Distinguishing Touches

As I noted in my last blog, through my travels, I have been blessed to meet with people from all walks of life. Each of these encounters had served to reaffirm my belief that the key ingredients to success at all levels is your willingness to learn and the relationships with which you surround yourself….

Lowes recently paid $2.2 million to settled a class action lawsuit by job applicants who claimed the information contained in background checks run by the retailer violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  Similarly, a class action was recently filed in California federal court against Robert Half International Inc. by an Ohio man who accuses the…

Even if you’re an experienced sales manager, it’s likely you may find it difficult to advise other people about areas in which improvement is needed. Praising a good performance is easy; everyone likes to receive a compliment. Both parties are smiling and, for the moment at least, life is good. But what do you do…

You have interviewed a number of candidates for a job at your store and want to offer one of them a position. To ensure that you offer a salary that will be attractive to the applicant, you ask, “What are you making at your current job?” Or maybe you ask for the applicant’s salary history…

While there are clearly two schools of thought as to whether flooring retailers should allow samples to be checked out by a potential customer, the reality is that most stores still allow their samples to leave their showrooms unattended. As a consequence, the samples in many showrooms that I observe have something less than a…

When my daughter was young, my wife insisted that she eat at least three bites of everything that she was served for dinner. She did this partially out of principle, but largely to ensure that she was getting a balanced diet. I particularly remember one night when she finally ate three spoonfuls of by then…