RETAIL OPERATIONS FOR ART MATERIALS RETAILERS Managing … · are the best salespeople and you...

NAMTA

20200 Zion AvenueCornelius, NC 28031

T: 704.892.6244

F: 704.892.6247

[email protected]

namta.org

VOLUME 1: Managing People

RETAIL OPERATIONS FORART MATERIALS RETAILERS

Managing PeopleRETAIL OPERATIONS MANUALS

ChaptersChapter 1: The Importance of Quality Staffing ..........................................................................3

Chapter 2: The Ad for the Job Opening ....................................................................................5

Chapter 3: The Job Application ...............................................................................................7

Chapter 4: The Interview ........................................................................................................9

Chapter 5: Selecting New Employees .....................................................................................10

Chapter 6: The Employee Job Description ..............................................................................12

Chapter 7: The Job Specification ...........................................................................................14

Chapter 8: The Employee Handbook – Policies and Procedures.................................................15

Chapter 9: The Staff-Education Program ................................................................................18

Chapter 10: Job Reviews, Incentives and Salary Increases .......................................................24

Chapter 11: Employee Termination ........................................................................................29

AppendicesAppendix A: The Job Application Form ...................................................................................31

Appendix B: Job Description .................................................................................................34

Appendix C: Job Specifications..............................................................................................35

Appendix D: Business Policy .................................................................................................37

Appendix E: Procedures ........................................................................................................38

Appendix F: Sample of Class Notes ........................................................................................40

Appendix G: Sample of Class Assessment ...............................................................................41

Appendix H: Sample of Job Evaluation Form ...........................................................................42

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................44

Table of Contents

2 NAMTA: Managing People

©2013 International Art Materials Association.All Rights Reserved

This manual is intended to provide general information of use to the Art Materials Retailer. While every effort has been made to provide up-to-date information, this manual is not intended to be used without consultation with accountants, legal counsel and other qualified professionals who may make specific recommendations for individual stores.

The International Art Materials Association does not certify, approve or license art materials retailers or recommend that any general or specific business strategy, policy or procedure described in this manual or elsewhere be employed by them in operating their business.

This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the International Art Materials Association.

All inquiries should be addressed to:International Art Materials Association20200 Zion Ave.Cornelius, NC 28031

Art material retailers have many good reasons to pay close attention to the staffing aspects of their business. This book with information about effective staff selection and staff education is for the retailer who is experiencing challenges in those two aspects of business. This book describes how to resolve those challenges and is created by the International Art Materials Association for the exclusive use of its membership.

Ask any retailer about his or her competitive advantages and that retailer is likely to first mention his or her “great customer service.” After acknowledging that answer, we should ask the retailer how that advantage came to occur within the store. Was the owner of the store just lucky in having great salespeople applying for the available jobs? Or perhaps the owner of the store has an instinct of de-tecting those applicants who have exceptional sales skills. Either possibility does not, however, imply that those ap-plicants possess a skill set transferable from their previous job to retailing the products that store offers.

A second reason for paying close attention to staffing comes by way of the merchandising of the store. As mass merchants have highly trained individuals who specialize in developing the merchandising layouts for their stores, the independent art material retailer rarely has one of these individuals. The value in improving the merchandis-ing layout comes as it increases the sales per square foot and increases the average ticket size because the cus-tomer is exposed to additional merchandise that has been attractively displayed.

To merchandise her or his store, the retailer might have the assistance from a buying group, wholesaler, or coop-erative the store is a part of. Retailers that do not have this assistance available to them will find themselves left to their own ideas, or those of their employees, which may or may not be creative.

A third component of the staffing issue appears on the profit-and-loss statement. Items related to wages generally constitute the largest component of the operating expens-es section of this financial document.

Comparatively, the independent retailer is spending much more on wages – as a percentage of sales – than the mass merchant. Surely this expenditure should be justified by being spent on staff who are able to increase the average ticket size as well as the sales per square foot because they are able to engage the customer effectively.

The qualified salesperson has the ability to assist the cus-tomer in finding the merchandise that she or he is looking for, and more importantly help the customer to see what she or he wants as well as being introduced to what is new in the product selection of the store.

For the retailer who has ever had something go wrong in his or her business, and knows that this was something that has happened more than once, or was something that the retailer had thought he or she had previously explained to the employees, the need to pay attention to staffing is most important. The issue may be as simple as an em-ployee who repeatedly takes too long for his or her lunch break, or as serious as a situation in which an employee failed to properly secure the store when asked to close the business for the day.

An art material retailer will think of many other likely reasons for effective staffing choices while considering the investment of time, effort, and money necessary with regard to staff education.

The important consideration is that regardless of how many of these staffing matters might apply to you, the reader of this book, one of the wisest and best investments a retailer can make is that of developing a continuous edu-cation program for his or her business. For the person that expects that investment of time to be a daunting challenge to carry out, this book will be a source of information that will assist you in succeeding.

Success begins with the ownership of the business making a commitment to increasing the skill sets of the employees of the business. This will not work, however, if the store has a manager that wants to educate staff, but the owner-ship is not verbally and visually supporting the efforts. Everyone within the business must firmly believe that an integral component of the success of the business comes from the commitment to a quality staff.

