Andrew Carter talks about marketing for retail stores and the secrets to retail business success.

Having a small business mentor is the one area most retail business owners overlook, or underestimate its true value.  I think this is mostly because they have such a high degree of product knowledge and they are so convinced that it is their knowledge of their products that will get them through and create success - but it won’t.

Every truly successful person in business has a mentor, and it doesn’t matter what industry your business is. I have a mentor and I’m sure that’s how I got so successful so quickly. My mentor has a mentor. His mentor has a mentor. If you look at someone as widely successful as Bill Gates, he had Steve Ballmer as his mentor. Warren Buffet turns to his vice-chairman, Charlie Munger. So everyone successful has a mentor to help them.

Basically, you need to model yourself on someone who is already successful in business.  Ideally, your mentor is someone in the same line of business as you.  So you learn from their mistakes so that you don’t have to make them. It makes your business life easier and more successful, which follows on to your personal life also.

Now, I understand that my mentoring program isn’t for everyone. And that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that. But if it doesn’t suit you, then you need to look around for someone else who does suit you and can help mentor you. Make sure it’s someone with a proven track record, and make sure it feels right for you. For retail business success getting yourself a small business mentor is strongest and fastest possible way.

It’s not hard to understand why a retail store owner – particularly a new retail store owner – would try to duplicate things other retail store owners are doing. After all, if you see other retail store owners advertising a certain way, using a certain medium or with certain words – you figure they must be successful with it and so you will be too. If you were able to take a look at raw statistics, though, you would see that most retail stores are actually not doing all that well. If you copy all the techniques and methods of stores that are not doing great – how can you expect to have better results from the same methods?

So – forgetting to be unique is the most common marketing mistake, and the most frustrating, marketing mistake that specialty retail businesses make. It’s actually quite easy to do things differently from what everyone else is doing – and it’s those aspects that help you stand out from the crowd and get a leg up on the competition. When you do things differently, you are bound to get far better results.

When you are looking to market your specialty retail business, you can advertise in specific magazines, papers and on websites that are targeting the same target group of customers. Unlike big department stores that have to gear advertising to appeal to everyone, your specialty retail business is targeting a specific group of people as customers, so you can place your advertisements with media that also targets that group of people. This is a much more effective approach to marketing, and you will soon create a loyal following of customers to your specialty retail business who becomes repeat buyers of your products. A common marketing mistake that specialty retail business owners make is forgetting that they are marketing to a smaller target market and don’t take advantage of these relevant niche magazines and websites for advertising.

Why Are You Opening a Specialty Shop?

Before you start any business you have to be clear for your reasons for doing it.  Is it just something that seems fun?  Do you think you could do it better than the guy with the specialty shop down the road?  The only time you will be successful with a specialty shop if you are opening it because you are passionate about it and because you view it as a way to establish your own wealth-creating asset.

What Sets You Apart From Similar Businesses?

Doing research on the competition is a necessary step to start a business.  What similar stores are there in the immediate vicinity, what products do they carry and how will you differentiate from them?  You’ll need to find ways to attract their customers and gain some of your own, as well.  If you are planning to offer the same products as the other guy but at lower prices – you don’t have a business and you’ll have little or no financial gains.

Are You Passionate About Your Business?

Starting a business because you think it’s just the thing to do is not enough to ensure success.  You really have to be passionate about your business because it’s that passion that will get you through the tough times – especially when you’re just starting out.  Your customers will also feed off your passion and enthusiasm and keep coming back.

Do You Have Your End Goal in Mind?

Most importantly, when you are starting a specialty shop you must start with your end goal in mind.  What is it you want from your business?  Is it an asset you will sell for a large sum?  Are you looking to set it up so it can run without you, but have it still pay for your lifestyle?  Will you leave the business to your children to run?  You have to start the store with an exit strategy in place.

If you don’t have the end in mind, how can you ever get there? And the analogy I always use is if you got into your car and started driving, but not knowing where you wanted to go, where would you end up? Well, of course everyone understands that basic concept thoroughly. But very few people ever apply that same philosophy to their business. So if you don’t know where you want your business in, say, one year’s time, five years’ time, ten years’ time, then how are you ever going to get it there? So before you start your specialty shop or any business for that matter, determine what you ultimately want to achieve from your business, and how you are going to get there.

A specialty shop is simply a shop, either a conventional store, or an online business, that specializes in a specific range of products or services.  It is not like the big generic stores like WalMart or Kmart- the large stores that cover a great and varied range of products. Specialty shops tend to cover or specialize in just one field.

For example, a coffee shop is very specific or an adult shop, or an antiques shop. Toy shops, hobby shops, sporting goods shops. In fact, if you want to take sporting goods shops, you can break that down into even more specific niches and you could actually have just a golf shop, or just a tennis shop. Any store that caters to a particular niche is a specialty shop.

Marketing for specialty retailers as opposed to marketing for a department store requires different approaches.
The generic shops, like Walmart, tend to concentrate on price and the latest sales. They have to put out a lot of brochures, they have to put out a lot of advertising on television and radio, that have to cover a great deal of product in order to try and gain as many customers as possible.. It’s basically what I call a scattergun marketing approach.

A specialty shop is very easy to market effectively, if you know what you’re doing. Unlike having to appeal to the masses, and try and bring them in by showing a whole range of products, a specialty shop can advertise in specific magazines or papers or Internet sites targeting their potential customers. You appear directly to your target audience, and once you start doing that, believe it or not, price is not the all-important aspect. In fact, I show stores how to charge more than their competitors for the same product, and yet sell more than their competitors do!

It’s also a lot easier to build a loyal following of customers to a specialty shop than it is to a department store. And if you can do that, this then will let you market directly to a group of people who bought off you before, and are most likely to buy off you again. So I look at techniques in marketing for specialty retailers that shows them how to get those customers to spend more with them each time they buy from them, and to actually increase the numbers of times they buy from them in a year.