The Future of Retail with Bob Negen

Bob Negen is a true retail expert, he has been coaching retailers for over two decades and was a retailer for almost as long. He’s been through recessions and the best of times. Today Bob and I chat about the future of retail and why we are both so bullish on it!

Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from our discussion in this episode:

• What has been learned from the last 2 years and what you need to do to create a better future
• Bob talks about the Omni Experience and what that can mean to your level of loyalty and customer engagement
• He talks about how you can use ADD right away to help you derive more team engagement

If you can find out more about Bob Negen and Whizbang Training at www.Whizbangtraining.com to sign up for his free tip of the week and video blog or you can email him at bob.negen@whizbangtraining.com

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Transcript

Bob Negen  00:00

So there is a small knitting store in Bay City, Michigan, a piece of you, Ewe, right? It was a small local store, the pandemic came, the state of Michigan was shut down. And so she started going to do a store and doing live social selling. She had several good months in a row. But the story that's relevant to our conversation here is one of our best customers is in Bozeman, Montana, which, you know, our son goes to college in Bozeman. So that's a 30 hour drive, right? But she thinks of this, this woman in Bozeman, thinks of Susan as her local knitting store off you see, this is the power of live social selling one way to experience the brand, ecommerce another way, content marketing, so that I mean, it's a perfect example. Yeah, and so many people are doing big dollars on social selling.

Pete Mohr  00:59

Hey, it's Pete, and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast helping you cut through the chaos of running a business and transforming your frustrations into freedoms. And today, I had the opportunity to speak with Bob Deegan, an old friend of mine, and he used to be in one of Bob's mastermind groups, for a couple of years really enjoyed spending time with him. And we really hit it off well, so it's good to see him again. And I'm sure you're gonna love this conversation, especially if you're a retailer. But if you aren't a retailer, there's a lot of great takeaways. In this episode as well. We're going to talk about what is the future of retail, we'll talk about the good news and the bad news of the pandemic, and how you can take your business and move it ahead. And like I said, even if you aren't in retail, there's lots of great nuggets here from my conversation with Bob Neguin. Mr. Bob Neguin, it is a pleasure to see you again.

Bob Negen  01:57

Well, Peter, it is always good to see you too. Bye, friend. I'm really honored that you have me on and I look forward to our conversation.

Pete Mohr  02:04

Yeah, me too. And I love to I love that happy smile, Bob. And for those of you who are watching us on video, you'll be able to see Bob and Bob and I have connection back Oh, I don't know, five or six years now I guess a Bob and I was a proud member of your platinum mastermind group. Yeah, years there and, and really enjoyed our time together. And one of the things that we haven't had an opportunity to do on the podcast yet is talk a lot of retail. And what I thought we would do today, Bob is to sort of go back through some of the ideas of what is the future of retail from, from all of the things that have happened here in the last couple of years to what does the future look like down the road for retail? And give me some thoughts around that, Bob?

Bob Negen  02:50

Yeah, absolutely. So the immediate trend is what I call acceleration. And so the good news and the bad news, the the bad news is that the pandemic changed everything. Oh, boy, the good news is the pandemic changed everything. And, you know, Peter, you're a retailer. So So you see this in, in your world, too. But what I see happening is an acceleration, and the independent and that's all I work with, we don't work with department stores or big chains we work with, you know, small to mid sized, independent brick and mortar retailers, is that the people who embrace the change, the people who embrace using the technologies that are emerging, are going to become so much more successful so much more quickly than ever before, that you can build a business and build a brand in in a speed that wasn't even, you couldn't even think about growing that fast before the pandemic. So, you know, that's, that's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. But then the bad news is, of course, that those people who don't want to change are going to go out of business faster than ever, or even worse, they're going to become what I call The Walking Dead. Right. And you know, those people, they're the people who are just hanging on, their lives are filled with stress, they start to blame everybody for the fact that their store isn't making it anymore. The good news and the bad news is it's changed. The good news is if you change with it, the future's bright. The bad news is if you don't change with it, frankly, you're screwed. So that's how it starts.

Pete Mohr  04:35

We were closed 20 weeks here with our shoe stores through a different closures, you know, eight weeks, eight weeks and about six weeks type thing. But from that perspective, through that time, we took some initiatives to change the way we do things that utopia that allowed us to survive through that time, do more online business, do some other things change the way we market just continuously be looking for ways To change based on what you were saying. And then as we came out of this last closure in the spring, we've had four or five of the months since we've reopened have been our best ever months for our system. And that's because of those changes that we made through those times. So I, I completely, am I in alignment with what you're saying there?