The art materials retailer that is opening a new business might have an advantage in reading this book before the business actually opens. This future owner will be able to explain to each individual applying for a job that the store will have all of the components for creating a sales team that this book outlines.

Unfortunately, the retailer that owns an existing busi-ness is not in the same position. In making the decision to implement the techniques outlined in this book, the

CHAPTER 1

The Importance of Quality Staffing

3Chapter 1: The Importance of Quality Staffing


retailer will not be doing so with the next employee that is hired – the effort requires the commitment to begin with the existing employees. This means that the retailer will have to explain to the current staff why they are making changes to many aspects of how things are done within the store.

Having a staff-education program is but one component of a successful team for your business. Another aspect of a successful team is the manner in which you hire employees. Beginning with the description you write for the ads you place in print, online, or with job-placement services -- and continuing through the job application method that you utilize, the interviews, performing a back-ground check, and assigning staff to teach the potential new hire about the job -- all of these aspects are important as you work to bring a new person into being a part of your business.

An important component of maintaining a quality staff will be how you deal with situations in which an employee does not perform up to standards. Your other employees will be watching as one of their co-workers under performs to see what you are going to do about this employee. Hence, a format for the evaluation of the performance of all employees on a regular basis will be another important component for the success of your business.

You should know the average sales per hour for every hour of every day of the week your business is open. Partner this information with knowing which of your employees are the best salespeople and you should first arrange the schedule so that the best salespeople are on the sales floor for the times and days that history has shown to produce the most sales. It is definitely of no benefit to your busi-ness to allow the best salespeople to pick the hours they feel are most convenient for them.

This measuring of sales per hour and day will help you to create the schedule for the new hire that allows this person to learn his or her way around your business before working during the best sales periods. Of course,

this allows you to have the most time to educate the new employee without your customers having to be waited on by an inexperienced salesperson. You would best not have an employee interact with a customer until she or he has completed your initial staff-education program, however, most small businesses do not have the luxury of being able to isolate the new employee.

When you have completed a review of your sales per hour and day, you will now know what you are initially offering in the way of a schedule to a new employee. When you are interviewing potential employees you will need to clearly state that their schedule is subject to change. In addition to explaining that the schedule is subject to change, you should also be careful how you define the job that a candi-date is applying for. This would include the definition the duties of the position as well as the hours worked.

In a small business, employees are often required to be salespeople as well as cashiers. Other tasks can include stocking the shelves, unloading a delivery truck, cleaning the store, and taking out the trash. Having a job descrip-tion that only states “salesperson” responsibilities could leave a business in a difficult position if a situation arises in which the employee leaves or is terminated.

Some states have laws with regard to how a position in your business is defined. As an example, your state likely has a definition through the number of hours worked that will distinguish between a full-time and part-time em-ployee. Some states also have definitions of jobs using the term “temporary” or “permanent.” As you formulate the job and the hours you want the new employee to work, you should check with your local government with regard to these aspects.

If in your business, multiple individuals would meet a po-tential job applicant as he or she first tours the business, having job-specific information in a written format will make sure that everyone is sharing the same information with this potential hire. This document is often the job description, which will be discussed later in this book.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• It is difficult to give great customer service when you are not educating your staff on how to deliver

great customer service. • Creating policies and procedures for your staff is not being dictatorial but instead provides your staff

with the tools to succeed more easily. • Your staff, traditionally the largest operating expense, should be one that you work to constantly improve.

5Chapter 2: The Ad for the Job Opening

CHAPTER 2

The Ad for the Job Opening

As you make the decision that your business has a job opening, you will want to first tell your current employees in the hope that one of them might know of someone that would make a good candidate. Experience would indicate that the business owner would likely give more credence to a referral from an employee who is considered to be one of the best employees of the business. However, a refer-ence from an existing employee who has not demonstrated good sales skills or work ethics might be cause for concern about the skills of that applicant.

A second place to announce the job opening is with the traditional sign in the front window of the business. An applicant that comes by way of the window sign is likely to be one who already has knowledge of the products and services your business offers as well as an understanding of how your business works.

If your business has a newsletter, printed or electronic, that is sent to your customers, an announcement in the newsletter is also likely to bring applicants who are knowl-edgeable of your business.

Given the other forms of electronic media available today, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, if your business is active in these communities you could make announcements there. Employees who are active in electronic communities could announce the job opening at their place of employment in their various communications to friends and contacts. You could demonstrate the artistic abilities of your staff by creating a YouTube video inviting individuals to apply for the job.

Some businesses offer rewards to their current employees if the business hires the person that they referred. That has been seen to work frequently, but you might place a condition on the reward, such as that the new employee meets a satisfactory level of work through a job review that is at least 90 days past the date of employment.

Another method of announcing a job opening is through a local newspaper. An ad format that often brings the best response is to list all the information about what the employee is to do before listing the name of the business. If space and the financial cost of the advertisement allow, you should provide as much information about the duties of the position as possible. Simply advertising for a “sales-person” can be misleading, as the position of salesperson at one art materials retailer could be different from the position of the same name in another store.

