THERE’S NO QUALITATIVE way to grade tips. What works at one store, may prove ineffective at another. What represents a fresh approach in one market, may be old hat in another. Still, as a publication that provides itself on finding and sharing good ideas, we’d like to think we stumbled across a few that are worthy of repeating in a year-end list. Here are out 12 best tips of 2017:
Best tip to start the year: Put a buck in a jar.
Want to easily save nearly $1,400? Take Lifehacker.com’s 52 Week Money Challenge. You simply start by putting $1.00 in a jar or account and adding a dollar to the deposit amount each week. So in week 3 you’ll be putting in $3.00 and by week 17, $17. Of course by the end of the year, the amount will be $52 but by then you’ll have built it up so much momentum the sacrifice will be easy. And in a matter of days you’ll have $1,378 of free money to put toward a credit card bill or new laser welder.
Best tip to end the week: Strike Friday off your Work Calendar
If at this time of year you find yourself wishing there were more hours in the day, or more days in the week, try proceeding as if there were fewer. That’s the advice of Laura Vanderkam author of 68 HOURS: YOU HAVE MORE TIME THAN YOU THINK. Vanderkam doesn’t schedule any work on Fridays. She doesn’t take Fridays off. She just pretends, for planning purposes, that the day doesn’t exist. That way, when projects inevitably overrun, and unexpected tasks rear up, there’s a bucket into which the overspill can flow.
Best tip to get your inventory in shape over a year: The 10/12 Rule
Move, liquidate, scrap, close out or re-purpose. Ten percent of your oldest jewelry should be targeted for such action every month for 12 successive months and “you will be your own hero,” says Dennis Petimezas, owner of Watchmaker’s Diamonds & Jewelry, Johnstown, PA. “An old, old, old, war-horse exec within the industry told me this six months ago. I’m doing it, and it feels GOOD. I am seeing results already.”
Best tip to energize staff: Go with the employee’s plan
When an employee comes to you with an idea, particularly if he is suggesting a change to a plan you made, adopt this useful bias: if the plan is at least 60 percent as good as yours, go with the subordinate’s. He or she will execute it twice as well, just through feelings of ownership, write Timothy Saint and Nicholas Smith, two former Marine lieutenants in a Business Insider post titled “11 Business Lessons from the Battlefield.”
Best tip to get buy-in: Invite all staff to meet the sales reps
The next time a sales rep for a wedding brand – or any jewelry line – calls about dropping in to show you their latest goods, see if the meeting can happen at a time when nearly all sales staff can attend. When you involve nearly everyone in selection, you usually ensure it will do better if you decide to purchase this line.
Best Tip to Get your staff on the same page: Read this
Maintaining service standards is one of the hardest things in management. As Armen and Ara Darakjian, owners of Darakjian Jewelers in Birmingham, MI, have found out, “One bad experience can ruin a guest’s past 10 perfect experiences.” To literally keep everyone on the same page, the Darakjians started a store book club that meets every Friday to discuss a chapter of a selected work. A recent selection: Selling Luxury by Robin Lent.
Best tip to go beyond yes: Yessify Your Yesses
There is always a better answer than a mere “yes,” says author Dale Dauten, author of The Gifted Boss. He gives the example of asking a number of auto repair shops if they repair Lotuses. Most say “no,” a few say “yes,” but then one says, “Absolutely, we specialize in imports and the shop’s owner drives a Lotus.” Who do you think got the business? So the next time somebody asks you if you do custom, find a better answer than just “yes.”
Best reframing tip: Guilt is Good
The feeling of guilt doesn’t get much good press these days. But business author Mark Forster urges you to see it as a signal, as it tends to attach itself to stuff that really matters. Attack your most guilt-inducing tasks, and you may find, without intending it, that you’ve attacked the most important ones too, he says in Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management
Best tip to elevate your restroom: TP your bathroom with quotes
Want a ultra low-cost way to add personality and romance to your bathroom? Tack pages of your favorite poetry up on the walls. For Liz Lambert, owner of the hip Hotel San Jose in Austin, TX, this was a cost-saving idea that eventually became one of the hotel’s most popular features. (Extra tip: If the pages start disappearing, it could be a sign that you’re not stocking enough toilet paper.)
Best rethinking of an old tip: The Rule of $100
There’s a widely held belief in retail that “dollar off” discounts are more effective than percentages. But Jonah Berger, author of the business bestseller “Contagious,” adds a proviso: When setting a sale price, remember the “Rule of $100,” he says. For prices under $100, use a discount percentage (25% off!). For prices over $100, use a straight dollar figure ($250 off, regular price $1,000!). It’s premise you should investigate with some A/’B testing.
Best self-improvement tip: Learn to say “I don’t know” more often.
Too many people in business — and politics, and elsewhere — act as if they know the solution to a given problem. Sure, no one wants to look like an ignoramus — but it’s hard to learn anything if you pretend you already know the answer, says economist and FREAKONOMICS author Stephen Dubner, Second benefit: Once you know what you don’t know, you can start running experiments and gathering feedback. “These don’t have to be complicated or expensive. Real randomized experimentation is one of the most basic, useful tools in figuring out how to solve a problem in any sphere,” he told Forbes.
Best tip of 2017: Ask This Question
It’s striking how much of what passes as modern management advice was prescribed by Peter Drucker half a century ago — batch similar tasks, forget multi-tasking, use stop-doing lists, look for the systemic problem in crises — and this little gem, which we came across recently. According to the management guru, the one question that will trigger more improvement than any other in your staff: What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness? “Ask it without coyness, he urged.