, read here.

Case study: How WHSmith pivoted its business model to the travel retail or duty-free retail model?

 

travel retail channel

WHSmith, one of the oldest retail chains in the world.

You cannot miss WHSmith shop in case you are a frequent traveler as they are present at almost all the prominent airports, seaports in the world.

607 high street stores, as well as 149 airport units, 127 rail/metro units, 131 hospital units, and 286 travel units outside the UK. They employ over 13000 employees.

Amidst retail apocalypse, wherein most of the traditional retailers are going out of business, WHSmith is delivering consistent growth.

(Estimated growth for 2019 is around 11%).

The Key for WHSmith growth lies in understanding the travel sector and understanding consumer’s behavior.

WHSmith has mastered the art of studying its customer’s behavior.

At the airport, we are all a captive, trapped audience.

In such situations, people are driven by impulse purchases and immediate needs and are less price-sensitive and more focused on convenience.

WHSmith’s range of items – books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products, and confectionery – cater perfectly to these kinds of impulse buys.

For example, imagine that You are at the airport waiting to board the aircraft. You decide you need something to keep you occupied for the journey.

You pop into WHSmith’s to buy the latest copy of your favorite business magazine and while you’re there you buy something to chew or some chocolates. Then you discover you’ve forgotten your charger.

Consolidating all the items, you have a decent amount of purchase in your invoice. And since you are in excitement for travel (either business or leisure) you don’t mind paying a little higher price for your purchases.

It is the emotion i.e. NEEDs overtaking the WANTs.

It happens with me quite often that I end up shopping for some small gifts or toys for my son or even chocolates while taking a return flight from my business travel.

Overcome online competition by completely ignoring it.

WHSmith, instead of competing with the likes of eBay’s or Amazon’s of the world, took a different approach.

They focused on securing more locations at airports, railway stations at every prominent travel hub.

Because, the answer to this strategic move is that in high street locations you would get lots of customers who would come and browse, but then they don’t buy, because, at that moment, they’re really just doing comparison shopping. But that doesn’t happen so much in a travel location.

The same rationale applies to moviegoers purchasing popcorn and a coke at inflated prices which are sometimes higher than the movie ticket prices.

In my next article, I shall share case studies from successful brand activations in travel retail.

 

Become a blackbelt in retail & Grow your retail career

If you want to excel in your profession and have big dreams then please read below.

retail expert

Enhance your retail knowledge and skills by enrolling for blackbelt in the retail program and learn the game of retailing at your ease. You can get amazing discounts in 2020 as well by clicking here. This is my affiliate link which you all could use to learn retail and progress in your careers. I strongly believe in learning, practicing and sharing. Let’s all grow together in 2020.

Use Promo code: BLACKBELT.

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. Ritesh specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

5 steps for goal settings

Want to make year 2020, the most remarkable year of your life? 5 steps for Goal settings

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 5 steps for goal settings will set you up for success.

Goal setting is of key essence when it comes to being successful and writing your own destiny. I am going to share 5 steps for goal settings with all my readers.

I had tried it on myself for the last couple of years and believe me, it worked wonders for me both in my professional and personal life.

As we embark on embracing a new year, which offers us new hope, new energies, new visions and new goals to achieve.

My article would provide some tips for my readers to write their own goals.

What do the statistics say about Goal settings?

A Harvard Business study revealed amazing statistics relating to goal setting and success.

The study went on to find that the 14% who have goals are 10 times more successful than those without goals. The 3% with written goals are 3 times more successful than 14% with unwritten goals.

  •  83% of the population does not have goals
  • 14% have a plan in mind but are unwritten goals
  • 3% have goals written down

So if you are an entrepreneur or even a student, you have a greenfield to outperform your competition by setting goals for your organization or for yourself.

5 steps for goal settings:

I had attended a day workshop with leading behavioral and change management guru in Dubai and learned about this technique called SMART.

A SMART goal is one that’s:

S – Specific: In other words, it’s not vague.

M – Measurable: It’s detailed so you’re able to track your progress.

A – Achievable: It’s attainable and realistic.

R – Relevant: It relates to your values and the area of your life that needs improvement.

T – Time-Bound: It has a concrete deadline so you’re motivated to achieve it.

A sales manager can use this technique to set the sales targets for his team, his region, etc. He can break the targets into months keeping the seasonality of the product and historical sales trend in mind and allocate the sales numbers each month.

Later monthly sales numbers could be divided into weekly or fortnightly targets.

Any deviation, if observed could be corrected by means of tactical campaigns.

Make your goals specific.

When setting goals, they should answer the highly specific questions of who, what, where, when, and why.

For each specific goal you make, you should ask yourself why it is a goal and how it helps your life goals.

To lose weight, you have created the more specific goal “burn 300 kcal daily,” which begins with the short-term goal “burning 100, then 200 & so on.” You would need to answer, which gym would you go, what diet regime to follow etc.

 

Break the big picture down into smaller and more specific goals.

As explained previously (using sales target example), we need to break a bigger goal into smaller milestones. Achieve those milestones, celebrate your win and then move forward.

Consider areas of your life that you either want to change or that you feel you would like to develop with time. Areas might include career, finances, family, education, or health.

Visualize your goals on a daily basis.

Writing them down is a great practice.

Visualizing your goals happening is even better. With visualization, you use the power of the subconscious mind to engrave your goals.