Many states offer services, at no cost, to the hiring business to help them locate potential employees. The information you would write about the job would be similar to what you would put in a newspaper advertisement, how-ever the component about the “call for an appointment” would not be applicable. Experience has shown that to get the most from working with the state employment office, you should visit in person with the individual that has your job file. At a minimum you would want to contact the state worker on the phone as the more of her or his attention that you are able to garner, the more likely this person will be watching potential applicants for you.

You might want to contact the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which offers a job placement service. One of the advantages of working with this group is that it does a review process with each of the potential applicants. As with the state agency, visiting with the employment division of the AARP can help them help you by providing them with additional information about the duties and type of individual you are looking for. An advantage of hiring through the AARP is that it often has individuals looking for work who have been out placed by a previous job and have a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge. This person might have taken an early retirement or was forced to leave because of a merger. His or her maturity and knowledge could make for a great employee.

Art materials retailers whose businesses are located in towns that have a college or university nearby will also find that these institutions provide job-placement assistance for their students. Even though you might find qualified students to work in the business, you should consider that a high probability exists that a potential student employee is attending school to earn a degree in a specific field and might be in your area of business for the duration of his or her schooling only.

Another place the art materials retailer might want to consider to look for employees is the area high school and the Distributive Education Club of America (DECA). Students enrolled in the DECA program often attend their regular high school classes for part of the school day and then work in the business during the afternoon, evening, and weekends.

The teacher who is the head of the DECA program will work with the employer to set the guidelines and goals for the employed student. A part of the student’s grades will derive from a score sheet that the employer returns to the teacher.

With both the high school student and the college student previously discussed, the art materials retailer should take into consideration the time availability of the student, his or her class load, and other activities of the student.

The art materials retailer should also be sure to check the laws in regard to student labor and the hours and type of

work that a student employee might do. Some states have laws with regard to the hours, time of day, and responsi-bilities of students at various ages.

Online services such as Craigslist.com have also increased employee-search effectiveness. With some of these services you can place a “blind” ad, meaning potential applicants are applying to a job without knowing who the employer is. This can be useful when you want to find potential applicants to replace an employee that you have not yet terminated.


Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• Finding the best applicants for your business will require creative efforts so that the name of your business

reaches the largest potential group of applicants. • The recommendation of an applicant by one of your best employees should be given special consideration

as the best frequently recommend others like themselves.

7Chapter 3: The Job Application

CHAPTER 3

The Job Application

Many business owners rely on job application forms that do not derive enough information to assist them in making decisions about the applicants. Some business owners or managers simply ask applicants to put their contact infor-mation on a piece of paper and then rely on the interview to make their decision.

Other business owners go to a nearby office-supply store to purchase a two-sided business application that has only the space to list three previous jobs, three personal refer-rals, and the applicant’s contact information.

These forms suffice, but they do little to help the business owner in conducting the interview. Applications that are most useful should ask several open-ended questions and have plenty of space for the applicant to answer them. As the hiring of a new employee is very important to your business, the application you give to the applicant should require them to be as detailed as possible and giving plenty of space on the application.

Creating your own job application is fine as long as you are sure to include the questions required, and not to include any questions that are not allowed by your state or local government.

Sample open-ended questions to include in the job application are:

• Why have you chosen to apply to our business?• What talents do you bring to our business that you see

our utilizing?• What part of our business do you like best?• What do you see yourself doing three years from now?• What did you like most about your last job?• What did you like least about your last job?• What has been your experience with products our

business sells?• What would you consider to be your greatest achieve-

ment at your last place of work?• If you could change one thing about your last place

of employment, what would it be?• If we were to ask your former employer about your

performance, what would he or she tell us?

Notice that these questions accomplish several things when answered. They require the applicant to think. They require the applicant to demonstrate that he or she can put together a train of thought and complete sentences. The answers given by the applicant have a tendency to

indicate whether this person is one that is uplifting and supportive in the workplace or if he is one that is often unhappy and complains.

Along with the job application, many businesses attach the job description for the position to which the individual is applying. This provides a degree of professionalism as well as adds to the verbal explanation the applicant has been given with regard to the position to which he or she has applied.

You can also add one or two questions on the job applica-tion that ask about the job description that you gave to the applicant. Doing so will give you an idea of the attention they have spent in reading the job description.

As the retailer, you might also require the applicant to complete the job application at the place of business. Do-ing so will resolve several issues. It will first make sure you are seeing the applicant’s handwriting. Seeing his or her handwriting will give you an idea of what you can expect when this potential hire completes the necessary paper-work for the sale of any of the products you sell.

Requiring the applicant to complete the job application while he or she is in your business will also let you know how long it takes for the applicant to answer your essay-style questions. This will give the art materials retailer an idea about the applicant’s ability to complete a task within a timely manner.

The questions that are specific to the job description will demonstrate, when properly answered, that the job appli-cant can read. Applicants that tell you they did not bring the necessary information to fill out the job application are likely demonstrating they do not think ahead. Throughout the application and interview process, even though the applicant might be nervous, you should closely observe his or her behavior and listen to how this person phrases his or her responses, as these personal factors are strong indicators of what you can expect if you choose to hire this individual.

When someone has come into your business to apply for a job, you should require her or him to do so without the accompaniment of anyone else. Too often, applicants show up with friends or family members. This establishes an initial atmosphere that is unnecessarily casual.


