Small business best practices

BY TOM SHAY

The title of this article comes from Charles Wesley , credited as the founder of the Methodist Church , though perhaps the phrase can be adapted to our retail stores as , “ Cleanliness is Next to Profitability .”

We learned a valuable — and expensive — lesson while going through our warehouse . Our receiving process included writing the date received on a case . Imagine our surprise , and disappointment with ourselves , when we found a case that had been received eight months earlier , still sitting on a warehouse shelf . How many times had we reordered this product while it sat idle ? Frustrating .

We then mapped our warehouse , and set a schedule to check every aisle and shelf . This was an easy way to determine what the lack of organization had cost us .

Perhaps you have had this experience : an invoice arrives , but you cannot find physical evidence of that merchandise . Perhaps it ’ s out on the sales floor ? Let ’ s hope so !

Some organizational needs are evident by looking at checkouts , receiving areas and office desks . Others are not so obvious . Either way , lack of organization eats up a tremendous amount of time and money . We offer a solution that we found most helpful in our business . Beyond the suggestion of cleaning a desk , warehouse , salesfloor or checkout , we created a guide that helped everyone in our business perform any task . We began by having everybody make a note of examples of anything that had consumed their time and effort . During our bi-weekly staff meeting , each person shared these challenges that they had experienced .

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With someone acting as a recording secretary , we held a discussion about what could be done to prevent these challenges from happening again . Because the discussion took place as a group , solutions came from different perspectives , and with a variety of plans of attack .

Notes taken by the secretary were later transcribed into one of two types of documents . One document was referred to as a policy — and the other a procedure .

The procedure was an outline of how to perform a specific task . This could be for unloading a truck , and what to do with the accompanying paperwork . Or how to handle the paperwork in a transaction at the register . For example , dollars entering a register should be placed in a specific manner in the drawer , along with a specification of the minimum amount of bills and coins to be kept in the drawer .

The policies created were the rules that we set for ourselves .

For instance : cell phone usage , or what was worn to work . We agreed that ladders should not be kept in the aisles . Excessive merchandise was stocked overhead in a specific manner , or returned to the warehouse . Cartons were not left in any aisle . We also wrote down best practices for maintenance and cleanup of the sales floor , warehouse and checkout area .

Because the entire staff participated in the creation of any policy or procedure , there was a lot of buy-in by everybody .

Of course , cleanliness also transcends to the areas generally reserved for managers and owners . From observation of multiple businesses , we have found that when there are policies and procedures for the staff that are not applicable for managers and owners , the entire effort will dissolve .

We called our creation , “ The Owner ’ s Manual .” It was definitely one of our best efforts for having a store and staff that understands the value of time and money . BD

Tom Shay is a lifelong small-business owner and manager . He has authored 12 books on small business management ; a college textbook on small business financial management and co-authored a book on retailer / vendor relations .

10 Beverage Dynamics • September / October 2022 www . beveragedynamics . com