“If a mind can conceive, the heart can believe it, your body shall achieve it”, this quote is so true when it comes to goals settings and goals visualization.

Learn as to why Men’s Grooming industry is booming, read here.

Goal setting example, Watch a video of actor Jim Carrey, explaining the power of Visualization.

Jim Carrey during his struggling years wrote himself a cheque of 10 million dollars and kept in his pocket. The cheque reminded him that he needs to excel in whatever he is doing.

YouTube video

 

Lastly but the most important point, in case you miss out on the 5 steps goal settings process or drop out chasing your goals in the middle of the year, then don’t worry.

Take a deep breath, give yourself a pat on your back that you were amongst the top 3% of the population that had written their goals.

This would inspire you again to chase your goals.

To sum up, I would quote Pablo Picasso statement

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

Personally I would like to congratulate & thank each of my readers for following my content regularly and wishing you all “Happy New Year 2020”.

About the Author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. Ritesh specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

how to be an effective leader in the workplace

How to become an effective manager in 2020? Your Way to Success

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Are you an effective Manager?

The market dynamics are fast-changing, hence today businesses need effective Managers in 2020 to manage an ever-evolving workforce.

Organizations need to respond faster, with fewer resources, to keep up with the ever-changing technology and globalization.

My article is inspired by a book by author Spencer Johnson “The new One minute manager” which I completed reading in straight 7 hours during my recent travels to India from Dubai ( I took layover option which gave me a good reading time as well as cost me less money).

How can you become an effective manager in 2020?

Firstly we need to understand the traditional manager qualities; there are two types of managers

Autocratic:

  • Hard-nosed, profit-minded, realistic
  • Don’t feel to change with the times as they believe no reason for a change as they have worked the same way always.

Democratic:

  • Participative manager, supportive, considerate.

Today’s volatile economic environment needs a balanced approach i.e. result-oriented cum people’s person. (result cum human-focused).

Want to learn about Leadership skills, click here.

The old command & control management style has transformed into a collaborative approach.

Managers in 2020 would need to become facilitators for their teammates rather than being a participative manager. Empowering the team members to make their own decisions and only guiding them when needed.

By drawing the talents of everyone in the team, the organization can become more productive.

Learnings:

The best way to achieve successful results is with People.

 

Effective Manager needs to set goals in 2020:

Planning should include setting goals with your team members and ensure that each of your team members is aware of what is expected from him/her and how he/she would be appraised.

Have each member write out their goals with the timelines (in case of project management). Ask them to review it daily & check if their daily activities are aligned with their set goals.

 

Micro-Management is no longer relevant.

Effective managers in 2020 would need to spend time initially with their team members in setting their goals with them and then empower them to go ahead and execute the project.  Point to be ensured that periodic feedback to be provided to teams so that corrective actions could be taken as & when required.

Believe in acknowledging and praising the good work of the teammates.

Traditionally, managers are trained to find out the wrongs or errors in the team’s work but in the new age 2020, managers need to catch the good work done by their subordinates and immediately acknowledge the same to all so that others also get inspired to deliver good results.

“Help people reach their full potential. Catch them doing something right.”

learn how to become a game-changer in your business sector, click here.

Redirects or Reprimands:

An effective manager, as soon as he notices a deviation from the team’s performance or the goals, he must immediately take a correction course.

He should specify what went wrong and assure his teammate that he expects better performance and support him/her in delivering good work.

“Teach your team to laugh at themselves for making a mistake and get over it by doing better work”.

Learning:

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions.

It is the feedback that keeps the organization and team going.

“Tell people what they did wrong; tell them how you feel about it and remind them they are better than that.”

 

I hope my article which summarizes my learnings from the book “The new one minute manager” by Spencer Johnson would help my readers in managing their teams more effectively in 2020.

I would end the article by quoting a saying by Confucious,

“The essence of knowledge is, having it, to use it”.

 

Watch out this video by Simon Sinek on effective leadership.

 

YouTube video

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. Ritesh has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

 

Why TJ Maxx is successful?

Either you are a winner or a loser; Learn tricks of the retail game from TJ Maxx.

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Either you’re a winner or a loser- there is no middle ground in retail. Learn tricks from TJ Maxx.

 

Read this article if You want to learn the retail tricks from TJ Maxx.

It is a bold statement that I am making and most of you would have heard a famous quote from stars war series by a guru protégé “Yoda”.

 

  “Do or do not. There is no try.”

 

This quote is a simple lesson in commitment and the power in giving something our all — not just giving it a try.

Most of our Middle Eastern value apparel retailers need to follow this mantra in case they need to succeed in 2020.

 

Being in fashion retail for a long time and being a curious student of retail, I see most of the fashion clothes retailers are out of ideas in order to market their merchandise.

They are still using old school marketing thoughts in order to sustain their businesses like celebrity endorsements, discounting, and sales, price markdowns, etc.

Always remember, “What brought you here, won’t take you to the next level”

 

Your brand needs to stand for something, if you are a value fashion retailer then you need to redefine value and stand for it.  If you are a sustainable brand then stand for it like a luxury sustainable brand Eileen Fisher.

By trying too many things in bits and pieces will not lead you to your destination but would only prolong your brand’s declining status.

Let me here give a case study of TJ Maxx to explain my points.

 

Why TJ Maxx is successful?

Look at the statistics below for TJX, ( we know about TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx):

  • TJX’s sales have risen for 22 straight years.
  • Their market stock has increased by more than 24% over the past year.
  • TJX same-store sales rose 6% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
  • Opened its 4,000th store in 2017 but has plans to hit 6,100.