Instead, you should explain that you are taking an ap-plication and possibly interviewing only one person, and that any accompanying friends or family members should excuse themselves (you might have to handle this a bit differently when interviewing a minor, such as a DECA student). Regulations in some states might require that any job interview of a minor allow his or her parent to be present. When the applicant is given the paperwork to complete, you should have him or her do so in private. This establishes an atmosphere of professionalism and also requires the applicant to complete the application on his or her own.

If your business is large enough that you have a room dedi-cated as a classroom for your staff-education program, this can be an excellent location for the applicant to complete the form. Having the applicant in this room allows him or her to see that your business has made a commitment to a continuing-education program.

For the business that does not have a staff-education room, an office or room away from the sales floor will work.

If you are having the applicant use an office to complete the application, make sure that cash, merchandise, filing cabinets, and important papers have been secured before inviting the person into the room.

In the absence of these options, you can take the appli-cant to a coffee shop, share the instructions for complet-ing the application, and then sit at another table while the applicant completes the form. If using a coffee shop, be sure to check with the owner of the shop to get his or her approval as well as to ask about an appropriate time of day to have applicants complete the form. You do not want to be keeping the coffee shop’s tables unavailable to paying customers.

Above all, do not have the applicant complete the pa-perwork on your sales floor, as this implies a too-casual atmosphere as well as a lack of importance given to the task of applying for the job.

Appendix A is a sample job application.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• The job application sold by a traditional office supply store does not often give you enough insight

into the applicant’s abilities. • Job applications should ask open ended questions which require the applicant to tell about themselves

and their work experiences. • You should give careful consideration as to how and where an applicant completes the job application.

9Chapter 4: The Interview

CHAPTER 4

The Interview

One of the biggest mistakes observed with job-application interviews is that the person conducting the interview spends too much time talking. The job interview is to serve as a time where the applicant is attempting to sell the in-terviewer on why he or she should be hired. It is not to be a time where the interviewer is telling the applicant about the business and the positive aspects of working in the business. If the applicant has done his or her homework, then this person will know a lot about the business before the interview takes place.

The interviewer can and should include several questions that require the applicant to talk about what she or he knows about the individual business as well as the arts as a whole. As an example, the interviewer can ask which art galleries the applicant has toured. They could ask which temporary exhibits the applicant has seen. Perhaps the ap-plicant is an artist. The interviewer can ask what mediums the applicant has tried as well as which mediums the ap-plicant prefers to work with.

Such a conversation can give the interviewer an insight as to how the applicant would converse with a customer if they are hired by the business.

The job application should also serve as an opportunity for the interviewer to invite the applicant to expand on any answers given both orally and on the job application. When the applicant asks questions, the interviewer should make his or her responses as short as possible so that the applicant is doing the most talking.

In many situations, the owner of the business is conduct-ing the interviews. The owner is likely to be the person who knows the most about the business, yet when the applicant learns that the owner is conducting the inter-view, the applicant will sometimes have the tendency to discount what the owner says about the business. Hearing that your business is a great place to work sounds a lot more believable when it comes from a future co-worker as compared to coming from the future employer.

As an alternative to the owner-conducted interview, con-sider having your best employees conduct the interviews in part or whole. As an example, in a large store where an individual is assigned the task of being a cashier, the best cashier can often be the best individual to conduct the in-terview. This is because the cashier will have a great deal of knowledge of the day-to-day operations of the store, know what’s selling, and also have a great deal of interac-tion with customers.

A salesperson and someone who works in the warehouse or in the office would also be top candidates to perform interviews for those applying to perform these tasks. You will find several reasons why this interviewing alternative can work so well.

The first is that quite often the owner is in a hurry to fill the vacancy. If a shortage of available employees in the local business area occurs, the owner often finds himself or herself working a vacated position while looking for a replacement employee. Because of this, the owner may overlook certain negative traits of a good prospect so he or she can lighten their own workload.

If the person doing the interview is the best salesperson and he or she is interviewing an applicant for a sales posi-tion, the salesperson is more likely to hire someone that has the same traits that he or she does. Also, because this salesperson is not the individual who is working the extra hours to cover for an employee that has left, the best salesperson is not going to be in a hurry to find a replace-ment; he or she wants to see the job done right.

Having more than one person conduct the interview, as well as having interviewers working as a pair, will allow an applicant’s traits that are missed by one person to be detected by another. Just like the process of having an individual complete the job application, the interview should be done in one of the private settings that have already been outlined. Conducting a job interview on the sales floor leads to distractions and interrupts the flow of the conversation. The applicant needs to experience an interview process that is different from those he or she has previously experienced in other businesses by interview-ing with a business that takes the application process very seriously.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• The interview of a job applicant should have the

applicant speaking as much as possible and the interviewer as little as possible.

• The job applicant should be impressing the interviewer about their abilities and experiences. The interviewer should not be selling the applicant on the store.

• Utilizing the team member who is best at performing

the same task to conduct the job interview can give your business a better chance of duplicating that great team member.


CHAPTER 5

Selecting New Employees

As a retailer, you might meet a job candidate who has a great personality, but not a lot of experience selling art materials. Then you will meet another candidate who has worked at a number of good shops and has lots of skills, but doesn’t seem to ‘click’ with your current staff.

