PRE-SEASON TRAINING FOR FOOTBALL will start soon
at high schools around the country. Get down to the
coach’s office to see if you can sponsor the flip coin. Cast it
yourself, take out ads in the game program notes and soon
the whole community will know of your talents.

This article originally appeared in the June 2016 edition of INSTORE.

1
INDEPENDENT RETAILER
MONTH celebrates its fifth
anniversary this year amid a
growing awareness that Mom and
Pop retailers are not only good
for marketplace diversity but
help support the unique identities
of neighborhoods. Proclaim
your independence with an event
tied to July Fourth. Tout the
individualized customer service
and quality you offer compared
to chain stores. The Independent
Retailer Month website ( instr.
us/6163) has posters and other
visual elements you can print out
to display in your windows.

2Today is one of those “how
time flies” days. Yes, it’s the MIDPOINT OF THE YEAR; half of
2016 — somehow — has gone.
Instead of getting depressed, get
busy. Retrieve your targets from
your January planning meetings
and check where you are
now. If you’re way off course, big
adjustments are necessary but
perhaps more importantly it signals
something is awry with your
assumptions. Simply working
harder, for example, won’t boost
sales if traffic is drying up.

3 Back around the turn of the
century, Time magazine
surveyed world leaders to ask
them what they thought was the
greatest innovation of the 20th
century. Most opted for medical or tech breakthroughs, or peacebuilding
institutions. Not the late
Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of
Singapore. He said air-conditioning.
Without it, no work would
get done in his steamy little island
state. The same could be said
for summer shopping. On AIRCONDITIONING
APPRECIATION DAY
, let the sweaty, heaving crowds
know they’re always welcome in
your store and will be received
with old-fashioned lemonade and
an invitation to relax and browse.
Your summer policy is No heat.
No pressure.

13 Hear ye, hear ye! It’s the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF
THE TOWN CRIER and we think
you, and your neighbors, should
get together to hire one to do the
rounds of your strip mall, mall, or
downtown. Advertising contact
with your customers is nearly
always done through an electronic
medium these days, but there’s
still power in the human touch.
Make your cries newsy. “Oyez,
oyez, gold is up to $1,250 an
ounce, silver is not so far behind.”

24 Stop us if you’ve heard
this one. “How do you
entertain a bored pharaoh? You
sail a boatload of young women
dressed in fishing nets down
the Nile and urge him to go
catch a fish.” Ba-da-bum! Maybe
it was funnier in the original
Egyptian. Whatever. According
to the Smithsonian that is one
of the oldest jokes on record. On NATIONAL TELL AN OLD JOKE DAY ,
challenge staff to bust out their
best funnies (What do you call
a cheap and nasty belly-button
ring? A navel destroyer!) It’s midsummer
and a groan has to be
better than a yawn.

30
Donna Soodalter-Toman,
owner of Donna’s Infinite
Variety of Adornments in
Newtonville, MA, had a fun way of
marking
NATIONAL DANCE DAY — a
12 percent off sale on anything if
people entered the shop dancing.
It was, she says, one of her most
successful, low-cost promotions.

HAPPY 70TH ANNIVERSARY TO

VIERK’S FINE JEWELRY
LAFAYETTE, IN

➤ The story of Vierk’s Fine Jewelry
can perhaps be best summed
up as a case of one thing led to
another. After it started as a
used-clothing outlet in 1946, an
offer to buy a boxcar full of old
army gear led to a specialization
in military surplus. That evolved
into a focus on camping supplies
and later bicycle services.
An opportunistic foray into gold
and silver buying followed in
the ’70s. “Some [of it] we just
didn’t have the heart to scrap,”
recalls third-generation owner
Jeff Vierk. “Next thing you know
we had enough very nice jewelry
to fill a showcase … and then
six showcases.” Today the store
has 5,000 square feet of retail
space. Not surprisingly, Vierk
attributes the store’s success
to its ability to adapt. “There is
only one guarantee in the jewelry
business, and that is that it’s
going to change,” he notes.

BIRTHSTONE

RUBIES

Nearly as
hard, often more
expensive and infinitely
more exotic
than diamonds. And
— thanks to the Tom
Lantos Block Burmese JADE
Act of 2008 — difficult to buy
and sell (unless you can prove
it’s not of Burmese origin, keep
records going back years, etc.,
etc., etc.) Traditionally a symbol
of passionate love, but now
more one of political repression,
the ruby is given to mark the
40th wedding anniversary.