Can your fashion retail brand boast of such credentials?

 

TJX understands how to attract consumers to their brick-and-mortar locations. While all TJX stores are successful, TJ Maxx is the driving force behind the company’s positive results.

Let me highlight here factors that I feel have contributed to their success.

  1. The Treasure Hunt.

Management prides itself on having unusual and great value merchandise in all stores – often well-known brand labels – that creates a surprise for customers and extra sales for the store.

Why TJ Maxx is so successful

TJ Maxx stores give these people exactly what they want, the opportunity to find a brand-name designer product at a bargain price, just like a treasure hunt.

The Neuroscience behind this phenomenon is called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

2) TJ Maxx’s strengths lie in their buying and store staff.

Most of the Middle eastern retail companies are being run and operated by CFOs who have no practical experience on the shop floor. They only know to read Balance sheets without having an outlook for making the business turn-around.

So if, given a scenario of like for like sales of a store that is declining continuously, the obvious decision of a CFO would be either to close down the store or cut down on headcounts in order to cut costs.

This is according to me a loser’s mindset.

The winner mindset is depicted by TJ Maxx i.e. The company has upped its merchandising staff by 10%. Adding extra people to scour exceptional values.

Management stresses strong vendor relationships that these merchants nurture, and that often leads to unusual buys for their stores.

These buyers understand what their local customers want and are constantly buying inventory rather than only a few times a year.

This allows TJ Maxx to deliver better deals and be more responsive to trends.

Learn why Primark is saying no to E-commerce, read here.

3) Capturing Market Share- The Main aim of TJ Maxx.

Management stresses that it must generate great traffic in its stores.

By offering great values on great brands all the time, they have been successful in achieving this objective.

The company has indicated that customer traffic was up in all divisions.

For the full fiscal year 2019, comparable store increases were up +7% for Marmaxx (U.S.), +4% for HomeGoods (U.S.), +4% for TJX Canada and +3% for T.J.X International (Europe and Australia).

 

4) Fresh Merchandise hitting the floor is the key:

TJ Maxx has a motto “door to the floor in 24.” Their goal is to get the product out on the floor within 24 hours of being delivered to the store.

Their products actually get sold faster – an average of 25 days vs. more traditional stores like Macy’s which average 100 days per inventory turn.

5) Stores are built on Low CAPEX.

This is according to me one of the main reasons for the TJ Maxx store’s success, low cost to built up means faster break-even of each store.

Treasure Hunt by TJ Maxx

 

TJ Maxx locations average 30,000 square feet and typically don’t have any walls. This allows the stores to quickly rearrange the layout as needed.

 

 

How many Middle Eastern fashion retailers would qualify for this criteria?

My answer would be none.

 

6) Stand for something – TJ Maxx stands for amazing bargains

By understanding their customers and delivering what the customer needs at that moment, TJ Maxx gains trust from their customers. Customers trust they will find a bargain when they walk into a TJ Maxx.

According to Brand Keys’ 2019 CLEI survey, TJ Maxx is 1 of the 6 most trusted brands.

Watch out the video on TJ Maxx success:

YouTube video

 

 

I would like to sum up my article, as I feel I have expressed key strategic insights for my middle eastern fashion retailers in my article and in case, if any of my readers, would want to learn more about redefining their retail business, then feel free to write to me on riteshmohan@yahoo.com.

You can now subscribe to my blog for free by simply entering your email address.

Every week, key retail insights would be sent to you as soon as the new article is published.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. Ritesh has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

how retailers compete with amazon,

How to compete with amazon? Check out brands who are doing it.

1

“How to compete with Amazon?”.

How do we sustain our topline sales amidst onslaught from online retailers?

These were the few questions that kept buzzing in the recently concluded Retail Congress in Dubai.

Post attending some of the keynote sessions during the retail congress, I am penning down my thoughts, providing tips and insights to the Middle Eastern retailers.

 

It is the Retail Renaissance time.

Given the current economic slowdown, wherein the customers have become “discount seekers”, bottom margins are depleting due to excessive promotions, selling the merchandise on full margins is a distant dream for many merchandise planners.

So how do you compete with Amazon and other online retailers which are thriving on their discounting model and excessive funding from venture capitalists?

The answer lies in the Basics of retailing…

Basics of Retailing

You make something happen in physical stores that can’t happen online.

If you think about the history of the department stores in the west, they were the circus when the circus wasn’t in town.

There was always something going on, with free candy flosses, art & crafts and performers and a pleasant place to gather & leisure activities and time out with the family.

The advantage with brick-and-mortar retailers is that they have amazing assets (stores), but they need to think about what’s unique about having a physical space and how the physical stores can be leveraged to do something that can’t happen in the digital world.

Experiential retail offers solutions.

Re-invent or Perish

The main challenge for the retail industry is to divert online traffic to physical shops.

Brands who are agile, adaptive to changes will prosper in the coming times.

Monitor market gaps and how you can fill those with your offerings or services.

Kohl’s uses strategic alliances to compete with online retailers of the likes of Amazon and eBay.

Case study: Kohl’s accepting Amazon.com returns.

Kohl’s has launched an interesting initiative to process Amazon returns, for example. It’s difficult for Amazon to process all those returns, and Kohl’s saw the fact that this would bring a lot of traffic to their stores as a positive effect, particularly younger people who would not otherwise go into the store.

