The retail store manager’s role is an unenviable one. It hasn’t changed much since I was one many years ago. If anything, it certainly has become more “complex”: empty shelves; stocks not received to fill them; messy shop-floor; chaotic back-office; broken promises to customers; disgruntled customers with threatening complaints; warehouse and vendor goof-ups and a million other operational hiccups keep store managers constant company. Add to that; dropping footfalls; dismal conversions; sickly ticket sizes and screaming bosses; and you have a ticking bomb under your seat. While managing all these variables and trying to do a good job of it all, store managers usually paint themselves into a corner.
Yes, thankfully there is…
…In the understanding that store management is both, an art and a science – but definitely not a curse. Now, there can be as many opinions as there are retailers, on what portion of store management is art, and what; science. This article is not an effort to settle that debate. However, it is just an effort to inextricably establish that store management is indeed a combination of the two; and that store managers thankfully have help at hand to equip them for the roller-coaster ride they are perennially on.
It is important for store managers to acknowledge this fact; and more so to know when to be the ‘artist’ and play to the galleries; and when, in fact to be the ‘scientist’ and feel the pulse of the business.
It is an indisputable fact that store managers have two bosses – the customer; their first boss; and their functional boss; the other. And you will agree with me when I say, that unless they serve their primary bosses well; the very existence of themselves and their secondary bosses is in serious jeopardy.
The simple truth for store managers to understand is that, with their customers (the camera), they are expected to mostly play the ‘artist’ and with their functional bosses, mostly the ‘scientist’. As artists, they essentially play three roles – the sales person (the clap-boy); the sales manager (the hero) and the people manager (the heroine). The fourth and the only role they are required to play with their functional bosses is one of an operations manager (the director).
Store managers find themselves in the line-of-fire either when they step into the sets as directors or when they continue playing the hero; the heroine or the clap-boy behind the camera.
A store manager is primarily a ‘sales person’ (the clap-boy) or a CSA (customer service associate) and more often than not, that’s where they have come up from. A manager cannot discard or subordinate that role, no matter how senior or experienced or busy he/she is. There are some store managers who are conspicuous by their absence on the shop-floor. I’ve also seen store managers who run the shop floor by remote control - either from their back offices or from the food-courts or worse, from their homes! No Store manager is too big or too busy to be on the floor; SELLING. If anything, they ought to remember that their being on the shop-floor as a sales person is an opportunity to be a role-model for their store staff. They can teach by example the delicate nuances of striking a rapport with their customers; understanding their needs and offering solutions to them. Store-staff get to emulate their store managers in the art of selling.
Your shop floor is a crucial moment of truth for your store brand to make a mark in the minds of your customers. It is also a fertile ground for understanding customer behavior and their preferences. Learnings from the shop-floor is what gives store managers the edge to influence merchandise mix; pricing and promotion strategies of the company. Store managers also get to observe their team-mates interacting with customers and can therefore assess them better. Knowing your sales staff intimately – and knowing their strengths and weaknesses, helps you better utilize them on the selling floor. Besides, it is also an ideal ground for coaching and mentoring your staff – especially new hires.
In an expanded role, store managers assume the responsibility to manage the collective sales process of the members of their staff. Therefore, a store manager is also a ‘Sales Manager’ (the hero). A role that convincingly establishes the fact that store managers are essentially sales people; and anyone who can bring the required rigour and discipline to the shop floor, can also make it to the top role, like themselves. They take ownership of the sales goals – not just their own – but that of the store as a whole. They become accountable for converting shoppers into buyers; selling more to each buyer and doing so repeatedly and consistently. As a sales manager, they prove their ability to win customers’ loyalties that ensure customers stick to your store and patronize it over long periods of time – despite competition.
As sales managers, they are also the custodians of customer service – the first person a customer would like to speak to when she faces a problem or; rarely when she gets satisfactory service!
As a ‘people manager’ (the heroine); store managers are responsible for the most valuable assets of their stores – their people. A store manager should be able to choose the right people for his store; train them and keep them knit together as a team; be a catalyst that spurs productivity in a diverse team. A people manager is also a friend, philosopher and guide to each of his teammates – deploying the right skills in the appropriate departments and holding them accountable for their actions and behaviours. Spot and correct mistakes of the sales staff with a right balance of reward and retribution. Coach and encourage them to out-perform themselves. Identify star performers and groom them into becoming a second line of command in the stores. And more importantly, as people managers, they are responsible for keeping store staff together as one chain - a chain that is as strong as each of its links – whenever you have to replace a link because of attrition, your chain is weak. It is indeed an onerous task, but nonetheless a crucial role of a people manager to keep the chain strong and intact.
The bosses in the corporate office are mostly concerned with only the fourth role – ‘operations manager’(the director). Stores opening on time; getting footfalls; converting them into customers and increasing the number of units each customer buys; meeting sales targets and following the standard operating processes, while doing so.
Unfortunately, it is this role of an operations manager that consumes all the waking (and sleeping hours) of many a store manager. It engulfs them into becoming trouble-shooters. Not unless they realize that in a ‘model store’ – operations is ‘incidental’ and not ‘imperative’ to a sale. The various things – receiving stock; stacking shelves; keeping the store clean; having friendly and knowledgeable staff etc – are all incidental to making a ‘sale’ happen. And the ‘Sale’ itself is the imperative – or the raison d’etre for the store to remain in business. Store managers – as operations managers lend leadership and direction to the business. They have to be the thinking and guiding force behind the other three roles – thankfully played by oneself.
Standard Operating Processes or (SOPs) are a means to an end – the Sale. It is a documented form of mapping who does what, when, why, how and where; to achieve the end result – a sale made to a customer; who is willing to come back to your store. The operations manager is indeed the custodian of SOPs – and not a victim of it, as is unfortunately the case in most stores.
While it is true that the ‘artist store manager’ has to be seamless in the three different roles he/she plays on the theatre called shop-floor. It is also important that he keeps the costumes of the operations manager for use only in the back office or while with his corporate bosses. Remember, your customer is not interested in what your procedure manual says or the seven reasons why you don’t have the product he wants, on your shelves.
Unfortunately, there is no theory to suggest an ideal ratio in which a store manager should spilt his time among playing these four roles – only a good training program can help him/her make the enactment so seamless, that they slip in and out of these roles, as if by magic.
Whatever you do, remember that when you are in front of the camera (your customer); you are in one of the three roles of an ‘artist’ – the ‘sales person’(the clap-boy); the ‘sales manager’ (the hero) or the ‘people manager’ (the heroine). And the next time your boss is screaming his head off at you, it could be because you were playing his favourite role – of an operations manager - in front of a different audience; your customer!
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