You and your staff will have to decide what should be the acceptable balance between personality and sales skill. You should note that an old adage of retail is that you can teach product knowledge and sales skills but you cannot teach personality.

Background Check of ApplicantsEvaluating a potential employees’ background is neces-sary, entirely legal, and can save you some major head-aches. Background checks can vary from your asking a few questions to engaging a professional agency.

Because the employees of your business represent your reputation before your customers and perhaps your ven-dors, it is important that in hiring a new employee your business has an excellent chance of having added a valu-able asset to your staff.

Most job applications ask questions about an applicant’s previous work experience. You will likely want to hear the experiences that previous employers have had with the applicant. Unfortunately, many states only allow you to contact a previous employer and ask a minimum of ques-tions. Many states allow you to ask only two questions. The first question is to confirm that the individual worked in the business and the position they held.

The second question is to confirm the dates of employ-ment at the business. As the law varies from state to state, some states will allow you to request permission of the ap-plicant to ask additional questions of previous employers. Most businesses will find that when the applicant allows you to ask additional questions it is because their work has been satisfactory and they are inviting you to inquire further.

In any case you should confirm the dates of employment and look for any ‘blank periods’ between jobs. These blank periods could represent other jobs that the applicant has had but that they do not want to disclose. While state laws will vary, you can likely ask the applicant to explain any time periods between jobs.

Some retailers will engage outside firms to perform back-ground checks on applicants. Depending on amount of in-formation you want to know about the applicant, research companies will provide varying degrees of background checks on individuals. In looking for these companies, you could ask other retailers where background searches are more common. Examples of retailers that often perform employee research are pharmacies and firearms retailers.

The “Boomerang” Employee“Boomerang” is a nickname given to the situation in which someone who has previously worked for a business has applied to return to the business. Some businesses have a strict policy that once an employee leaves the business, she or he is never reconsidered for rehire.

Other retailers might see the boomerang employee as having multiple benefits. Some of the benefits are:

• It will not take as long as a new employee for the rehire to become fully functional in the business.

• You increase your ability to learn from his or her experi-ences in his or her last workplace.

• If she or he went to work for a competitor and now wants to return, you have a testament to the “grass is not being greener on the other side.”

• You may be able to eliminate the background-check process.

• You will know what you are getting as an employee before you hire them.

The New Employee Once you have made your selection of a new employee, after the applicant passed the background checks, and you are ready to add him or her to your team, you will likely want to get this person working at the appropriate job as quickly as possible. However, this is not the time to rush things through.

In some cases, you are hiring someone who is currently working for another business. Even if you might have an immediate need for a new employee to begin working in your business, consideration should be given for the other business in your community. To foster an atmosphere of cooperation among businesses, you might ask the new em-ployee to give the notice required by his or her current em-ployer before beginning work in your business. With many businesses, a two-week notice is considered appropriate.

11Chapter 5: Selecting New Employees

In anticipation of your having the job specifications, poli-cies, and procedures in place that will be detailed later in this book, you should spend some time with the individual to share with him or her, the components that apply to all employees. As examples, your policy and procedure manual is likely to cover topics such as the appropriate ap-parel to be worn at work, and meal schedules and breaks from work. You do not want the employee showing up on the first day of work only to be told that what he or she is wearing is inappropriate.

Of course, you should not expect that this new hire can commit to memory everything you are sharing with him or her. That is why these items are written and reviewed dur-ing your staff-education meetings.

Where possible, the owner or manager should spend some initial time with the new hire, explaining these items and answering her or his questions. Giving this person a tour of the business and even taking the time to share a cup of coffee or have lunch is a great way of welcoming her or him into the “family’” of your business. Be sure to intro-duce this new hire to all of his or her fellow employees.

If your employees wear name tags, uniform shirts, or jack-ets, this is an opportune time to present these items to the new employee.

Writing a personal note that is mailed to the new em-ployee’s home to arrive after her or his first day on the job is a nice touch to show you are a business that is different from every other place where the employee has previously worked.

The MentorToo many businesses have settled for hiring a new employee and then assigned this person to follow the indi-vidual that has done the job the longest. By assigning the new person to this individual, this creates the expectation that the employee who has been on the job the longest is the best at performing the job, and that the new hire will become a duplicate of the long-term employee. Unfortu-nately, that technique has a high rate of failure.

As an alternative to this technique, creating a partnership of a mentor and student has been shown to pay big dividends. Using the mentor system, the new employee is paired with a mentor who is already successfully performing the job (this is different than having been on the job the longest, although sometimes a retailer’s best employee is also the one who has worked at the business the longest).

The job of the mentor is to spend time with the new employee, reviewing the job description, job specification, and being available to answer the questions of the new employee. As the two are paired together, the mentor is aware of the standards to which the new employee is held.

At intervals of 30, 60, and 90 days, the manager or owner reviews the new employee’s performance based on his or her job description. As with all other employees, the job description is used as a measurement of performance. With the employee having a satisfactory rating at 90 days, the mentor is rewarded.

Rewards for the mentor could include additional days off from work, gift certificates, and additional pay. When the owner of the business knows what the mentoring employee likes to do with his or her time off or enjoys as a hobby, it is easier to create the reward that will motivate the men-toring employee.