For Kohl’s, this is a way of remaining relevant & filling the market gaps.

Learn more on Experiential retail, click here.

More Case studies on how retailers compete with Amazon.

Case study 1: Warby Parker

online eyewear brand

Founded in 2010, online eyewear retailer today has over 64 physical stores.

The internet-first company helped spearhead the trend of “online moving offline.”

The smart retailer uses physical stores to get new customers and insights into shopping behavior & then augment it with powerful digital advertising to boost brand visibility and social engagements with their customers.

They have also tested pop-up shops, stores on wheels (in decked-out school buses).

Warby Parker with their stores has created an experiential theatrical engagement by using photo booths in some of their stores, where you can try on the glasses and take pictures of yourself.

how retailer warby Parker compete with amazon,      photo booths showing how retailers compete with amazon.com

Benefits:

If you want to receive the picture, you have to give them your email address. And when you are browsing frames, they offer to send you a link with the frames you have seen.

They present this as a service but it’s also very valuable data, because they can link offline and online, and they know that you were in the store on a particular day and what frames you saw, and they can follow up with an email saying, “Do you want to buy this now?”

themes created at warby parker

Check out the experiential green screen theme created in one of their stores. Exotic locations and lifestyle combined with stylish eyewear.

The use of augmented reality is also being tested by an Indian eyewear online retailer called Lenskart.com.

Modeled around the similar Warby parker business model, the chain also boosts of over 50 retail showrooms in India.

Check out their web content here (featuring beautiful Bollywood actress Katrina kaif).

YouTube video

 

Pushing the sales through CSR initiative:

Warby Parker’s initiative “Buy a pair and give a pair” has given the brand the social meaning. They have helped people in over 50 countries by providing eye care and lenses so that they could live meaningfully.

 

Case study 2: Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Mirrors

At Charlotte Tilbury’s flagship store in London, customers have access to two touchscreen Magic Mirrors.

Charlotte Tilbury Westfield London Magic Mirror

These fairytale-style screens allow you to ‘try on’ each one of Tilbury’s 10 signature looks – in as little as 40 seconds!

No more messing around with tester pots and samples. Now you can layer on the look digitally and get a feel for what suits.

There’s even the chance to change your look from ‘desk to disco’ and to email yourself a picture when you’re done, share the picture with your friends and get likes and votes on the preferred looks.

Learnings:

Customer experience is the new customer service.

Brands need to adapt to social selling and not just transactional sales.

I would continue my series on Experiential retail in my on-going blog series, my next one would be a case study on a leading retailer in United states and how Middle eastern retailers like Max fashions, R&B, Redtag could learn the rules of the game from it.

In case if any of my readers or retail fraternity member would like to learn more about my vision of retail 2025 and how they could transform and elevate their business model; feel free to reach out to me through my blog contact form or write to me on riteshmohan@yahoo.com

I would be more than glad to assist and help my retail fraternity.

 

About the author

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. Ritesh specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of over two decades in the industry.

disruptions in business

Are You a Game-Changer? It’s Easy If You Do It Smart.

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Are you creating Disruptions in your Business or industry?

 

What is common between an alarm clock and a traditional camera film?

 

disruptions synonymdigital disruptions

 

Any guesses…

“Both got disrupted & became extinct or outdated”

I recall my student days, wherein the sound of the metal alarm clock used to wake up not only me but my neighbors as well.

The Loud sound was so strong that one could not avoid missing it and instead woke up to it.

Today, most of us use “alarm” functionality on our mobile phones.

Technology is the biggest disruptor.

Yes, disruption can happen fast, but it need not take you by surprise.

 

Learn to manage Disruptions

 

a) Keep an eye on technology—not only within your industry but outside as well.

 

There is a high probability for the technology that will revolutionize your industry in the future is already doing so in a completely unrelated industry today.

b) Manage your business like a chess player

 

Watch every move of your competition.

If you can, anticipate competitors’ plans and think five moves ahead, you would be in a better position to lead the competition.

Myth- Creating Disruptions are capital intensive.

Disruptive marketing doesn’t have to break the bank to be effective.

Just change the way of getting things done – even a little.

Learn How Accounting practices are being disrupted, by clicking here.

Case study: Airwick air fresheners.

Air fresheners. You don’t give much thought to buying them. You buy something that smells good, right?

But what if you could do more than that?

What if you could create an entire mood by the scent that best describes your décor?

Airwick created such a quiz-style design with its Scent Decorator

Disruptive marketing often tells a story in a way that consumers can understand.

disruption strategy

By clicking a few images, you get a better idea of the feeling you want to create in your room, along with recommended air fresheners to complement it.

By creating disruptions, you shake things up by changing customer perceptions about not just the company – but the industry as a whole.

scent decorator video see here

Air Wick Scent Decorator

Now comes the truth of human psychology.

Because you have changed customer’s perception entirely, they start relating new, better and more positive feelings with the brand.

Hence I always tell my readers, “Don’t Sell, Tell Stories instead”.

Check the video here.

 

Disruptive brands are not afraid to be daring and break the status quo.

 

Case study: Policybazaar.com & scrapGo.com

Let me rewind to the old traditional way of buying insurance policies wherein a middle-aged man/women, mostly referred by our close relatives, used to sell us the insurance policies.

