One of the things you’ll discover, if you read this blog regularly, is that I go to a lot of conferences, retail events, marketing summits and so on.  The reason for this is simple: I go to these events because they make me a better retailer!

This week I was in a room with some incredibly creative people.  I find it really nurturing to be surrounded by folks who nknow so much more than I do: it’s a chance to drink and absorb all of their knowledge and wisdom.

That’s something retailers need to do.  I know, it’s easy to get trapped in the store — there’s so much to do and never any time to do it!  But you have to get out: go learn from people who do things better than you do!

At this conference I was there with the CMO’s from some really big companies, and I said, “I can’t figure out the whole flyer thing.  Should I do them, should I not?  What kind of coupons work best?” and before I knew it, I was in this in depth conversation with three or four of the top retailers in the nation, talking about flyers.  You can’t buy that kind of moment.  You can’t read it in a book.  You have to BE THERE, put yourself out there and ask questions!

Go where the people are.  Go to tradeshows.  Go to your competitor’s store.  Go outside of your industry.  See what other folks are doing!

Entrepreneurship is a lonely game.  Do yourself a favor and break that cycle: get out of the store and see what you can learn!

Even if you don’t have a pet, I’m guessing that you heard about the pet food recalls that happened a little over a year ago. Because Dave’s Soda and Pet City sells a lot of pet food, this was a major event in my life as an independent retailer.

I have to tell you, never in thirty plus years of doing business have I ever seen major corporations handle a public relations event so poorly! This recall was massive: all of the major pet food companies were affected. Proctor and Gamble, Nutro, Purina, Hills — every one had to pull products. And the way these major companies handled the situation? It was so bad as to be mind boggling!

The news about the recall broke on a Friday evening. Saturday morning, I went into the store and called my Nutro rep. I wanted to know what I was in for. Are you ready for what he said to me?

“I was waiting for your call!”

He was just as clueless as I was. None of the local representatives had any information from their corporate headquarters about what was happening. They didn’t have any more of a clue than I did.

Now, you have to understand: it was the wheat gluten in canned food that caused the problems. Only canned food. But due to the sensationalistic news coverage the recall received, the customer didn’t know that. They thought every type of pet food had been affected by the recall, and they were panicking.

You would think that Purina, Iams, Hills, and these other huge corporations would provide signage, detailing the fact that all the dry foods were still safe to feed to pets.

You would be wrong.

You would think that vendors who had 8 feet of shelf space at any given store, only to have 4 feet worth of product pulled by the recall, would rush to ship replacement product!

You would be wrong. My store, and tons of stores just like mine, had all these gaping holes on the shelves, with no products to fill them.

All of the manufacturers just crawled into a shell and hid. The most interesting thing is the huge opportunity all of these major companies missed. I’ve got a database of thousands of customers. Pet Co, Pet Smart and other national chains have databases that contain many multiples of that! You would think that the manufacturers would approach us, asking to use our databases to reach out to customers and assure them of the safety of their products, offer up critical information, and provide contact details.

You, sadly, would be wrong.

In the next post, we’re dong to talk about the value of a damage control policy, and what you can do when your industry hands you a crisis to handle!