That reward might appear like an added expense, but mentoring saves a business a lot of money over the long run. Envision a business owner who hires a new employee but finds after a few weeks this is not the employee he or she wants. The owner then hires a second employee who might last a couple of months before the owner finds that this employee is not who the business is looking for either. At many businesses this process is repeated several times.

When you take a look at how many new employees a busi-ness goes through before finding the employee who is “a keeper,” you will see that the business is likely to spend a lot of payroll dollars attempting to find the right employee. So the idea of creating a bonus for the mentoring em-ployee is going to be a lot less expensive, and a lot more dependable than the repetitive alternative.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• A background check is a wise investment when it comes to job applicants. • Previous employees with an excellence performance history should be considered for rehiring. • A mentor for the new employee can go a long way toward reducing the chances of losing that new employee

shortly after you have hired them. It is also a great way to recognize a great employee as the mentor.


CHAPTER 6

The Employee Job Description

The job description used for each of the positions in your business can come in a variety of formats. It can be the elaborate form that an attorney who specializes in employ-ment issues creates for your business. You can also create job descriptions using software that you can purchase on-line or at an office-supply store. This manner of creating job descriptions should be substantially less of an expense than the first option.

A third option for creating job descriptions calls for your employees writing up their own descriptions under the owner’s guidance. This option is less expensive; much more personalized, and can give your employees a sense of personal ownership in the success of the business.

This book will not be able to detail how to perform either of the first two options because of the cost and the constantly changing availability of software, but it will il-lustrate how to create the third option for job descriptions.

Using the position of salesperson as an example, creating the salesperson job description should require two or three occasions where the owner or manager meets with all of the salespeople. During the sessions, the participants should create a series of sentences that define what their job entails. As the owner or manager, you should also cre-ate a list. After you and all of the salespeople make a list, you then compile all of the individual lists into one list.

This compiled list is inclusive of all the possible tasks a salesperson does in your business, as detailed in the lists made by each of your salespeople and yourself.

Next, take all of the items on the list and put them into the proper sequence of importance. The staff of your busi-ness will take ownership in the creation of job descriptions when they perform this third step, especially because it should include an open discussion of how and why the sequence of importance should be ordered.

When employees are invited to participate in decisions that affect them, they have a much better chance to understand why the decisions were made, as well as the better chance that they will adhere to the decisions made.

For a salesperson, the first item in the job-description-cre-ating exercise would likely be, “Take care of the customers that come into the store.”

A second item might be, “Always answer the telephone,” as many sales begin with a customer placing a phone call to the store.

The list continues with what you and your employees have determined is the third most important item, and on through the end of the list with as many items as you deem necessary. You, as owner or manager will put several items on the list that will likely require explanation to the staff as you set about creating this overall program of tools to assist yourself and your staff.

In the list you create as owner or manager, you will need to include items such as, “Properly follows the instructions of his or her job specifications.” Other inclusions will be, “Properly uses the policies of this retailer that are appro-priate to his or her job description,” and “Properly uses the procedures of this retailer that are appropriate to his or her job description.”

The need for these three particular additions to the own-er’s list will be discussed later in the book, as the details of how to create and use them are described.

Completing the job description for salesperson and then continuing with the job description for all of the other po-sitions in your business will provide you with some of the most important management tools you can have. As you create these documents, however, they are not meant to be “written in stone.” You will find over a period of time that you need to make slight rearrangements to the sequence as well as additions and deletions to a job description.

In some situations, the number of participants in the pro-cess of creating the job description might be a couple of people only. You could also include in the job description creation, those individuals that will have direct contact with this individual or whose work is affected by this individual.

Some businesses create a job description for the position of owner, and often the input of several people goes into making this particular description.

The owner might find the need to ask the accountant and the lawyer for their input on the owner’s job description. If the business owner uses an advisor, this person could also provide valuable aspects of the owner’s job descrip-tion. Even the employees could provide input, sharing how they can best perform their jobs with the directions of the business owner.

13Chapter 6: The Employee Job Description

In the section on staff education, we will discuss how to introduce the job description to all of the employees. The job description will demonstrate itself as a tremendous tool for getting new employees working at an acceptable level much faster than without a job description.

The job description will be valuable as a measurement tool for your job reviews of each employee. In the event that you need to counsel an employee with regard to less-than-acceptable performance, the job description will give you a guideline for the conversation with the employee. When you terminate an employee, the job description is also use-ful for documenting where the employee has failed in his or her job performance.

While the items in the job description should be listed in the order of importance to the job, you should provide

some explanation as to how that sequence of importance is measured. As an example, the job description for a salesperson is likely to have something to the effect of, “Take care of the customers on the sales floor,” as well as, “Put the merchandise on the shelves as it is received from our vendors.”

As an owner or manager of an art material supply store, you will likely agree that taking care of the customer is much more important than putting merchandise on the shelf. By assigning a “weighted value” to the items on each job description, you are informing employees of the most important parts of their job. When we discuss the job-review component of the staff-education program, you will see how this becomes an important part of your business.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• Having your employees write their own job descriptions usually works best. • The job description should be written with short sentences covering the basics of each job within the store. • You should make sure the job descriptions you create comply with the laws of your state and community.