Now fast forward to 2019, we have aggregators like Policybazaar.com, souqamal.com (in the Middle East region) wherein the customers can compare prices, features and returns of various policies and buy them online.

But have you heard something similar in Metal scrap business?

When I first heard about ScrapGo.com, I smiled because of their use of disruption in such an unexciting market—scrap metal.

I thought if this industry could see disruptions, so does any industry.

Buyers, sellers, and brokers populate the scrap metal industry. In exchange for putting buyers and sellers together, brokers take a percentage of each transaction.

Here comes scrapGo.com, who has disrupted the metal scrap business by bringing both buyers and sellers together across the globe on a single platform, charging a fraction of commission for their deals.

If you check the scrapGo.com page on linkedin.com, it employees only 5-10 employees. If they can disrupt a sector, so does anyone else.

Learn about the booming Men’s Grooming business model here

Digital technologies creating disruptions in the African sub-continent.

Consider retail, there are 60,000 people per formal retail outlet in Africa, compared with just 400 people per store in the United States.

E-commerce start-ups such as Jumia – which already has over 4 million customers in 14 African countries – are turning that gap into an opportunity.

The company is betting that online sales will grow from 1% of total retail sales in Africa today to 15% in 10 years.

Jumia’s listing on the NYSE valued it at over $1 billion, giving it claim to be Africa’s first technology unicorn.

What is Disruption Theory or Disruptions in Business?

The concept is well narrated in a quote by Richard Branson.

“Disruption is all about risk-taking, trusting your intuition, and rejecting the way things are supposed to be. Disruption goes way beyond advertising, it forces you to think about where you want your brand to go and how to get there.” – Richard Branson

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. Ritesh has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

Musuem of Ice cream

What is Experiential Retail? 2 case studies to energize retail.

5

What is Experiential Retail?

Experiential retail is a type of retail marketing whereby customers coming into a physical retail space are being offered experiences beyond the traditional ones.

The physical store becomes the center of customer’s engagement, the brands are not selling here but are becoming advocators & taking a consultative approach towards creating a memorable experience that results in building trust for the customers.

In the recently concluded, the Middle East Retail forum, experiential retail was the trending topic.

experiential retail examples

The retail stalwarts came together for 2 days and brainstormed on the topics which are shaping our current retail concepts.

I have taken two brands i.e. Museum of Ice cream from New York and homegrown Project Chaiwala from the UAE.

Both these concepts embody the experiential retail in their brand’s salience.

 

What is the experiential retail engagement?

Experiential retail is a trend that is being practiced by the brands to create experiences over possessions, stories to tell over the product specs, create memories instead of selling products or services.

It is the new kind of retail marketing wherein building trust and engagement with the new customers’ i.e. Millennials are the priorities.

Case study 1: Museum of Icecream

The Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC), was co-founded in the summer of 2016 by Maryellis Bunn.

MOIC is an acronym for the “movement of imagination and creativity,” not the Museum of Ice Cream.

Since its start, the MOIC has approximately 394,000 followers on Instagram.

“Food is a language which we all understand,” says Bunn.

“When you have something as simple as ice cream, it’s something that’s spread happiness and brings people together in a way that’s unexpected.”

Store concept:

The concept of store color is Pink.

experiential retail 

“For women…pink leads to happiness and good thoughts,” Bunn said, speaking about the soft millennial pink, the color that covers many walls of The Pint Shop.

It is a place wherein the women could come and connect with fellow friend and engage in sweet treats (ice creams) and create a memorable experience which is later shared on Instagram.

The brand encourages its customers to engage with the interiors of the store and share their experiences, it is a kind of pop-up retail revolution.

Start with your own pain point

When Bunn moved from calif to New York, she found that even in a city with more than eight million people, she felt lonely.

Insights:

“People are desperate for connection”.

“Everybody’s on their phones. Where do we have to go to connect?”

Bunn couldn’t find one, so she decided to create one with the Museum of Ice Cream. The pop-up, which Bunn referred to as a “passion project.”

But, the response was so overwhelming that the temporary museum moved to Los Angeles and Miami, and it’s currently in San Francisco.

Key Lessons from MOIC:

Experimental, physical, and sensory experiences that are seamlessly integrated with Instagrammable, social media-friendly moments are reinvigorating and redefining retail.

In other words, brick and mortar businesses are here to stay and are giving way to new, connective experiences.

Case Study 2: Project Chaiwala

During the Middle East retail forum, I met with Mr. Ahmed Kazim, co-founder of Project Chaiwala.

Ahmed along with his co-founder Justin Joseph saw a gap in the market especially for their love of traditional tea or chai (as it is famous in Southeast Asian countries).

experiential retail

The gap in the market:

To create an ambiance to showcase creativity in the tea business, in terms of brew, selection of finest leaves from foothills of Darjeeling, Assam.

Both wanted to create a concept that could bring creative, intellectual, artistic people together to enjoy a cup of finest chai in a traditional and more authentic way.

Hence Project Chaiwala was born.

They have created a simplistic and artistic ambiance in their store in al Serkal Avenue, al quoz, Dubai which is experiential.

Brand promise

Putting a smile on their customer’s face while providing them an ambiance which fulfills their creative urge while sipping the finest teas from the Indian sub-continent and providing them the experience which they relish back home i.e. authentic way of having tea.

YouTube video

Social responsibility:

Though the brand is new with 3 stores currently but the founders are following their corporate social responsibility from day one.