Bob Negen  05:20

Oh, absolutely. And so Peter, what what you just talked about speaks to what I believe the future of retail is. So before the pandemic, retail was all about driving people into the store, right? That's, that was the name of the game, you drove people into the store, then you gave them a great experience. And hopefully, you had highly trained salespeople on the floor, yet bestsellers in stock, and all of the things that made for a good retailer. But what has emerged in what technology has allowed is what I'm calling Omni experiential. So a lot of people talk about omni channel retail, yeah. But omni channel focuses on how you sell to your customers. And on the experiential focuses on how you interact with your customers. And so what you're doing now, this is I mean, and I'm very confident in my opinion about this. And Peter, we've known each other a long time, I'm confident in my opinion that it might not always be right, I think the technology that has emerged has allowed small and midsize independent, to let people experience their brands, in many, many ways. So you talked about it. So all of a sudden, the pandemic, people buffed up their ecommerce presence faster than I've ever seen, it happened before social selling was brand. I mean, the only people who engaged in social selling before the pandemic was QVC in the home shopping network, or the Canadian equivalent there. And you know, all these things that lead to convenience, curbside pickup delivery, content marketing is bigger than ever before, you know, the fact that we're here right now really speaks to what has happened because of the pandemic. And so, if you look at the before model, you had, you're driving people to the store. Now I'd like your listeners to think of it as a big circle. And that circle is everything that is in your brand. It's your store, of course, but it's also your website. It's your content marketing, it's the pop up shops that you do live, social selling, in all of these different ways that your customers get to experience your brand. If your brand is consistent, and you're a good retailer, and you give your customers a great experience, they're going to reward you with loyalty, they're going to reward you with word of mouth, but most importantly, they're going to reward you with their money. So we need the technology, the price of that technology keeps coming down. And it just makes for a beautiful opportunity for everybody in our community. Omni presents to do call it Omni experiential Omni. Omni isn't word for all. So what we're trying to do is build the experiences as many different experiences into the brand as we can.

Pete Mohr  08:20

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, there are so many ways you can take that these days that allow you into somebody's into their bedroom, you know, like all the private places. It's like you can go there now through social, right. And it's really interesting when you when you think of all these, you're not just doing it in the store when they open the door and come in. That's exactly right. That experience is throughout and could be in a different country could be anywhere. Imagine looking back a year from now and realizing that you've just experienced one of your best years ever, things often don't just happen. They're planned. So if you haven't listened to the four part miniseries in season two of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast around planning your best year ever, I encourage you to go back and binge them there four quick sessions, download the exercises that I outlined in those and do the homework. You don't want to have the same old year again, do you? Are you like me? Have you tried loads of planners and just not found the right one, I created the one page planner with the entrepreneur in mind. It's a fillable PDF format so that you can either print it off and write everything in a binder or you can complete it on your computer or your tablet. So download it today at simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash planner so that you'll be looking back next year at this time with a sense of accomplishment and pride you've never felt before.

Bob Negen  09:53

What I was going to share is a story that I think is just perfect to this. So there is a small knitting store is Bay City, Michigan, a piece of you, Ewe, right? It was a small local store, the pandemic came, the state of Michigan was was shut down. And so she started going to do a store and doing live social selling. What she shared was is that, you know, she had several good months in a row. But the story that's relevant to our conversation here is one of our best customers is in Bozeman, Montana, which, you know, our son goes to college in Bozeman. So that's a 30 hour drive, right. But she thinks of this, this woman in Bozeman thinks of Susan as her local knitting store. You see, this is the power of live social selling one way to experience the brand, ecommerce, another way, content marketing, so that I mean, it's a perfect example. Yeah. And so many people are doing big dollars, big dollars on social selling.

Pete Mohr  10:56

Yeah, I love that. And it's something when I talk about our best ever months that we've just had, if it wasn't for the increase in the web business that we've done, because when we were closed, that's the only business we did. So we're thankful for that. But coming off of that, we have literally 10 times, if not more every month, what we were doing prior to the pandemic on the webstore, because we've had a webstore. For years, it's been something that we've had for a long time. It's not like we just did it because of pandemic. I know a lot of a lot of people did, but we've had one for a really long time. But the difference now is that we know how to use it better. We know how to market it better. And we're actually taking it to new levels. And that's helping our entire system. We're really finding our in store traffic that people have dug into our website found out what they want, they'd come in on purpose. I want to try this particular item on and do you have it? Let's Let's go. And absolutely, so it's pre selling for us to buy

Bob Negen  11:54

it. Yes. It's pre selling its post selling. That is what has happened. Yeah. And that speaks to the acceleration. Yeah. So now all of a sudden, you're having great months, why haven't great months? Because you learned a whole bunch of stuff when your back was against the wall. Yeah. And that happened to everyone. I made it happen to us here. It was bank retail training. Yeah. You've been to our retail Success Summit. I have several times. Yes. Well, all of a sudden, we couldn't have a retail Success Summit. So we brought it online, we spent a lot of money, learning from the experts how to do it. We had our best retail Success Summit ever, in terms of attendance, in terms of impact in terms of dollars generated, the countries that were represented, because we're we do what I'm suggesting everybody does, which is, okay. This is the situation as exists right now. Let's get to work and figure this stuff out. So we can do this. And I think that there's one other really important point here, Peter, and that is, when you go through something like this, you become more resilient, you become more confident. Yeah, you become more trusting of your gut, in all of those things are what make entrepreneurs tick. It's what all those things that help entrepreneurs become more successful. Yeah, love, though. I mean, I love your story. I

Pete Mohr  13:24

thank you, thank you. The big thing is we sat down, I have this other little phrase that I use a lot. It's called Clarity creates confidence when you were talking about confidence, creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum. And I think that idea of when it hits the fan, that you sit down, create the clarity that you need to create so you can build that confidence and move this thing ahead. And I mean, the future of retail is positive.