CHAPTER 7

The Job Specification

The job specification is a document that is matched to each of the job descriptions and directs how to perform each job. If your business has created a job description for a cashier, for instance, you will need a job specification for that same position.

The job description for the cashier might be five to ten sentences, as we previously described, although the speci-fication is likely to contain much more.

The job specification for a cashier might explain how to process a check or bank card that has been presented for a purchase. Your business might have a practice of keep-ing larger denomination bills under the main cash drawer. Perhaps your business does not utilize the “amount-tended” button on the cash register so that your cashier is required to count out the money to himself or herself as well as to the customer.

The cashier might have the responsibility of being the lead person to answer the telephone, or answer customers’ questions as they first walk in if your register is located near the front door.

Envision yourself standing at the cash register for the first three or four days after a new cashier has been hired. Think of the components of a cashier’s performance that you will likely have to explain. All of these aspects can be included in the job specification for the cashier.

The reason for the cashier job specification is that as your new cashier begins his or her work, she or he is unlikely to remember all of the instructions given. Having a document

that is easily accessible to the appropriate employees, as well as providing a copy to the new employee, gives them opportunities to verify they are performing tasks correctly. The document can assist in determining the corrective measures.

Creating the job specification is probably an exercise you cannot hand off to an attorney, or purchase through a software program. The job specification is probably best created by those employees who perform the task as well as by those who supervise these individuals.

You will want to write the job specifications in a format that is easy to read, leaving out long, wordy sentences. As this is a document that is going to be used inside your business only, you can include sketches and attachments.

As an example, if you use a preprinted form to special order an item for a customer, you can include an actual copy of the form filling in the information with a fictional name and address. Attach the form to a page of the job specification and detail how the form is to be completed. Continue the page with an explanation of how the item should have a copy of the form attached to it when the item arrives from the vendor. Your job specification may also include that the person receiving the item is to make a phone call to the customer to let them know their special order has arrived

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• The job specification details how to perform each job within the store. • The job specification should be written by those who perform the job as well as those who are to work with

those performing the job.

15Chapter 8: The Employee Handbook – Policies and Procedures

CHAPTER 8

The Employee Handbook – Policies and Procedures

Not having a set of guidelines in a retail business can of-ten be like the children’s game of telephone. In that game, the first person in a line of participants tells something to the second person who in turn tells it to the third person. Whatever is said is repeated as accurately as possible from person to person with the last person stating out loud what he or she heard. Of course, what the last person says bears little resemblance to what the first person said.

The idea of telling an employee a policy or procedure of your business and expecting the interpretation to remain the same with all employees is as likely to succeed as it did with the children’s game. These are two strong reasons why you should create a policy-and-procedure manual for your business.

Because the laws regarding employees vary from state to state, it is impossible to cover all of the aspects that should and should not be a part of your policy-and-pro-cedure manual. As NAMTA is not attempting to give legal advice, we would state that a policy-and-procedure manual containing as few legal phrases as possible would have the best chance of being understood and utilized.

These policies are the written rules, guidelines, and instructions for your employees about how to perform and handle situations during their work. The policies of your business are your explanation to your employees about your expectations for their performance while in your employ. As you create these policies, and procedures, you should check with your state employment division and/or an employment attorney regarding the components you will include and exclude.

You could include many items in your policy and proce-dure booklet. Potential items might be:

Appropriate and inappropriate work attireThis policy would outline what a person is expected to wear to work. This could include open-collared shirts as compared to t-shirts, or perhaps your business has a uni-form shirt that you require your employees wear. Another component would be the matter of wearing closed-toe shoes for safety reasons. You might also want to address your employees wearing blue jeans (can they have holes in them?), jewelry (what about nose or lip rings?), and acces-sories such as caps or hats. As your employees are talking with customers, perhaps you should require them to carry with them a pen or pencil and notepad so they can take notes of the conversation, requiring an item of clothing

with a pocket large and comfortable enough for a notepad and several pens.

Vacation scheduleThe laws in your state could specify the minimum require-ments of vacations, but you might have your own policy regarding vacations. Some businesses might allow vacation time to accumulate after an employee has been on the job after a certain amount of time. Your policy could include how much advanced notice is required for a vacation, the minimum and maximum number of consecutive days to be taken for vacation, and which employee has first right to certain dates when two or more people select the same dates for vacation.

You might also allow vacation time for part-time employ-ees. Some businesses will award additional vacation time to employees who are in management positions, as well as award additional vacation time based on the number of years an employee has worked in the business.

Work schedule and days offIn addition to defining part-time employment and full-time employment, and permanent and temporary employment, this policy allows you to state exactly when you create the weekly work schedule and how an employee can request to have her or his schedule changed.

Lunch and coffee breaksMost small retailers have to establish a schedule as to when each person working in the store takes a lunch break and for how long. Your home state most likely has laws that specify how long a lunch break must be, dependent on how many hours the employee works during the day.

The same is true with regard to a coffee break, as some states require an employee to have a break of a specified amount of time once he or she has worked at least four hours. Part of this policy would include a way to coordi-nate these occasions so that multiple coffee breaks do not occur during the periods of time when the store experi-ences traditional peaks in sales.