They source artisan’s matkas or popularly called Khullars (a type of cup made up of mud) from the rural villages in Tamil Nadu, India.

experiential commerce

Thus ensuring they help protect the environment from plastic cups and in return, help uplift the rural artisans.

Result:

Today the brand caters to youth, especially females cutting across the geographies while enjoying a traditional cup of Karak chai. The brand serves various varieties of teas, herbal, Chinese, Japanese green teas and of course their famous signature chai shot.

 

What’s common between MOIC and Project Chaiwala?

Besides both being experiential retail concepts, there is a lesson to learn i.e. both the concepts are born from the pain-points experienced by their founders.

Hence I always say to my readers “Start a business and not a startup”.

Read my article on 4 tips to startup owners, click here.

To sum up my article, Mr. Ahmed Kazim, advises upcoming entrepreneurs, “Life is full of challenges and that’s the beauty of it, Keep hustling”.

This is a great statement that every entrepreneur should follow.

Read my article on Believe in yourself, click here.

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. Ritesh specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

forever 21 bankruptcy report

Forever 21, America’s hottest fashion brand- Losing its Hotness.

6

Forever 21 once carried a tag of America’s hottest fashion brand. Off lately, we heard in the news that the chain has filed for bankruptcy in the United States of America.

Having worked with this brand and knowing it inside out & being an ardent fan of this brand, I even had the pleasure of interacting with the founders and senior leadership of the Forever 21 brand.

Let me confess that knowing the brand’s DNA, it is based on strong fundamentals, its beliefs, its purpose is all in the right place.

Forever 21 USPs (unique selling propositions) is based on 4 core pillars

  • Large collections of fashion styles
  • Limited quantities per style
  • Tomorrow’s fashion trend, today.
  • Fashion for which you don’t have to break your bank.

This concept gave birth to a term we call as “Fast Fashion”.

What is the Fast Fashion concept?

Fast fashion can be defined as cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments in high street stores at breakneck speed.

It is a case model for the super-efficient supply chain, in turning trendy fabric into the most sought after designs and producing it in minimum lead times and shipping it on to the shelves as fast as possible with minimum lead times.

So what went wrong with Forever 21?

Fashion retailer Forever 21 has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. The company said it plans to “exit most international locations in Asia and Europe” but would continue to operate in Mexico and Latin America.

It expects to close up to 350 stores worldwide, a spokesperson said, including as many as 178 US stores.

Let me clarify here that filing for bankruptcy protection is not the same as going bust, it is a provision provided by law to corporates to relook and restructure their debts. It is like going on a strict- diet to become leaner & healthier.

Rapid expansion i.e. opening new stores in new territories led to capital erosion, a slump in sales, and competition from eCommerce and a rise in demand for cheap fashion all led to the downfall of Forever 21.

 

Forever 21 core promises

Forever 21, provided every teenage girl a chance to look like a fashionista without creating a hole in their pockets. Yellow-colored Forever 21 bag was the most visible shopping bag in the malls across regions.

Mind you there was no Instagram or influencers when forever21 started out.

It wasn’t a unique idea — teenage girls have always wanted to dress like their idols. But the dizzying speed at which Forever 21 could make those trends available and affordable, however, was.

The company’s specialty became known as fast fashion, and the chain grew aggressively to become a staple in American shopping malls, opening hundreds of stores and redefining what it meant to be a traditional mall anchor.

 

Scalability comes with problems

As they say, when you scale your business, you have to face different problems.  Problems like quality issues, keeping up with the trends, and a price promise is a herculean task to balance.

Forever 21 had roughly 450 locations by 2009, and its “cheap chic” assortment was especially popular in the aftermath of the severe recession in 2008-09. Hundreds of shoppers would line up for the grand openings of its new stores.

Check out the video wherein I had launched its first store in New Delhi, India. ( In the last frame you might get to see a glimpse of me…)

YouTube video

 

They kept opening more outlets, and by 2015, the Changs (founders) had a combined net worth of $5.9 billion — but that fortune has since shrunk to $1.6 billion because of Forever 21’s problems and declining valuations among similar retailer (source Forbes )

As it grew, Forever 21 expanded into menswear, children’s clothing, maternity, and plus-size apparel and cosmetics, among other items. But that made the chain looked too much like the conventional department stores.

This is where things started dwindling down for the brand.

They lost the focus and forgot the core philosophy from where they started. You cannot induce fast fashion across categories like kids, plus sizes, athleisure wear, etc. Forever 21 stretched themselves across categories.

Learning –

Focus is the most essential aspect an entrepreneur has to practice always.

 

Learn as to how Instagram is disrupting fast fashion, read here.

 

Failed to Adapt to changing consumers demand

A brand popular with millennials may not be popular with Gen Z, and it should evolve to stay ahead of the trends.

Generation Z’s apparently is looking elsewhere for clothing inspiration.

You cannot be everything to everyone, you just need to focus on targeting with a particular niche segment of consumers, who believes in your product and would ensure that you stay afloat in turbulent times.

Forever 21 core customer base was teenage girls, once they grew older, they started craving for Quality over Quantity. They would not mind paying a little extra to seek a good quality garment.

Forever 21 failed to keep up or raising its quality standards instead chose to remain a fast-fashion retailer offering cheap fashion.

Competition too tough to crack

Competition from online fashion brands like fashion nova, nasty gals gave forever 21 tough competition and is one of the main reasons for the brand’s failure. Fashion Nova, a Los Angeles-based, online-only fast-fashion retailer known for its body-hugging silhouettes, “is the new Forever 21.”