Bob Negen  13:49

Truly, truly, I have never been more bullish on the future of retail. And I've been doing retail for whom I got even admit this now 43 years, 19 years as a store owner 20 Some years doing this. I've lived through several recessions as a retailer and several recessions, as somebody who helps retailers, and I just have to tell you that I have never been more excited about what's happening. There's so many changes. People are getting in and getting out, starting a brand with a startup and a website. And then moving into physical stores. People are taking their physical stores and creating brands around their content marketing. So everybody that technology. The future is Peter Diamandis says that technology always moves in one direction. It's democratized in its commoditized is becomes a commodity. And that's happening isn't it a hidden think about the access to technology for cheap cheap cheap that we have available ty no crazy Oh, if you're if you're if you're sharp and you're willing to give it some energy I'm just super excited about what's gonna happen. You're gonna see a lot of people going out of business, but they're the hobbyists, they're the person who Oh, I really would like to have a quilt store. Oh, I love bicycles, I should have a bike shop. Yeah. And then they don't do what they need to do to become retail professionals. But you're gonna see a lot of fresh new, digitally native young people getting into retail, old dogs like us doing great things. Just an exciting day.

Pete Mohr  15:29

It is Bob, tell everybody, if they were to do one thing to improve their retail business after they got off this particular podcast, what would it be?

Bob Negen  15:39

So what I would do, Peter is I would get together with my whole team. And I would do this thing that with this model that we called, it's called ADD, ask, discuss, decide. And I would ask them that as a team, I would ask them to go through and let's do an inventory of all of the ways that people experience our brand, our content marketing, our website, our email, marketing, our social media lives, all of the ways that people experience our brand. And then so first, I'd make a laundry list. And then I would make sure that the experience is consistent, super quick story. So in the platinum mastermind group, we have somebody who has four really, really cool, fun gift and card shops. And what she said I mean, she absolutely blew up the pandemic, right. But what she said was, after a conversation about Omni experiential, she said, What I realized is that when people get something delivered to them, either curbside, or we send it to them, because they bought it from our website. It doesn't have that rock papers, scissors feel, right. So there's sort of these little silos of brand experience of the look and feel of the brand. So when somebody comes to your website, they should feel the same thing that they feel when they're in your store, like you get an email, it should have the same feel. So really just it right now. We got through the pandemic, now is the time to embrace Omni experiential. But then when you ask for a takeaway, that takeaway is make sure that you do an inventory. And there's consistency across the brand experience.

Pete Mohr  17:26

I love that. And an aside, we have our monthly manager meeting, we take a half day, every month with my management team, we go off site and discuss this. So we'll add add to the list tomorrow.

Bob Negen  17:39

All right, there you go. I mean, and you're gonna find when you were in the platinum mastermind group, we did the customer experience on it. Yeah. Dan Sullivan's progress. But now it's just needs to be broadened. And, and and really dialed in. We've all made it through, now's the time to polish it up.

Pete Mohr  17:57

Love that, Bob. Well, thanks so much for spending some time with me here today. And why don't you tell everybody how they could get ahold of you if they want to learn a little bit more about Bob Neguin and whiz bang training?

Bob Negen  18:07

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that opportunity. So if you go to whiz bang training.com And there's an agent whiz bang, you can sign up for our free tip of the week. And so we send out a free tip every Wednesday. And every Sunday, I send out a video blog called Real Retail TV. If you want to email me directly, it's Bob dot Megan, you spell my last B OB of course. But he spell my last name and e g. N. Bob dot neg and it was bank training.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Pete Mohr  18:38

Yeah, that's great, Bob, and I really enjoyed seeing your smiling face again. It's good to spend some time together and appreciate you here on the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast with me today.

Bob Negen  18:48

Yeah, thanks for having me, Peter. It's always a pleasure.

Pete Mohr  18:55

Thanks for spending some time here with us today. And think about how you can apply Bob's comment around add, ask, discuss and decide. I think that's a great framework to go into your next meeting. You can do this right after you get off the call. You can make a phone call, you can set up the next meeting to ask, discuss and decide upon something that's troubling you and that you can put into action. So I think that's a big key takeaway here. And I really enjoyed that model. So after all, you lead your business and it shouldn't be leading you always remember that clarity creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum. So if you like the podcast, please share it with your friends and subscribe to our simplifying entrepreneurship YouTube channel. I'd love your feedback in the comment section of the YouTube and I will personally respond to each one. I'm interested to hear about future topics that you'd like me to cover, maybe even future guests. You can help me out by subscribing on the podcast on Spotify or Apple and reviewing the episode on Apple By leaving us up to a five star review, if you like the podcast and would like to support it, I have a Patreon as well and it's at patreon.com forward slash Pete Mohr where you can support the podcast at whichever level you like. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. The links are in the show notes. You can send me an email to at Pete at mortgage coach or visit the website at mortgage coach that's mo hr.co Ach and until next time, make it a great day

20:36

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