LESSON 17: GAINING NEW IDEAS AND STRATEGIES

It’s important to be open to new ideas that can help you grow your business, as well as your customer loyalty and trust.

Food Trade Shows 

• Find new items.
• Collect catalogs on brands and suppliers to build your network of resources.
• Learn more about the items you sell.
• Learn from and network with your peers.
• Seek input on how others have addressed your same challenges.
• Share your own examples of success and failure.
• Establish connections with the producers of the goods you sell.
• Analyze trends.
  
  

Seeing Other Stores/Departments

• What do they carry that’s the same and/or different from what you carry?
• Sometimes another department in your store can give valuable insights that can be applied in your department.
• Identify the things you can do to stand out from your competition.
• Compare prices on like items.
• What merchandising things are they doing that could work in your store?
• Identify what it is about the other department/store that makes it succeed/fail.
• What hardware do they use that could be useful to your department?