Fashion Nova relies heavily on influencer marketing — teaming up with celebrities, bloggers and others who have large online followings. It knows its shoppers: young women who want to emulate the aesthetic of the likes of the Kardashian family.

As fast fashion starts to get even cheaper with the arrival of the wildly cheap Primark in the US, other consumers are veering away from shopping cheaply, and, rather, toward shopping smartly.

Learn more about fashion forecasting, click here.

Poor Online Offering 

The design felt out of place when compared to competitors like H&M and Zara—something that modern-day consumers are no longer willing to countenance.

Family dominance

Forever 21, always remained and operated as a close family business. They had not opened up their corporate governance by exploring different options for financial inclusions into the business.

The Way forward for Forever 21

Downtimes provide the best time for self-reflection, understanding what went wrong and then coming back re-energized with full power.

“In order to take a big leap, one must take 10 steps backward”.

Knowing the founders of Forever 21 and their entrepreneurial spirits,  the brand would soon emerge in its new avatar and will once again dominate the fashion scene.

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. Ritesh has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

luxury brand

How to build a Luxury brand with “no advertising”? Uncover the secrets for scaling a brand.

4

“Can you build a luxury brand without advertising?”

“Interesting Question”… I replied to one of my connections who had raised this question to me in one of the networking forums.

“To understand the very nature of luxury goods and behavioral study of luxury goods buyers, you need to understand the pillars of a Luxury brand”, I replied.

learn about 4 must do’s for luxury, click here.

What is common between these brands Maserati, Hermes, and Rolex?

  • Maserati: Is 105 years old, Established – December 1, 1914.
  • Hermes: The 175-Year Old French Fashion Empire
  • Rolex founded in 1905, 114 years old

Longevity is the common factor amongst all these 3 brands, Longevity comes from their Heritage of these business houses, their core values which is passed on from generations together.

Longevity provides trust and confidence to buyers.

If you wear a Rolex, chances are that your succeeding generations will also want to wear Rolex because they have confidence and trust in your choice of brands.

These brands are considered as Investments.

Hermes have bags that increase in value over the years. Limited Rolex editions are priceless in the eyes of their consumers.

Hence the main pillars of luxury brands are Longevity, Trust, Luxury, and Promise.

I shall now list out the ways as to how you can build your retail brand without advertising support.

Create a luxury brand Experience and Deliver Quality.

Recently, I went to a restaurant with a couple of friends. This restaurant had beautiful interiors, music, and dim lighting, the arrangement of furniture and ambiance was giving a feel of luxury dining. The staff was polite, professional and friendly.

We ordered food, the food was not just good, it was awesome!

I expected to receive an extravagant bill, but to my surprise, the bill was hardly close to what I expected, there were no overpriced dishes. Before even seeing the price I was sold to pay more for their offering. That restaurant had persuaded me with their tasty food and surprised me (in a good way) with their economical pricing.

I associated dim light, soft music, polite people, wood finish to an expensive place.

PR builds trust and creates relationships.

Less successful companies think they need advertising to get customers, but the best brands use their products, reputations, and stories to attract customers and that is the main premise of PR.

ROI on TV advertising makes it unviable.

People who can afford luxury goods are not spending their time watching TV nor logging onto the digital channels to see who is advertising. They are engrossed working towards enhancing their wealth, their business by constantly monitoring business & market journals and making their investment plans.

Ads are not social.

There is a limitation for a commercial or advertisement to go viral on social media hence brands are coming out with their branded content which is engaging, relevant to their audience and have the tendency to go viral.

More and more brands today are encouraging their customers to post their own generated content featuring brands, their rationale for brand selections and interesting stories of their experiences with the brand.

Recently Mercedes in India had generated a TV series with Car’s India, wherein the host drove to interior parts of the country highlighting different cultures, places to visit coupled with the adventures of a road trip.

YouTube video

 

Studies show that people are far more likely to believe a news story than an advertisement.

 

Luxury Brands that don’t believe in advertising – Case studies

Kiehl’s

kiehls luxury brand of skincare

Kiehl’s created an unforgettable customer experience by offering extensive samples to customers, which gives way to lower-pressure sales. The skin- and hair-care company built a luxury brand name for itself by offering a 100% money-back guarantee, staffing more than twice the industry average, and offering free consultations.

This 150 years old successful brand to date maintains its “no-advertising” style even after it was acquired by L’Oreal. A move that garnered them more — you guessed it — free advertising.

Spanx

sara blakely's luxury brand

Like most of the business owners who often find themselves with no budgets for advertising or marketing. Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx also found herself in a similar situation when she started out. She didn’t run marketing spots because she couldn’t afford to. She also grew her billion-dollar brand without any help from outside investments or debt.

In one of her interviews, Sara Blakely told Forbes, “The power of women discovering the brand from other women was actually a better strategy. The aunt telling her niece; one woman to a college friend. There’s something about saying, ‘look, feel my back, no lines,’ that’s powerful.”

Learnings:

Look out for opportunities in all the problems, Word of Mouth strategy created Spanx has multi-million dollar business.

Zara

zara fashions

Zara’s first retail fashion store opened in 1975 and, today they are over 10,000 stores.

The brand works on the principle of Exclusivity, Urgency, and scarcity

They produce limited quantities per style hence it creates urgency and scarcity which pushes the consumers to purchase.

