The Scene
Lisa and I were sitting outside Jimmy’s, a local gourmet shop. “Do you want to come in?” I asked, expecting her answer to be “no” since I was just picking up steaks to grill that night.
“You bet I’m coming in,” she said. “Do you think I’m going to to miss the show?”
We walked into the River Market - the official name of the store that all the locals know as ‘Jimmy’s’ and immediately are greeted by the proprietor himself, Jimmy.
“How are you doing?” he asked me. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been in Birmingham, Alabama,” I explain. “But I’m back now and will only need to go back once more before the end of the year.”
“Good,” he says. “I can’t afford for you to be away - after all, I have mortgages to pay!” With the niceties over, he begins his tour of the day’s offerings.
“Check out our New England Clam Chowder. It’s the best you’ve ever had!” Lisa smiles. Having grown up on Cape Cod, she has a lifetime of tasting Cape Cod Clam Chowder and it was not likely that she would think this the best. To her surprise, it is equal to the best chowders she’s had and I love it. We pick up a quart.
“If you like the chowder you’ll love the Oysters Rockefeller I just made.”
“All right, give us six,” we say. Jimmy counts out six and put them on the tray. Looking down at them, he comments that they are loose. He puts two more in, ‘just so they won’t slide around.’ Looking satisfied, he tells us to let the cashier know that he said there on six oysters on the tray - not eight.
Finally, it was time to get the steaks we had come in for. Waving for me to follow him, Jimmy heads off for the back room where he keeps his meat. When we are in what would be an ‘employee’s only’ area, he begins to tell me the virtue of the filets that he has this week. Knowing that I should not dare question his choice, I immediately agree with this suggestion. I walk back out into the store and spot my wife talking to Mary, Jimmy’s wife; the two are getting caught up on family events. As they finish their conversation, we head towards the register and are greeted by a nice young man who asks if we have a dessert, because they just got in some of the best cheesecake ever. Lisa and I leave laughing. After all, we’d gone in dedicated to buying only steaks.
How Does It Work?
When I first met Jimmy, I thought he and his store were remarkable. He treats his store like his private pantry with each item being his personal choice, which he is excited to share with each of his neighbors that come in. If marketing experts were consulted; they would change almost everything starting with the front windows that look onto the backside of shelves.
His biggest selling item is the meat and it is not displayed anywhere in the store. The marketing experts would miss the point: Jimmy is not running a chain; he is running HIS store and he is running it on a set of rules that he can win with.
What are the rules that Jimmy is using?
The rules are some of the simplest rules a business could use: First, be an expert at what you do. Jimmy runs a gourmet shop. He should know what makes the products special. When he makes Clam Chowder fresh, it had better be good!
Second, he knows his customers. After all, they are supporting him.
Third, his staff is a reflection of him and his store so he had better get it right.
If Jimmy’s formula for success is so simple what makes his store so special? The answer is surprisingly simple: while most business people see this as a chore to be performed only to the minimum level that is necessary, Jimmy sees it as his job and he shows up and does it.
Jimmy uses a principal I call SHOWING UP TO WORK. While most of us show up to get paid, put in our time or because we are supposed to, the truly successful business people show up to do the work.
In earlier years, this was a simple concept to see, if you didn’t chop wood in the fall you froze in the winter - there is no mystery in that! If you didn’t plant the crop in the spring, there was no harvest in the fall. If you didn’t milk the cows twice a day, the cows became uncomfortable and eventually died.
The problem for the modern day businessperson is simple: when we don’t do what we are supposed to do, there are no cows mooing but the result is eventually the same.
What we need to do is figure out for our particular business, what is the equivalent to milking the cows and then we need to go forth and milk.
This is a re-print of an article from the Small Business Insight in December 2006. The Small Business insight is published by Team Nimbus LLC. Article by Art Radtke.