Users generated content in addition to influencers

Zara also uses social influencers as well as encourages millennials to tryout their outfits and post on their social media pages using hashtags and tagging the brand’s social pages.

They spend their cash in getting premium, high traffic locations close to luxury fashion brand stores which drives visibility and uplifts the brand image as aspirational.

They’ve built an empire based on their reputation as a company whose technology and automation allows them to analyze trends and consumer feedback to get fashion from the runway to the racks in a matter of days.

Learn how Zara is embracing digitalization, click here.

Conclusion:

These brands have shown that you don’t need ad budgets to build massive brands. However, your product and brand promise should be very strong and compelling.

Learn how e-commerce is boosting Men’s grooming products, click here.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. Ritesh specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

weaknesses

Ignore weaknesses & focus only on strengths to be successful

0

How often do we hear “ convert your weaknesses to strengths”? I am sure you all would have heard it a zillion times.

In a recent study, psychologists and behavioral analysts have challenged this management adage.

A new study revealed that you don’t grow by overcoming your weaknesses but you grow by strengthening your core strengths.

Find out what you do well and do more of it.

In a recent study, researchers gave reading training on the reading techniques to the group of readers (average readers and good readers).

The poor readers, who started at 90 words per minute, made an improvement to an average of 150 words per minute. But the top readers who started at 350 words per minute, multiplied to more than 2000 words per minute.

Result :

Researchers assumed that the poorest readers would make the greatest percentage gains. But in reality, the speediest readers grew the most and profited most from the training.

The paradigm change from weaknesses to strengths.

Companies shall not grow by improving on their weaknesses but they grow by studying their competitors who are successful even in the economic slowdown. By studying these competitors, you may get some tips for improvement.

 

Practice makes perfect transitioned to Practicing a strength makes it perfect.

In my retail career, I came across a buyer who was perfect in supplier management, placing orders on time and getting very competitive rates for the goods we bought. She was perfect in product sourcing and product conceptualization & negotiations.

Based on her excellent performance, the company promoted her to the position on Sales head, thinking she would utilize her product knowledge in training sales team and also convincing the new customers to buy.

The moment she took charge of the sales team, her performance started deteriorating. She could not manage the sales team nor managed to sustain the earlier sales level.

Do you want to know the reason?

She was excellent in making product presentations and talk about the products but she was hesitant to ask the customer for their sales order or persuade them to purchase. She was not meant for Selling. By practicing a weakness, she was undermining her self-respect.

The company thought that sales techniques are something that anyone could learn and Selling is the easiest task.

Does this case sound familiar to you? It happens in all the companies across all sectors.

The greatest chance for success lies in reminding people or organization of existing strengths and getting them back on track while initiating a management strategy for the weaknesses.

Learning for all management professionals…

“Focus on strengths and manage the weaknesses”.

 

Weaknesses to Strengths: The Strength Theory.

In 1984, china retained the gold medal for Table Tennis (China has a terrific record in winning medals in table tennis)

One of the sports journalists interviewed the coach and asked him on the team’s success recipe.

“We practice eight hours a day perfecting our strengths” – coach replied.

He further explained, if you develop your strengths to the maximum, the strength becomes so great that it overwhelms the weakness. Our winning players play only “forehand” (a type of playing style), they cannot play backhand. Our competitors know about this weakness but his forehand is so invincible that it cannot be beaten.

This theory can be easily implemented in the corporate world, Instead of thinking in terms of employees’ weaknesses, the focus should be on identifying strengths and developing those strengths while managing the weaknesses.

Implementation in Daily life

We all can practice Strengths theory in our parenting activities at home; It is important that we teach Discipline to our children but that does not mean controlling them or putting undue restrictions on them.

Studies have revealed that children growing up in over strict and disciplined environment turned out to be Introverts i.e. lacking self-confidence and were rebellious.

Rather, Spend time in developing relationships with them and help them grow rather than controlling them. This would inspire them to listen and cooperate with you.

The theory stresses that focus must be on the strengths while weaknesses are to be aggressively managed, not ignored.

Strengths vs Advantages

In one of my recent meetings with a senior retailer in Kuwait, she pointed out that being from Ivy League management school is a huge strength.

“Is it a strength or an advantage? I asked.

Having a degree from Ivy League colleges is only an advantage that can open the door for you but in order to sustain and achieve success, you need to build on your strengths.

You need Persistence, discipline and never give up attitude.

A million-dollar inheritance is an advantage but the ability to build on (and not lose) an inheritance is a strength.

Learn how to build persistence, click here.

 

Don’t fix if it isn’t broken

Most entrepreneurs when they start, their only focus is on sales, sales, and sales, which is the right thing to do in order to make your business sustainable and scalable.

But the moment, they achieve slight success, they start working on their loopholes and fixing their weaknesses and this is when they start losing the ground of their entrepreneurial venture. Always remember this management mantra.

Processes that have been working for your venture only need to be strengthened so that you grow and scale your business.

But focusing on improving weaknesses will hamper all your efforts.

 

Learn How Rent The Runway created its empire, click here.

To end this article, I would sum up by saying “Manage your weaknesses and Grow with your strengths”.

Watch this video which resonates with my article completely.

 

YouTube video

 

Reference: My learnings are from the book “Soar with your strengths” by Donald Clifton and Paula nelson.

 

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. Ritesh has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in the Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, and Brand Management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

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