Time cards and pay periodsThis procedure would outline your requirements for each employee’s usage of a time card. It would likely state that each employee is required to document his or her own time card. Breaks for meals or coffee breaks might also require notation on the time card. The procedure would


also include how the start date and end date for each pay period is determined and when paychecks are issued.

Discounts and charge accountsIf you allow your employees to purchase merchandise at a discounted price or on a “cost-plus” basis, this policy would outline how soon after employment begins that this benefit kicks in, as well as how it is determined. This policy could also outline what is expected of the employee in regard to repayment of his or her charge accounts. Some businesses require a charge account to be paid in full with each paycheck or may have a requirement that a certain percentage of the balance of the charge account be paid with each paycheck. A business might otherwise have a format that the balance of the charge account is auto-matically deducted from the next paycheck. This policy often includes a stipulation that the employee’s charge account is to be paid in full upon termination regardless of a termination being voluntary or involuntary.

Doctor appointments, and unscheduled absences due to illness and family emergencies Every person experiences situations in which circum-stances are beyond her or his control. These can include scheduled medical appointments, and personal and family illness. In your store policy you will likely address the need of the business to be notified as well as whether or not the employee can make up the missed shift on another day.

At the same time, a properly stated policy that reflects understanding and compassion for an employee facing extenuating circumstances can do much to strengthen the bond between employee and employer.

Personal telephone usageThis policy will likely also include the usage of cellular phones while at work. You might find some difficulty in creating a strict policy regarding incoming or outgoing phone calls, but you can use this policy to emphasize that a phone being used for personal reasons does not allow a customer the opportunity to call the store to inquire about making a purchase.

A similar case could be made for the use of cellular phone. An employee taking or making a call on his or her cellular phone presents a poor image for the business when a cus-tomer is in the store inquiring about a purchase.

Handling situations where the owner or manager has to discipline an employeeUnfortunate as it can be, every business is going to experi-ence situations in which the manager or owner must meet with an employee in private to discuss the employee’s

improper behavior or failure to perform duties as required by his or her job description or job specification.

This policy is likely to touch on legal issues as dictated by local, state, and federal laws, as many businesses will state descriptions of those offenses and repeat offenses that employees might and can commit. These descrip-tions could detail those situations in which an employee receives a warning, probation, suspension, or termination.

Job reviewsThe biggest problem with giving an employee a pay raise? The employee does not know what she or he has done that has caused her or him to receive that specific amount of a raise. Likewise if the employee had expectations of receiv-ing a larger pay raise, he or she cannot know what he or she has to do to receive that larger raise. Hence the con-cept of your having a job review process that can resolve both of those questions.

After having created job descriptions for each of the posi-tions within the business, each employee should receive a review of his or her performance on a regular basis. The frequency for this review is often set on a semi-annual or annual schedule. The policy on job reviews establishes that frequency as well as the basis for salary review at the completion of a job review.

One method of review is to have the employee take a copy of his or her job description and score himself or herself on the performance of each of the tasks outlined in the job description. As an example, an employee could be asked to rate himself or herself on a one-to-ten scale with ten being superior. At the same time, the owner or manager performs the same exercise – a task-by-task evaluation of that employee on a scale of one to ten.

After each performed the evaluation, employee and owner exchange copies so that they can each see what the other thinks. The next step is for them to engage in a discus-sion and come to an agreement as to the score on each of the tasks. With the agreed-upon score, you calculate it as a percentage of the total possible score; thus you have a score or “grade” that looks much like one received in school, such as 88 out of 100 percentage points.

A second component of the job review is the creation of a score sheet that your employees know will be a part of the evaluation process. The score sheet could explain that any employee having an agreed-upon score of 70 percent or lower would face termination, as this would not be an acceptable performance score.

17Chapter 8: The Employee Handbook – Policies and Procedures

For an employee with a score of 71 percent to 80 percent, she or he would be on probation for the next 90 days, with another job review at that point. A job evaluation of 80 percent would merit a pay raise of a monetary amount that you have already announced. A job evaluation of 88 percent would merit a larger pay raise, and a job evalua-tion of 95 percent merits an even larger raise. Note that nothing in the evaluation system provides for a raise based upon the number of years on the job. Giving pay raises because of seniority, instead of quality work performance, can cause a retailer to have a payroll, which should be a percentage of gross sales, to be much higher than it should be.

Health insurance and other benefitsA retailer might offer benefits such as health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, retirement plans, and other various benefits to employees based upon number of hours worked, job title, and other stipulations as local, state, and federal laws require. Given these possibilities, you as owner must explain to employees the requirements for their participation, as well as how much of the cost of each of these benefits is borne by the business and how much is borne by the employee.

The procedural components of your manual are the details that you give your employees on how to perform vari-ous tasks in your business. In creating your procedures, think about all the situations that occur in your business in which the performance of your employees could be improved.

Would you like your workers to be more professional in answering the telephone? Do your employees ever fail to properly handle a situation where a customer asks an employee to do something special for them? Do employees have tasks, such as sweeping floors and taking out the trash, that you want to make sure are completed each day?

You might have a sequence of how you want employees to stock merchandise. You could create a sequence of how an employee is to handle the situation when an item is returned for a refund. Doing so would eliminate you or a manager having to be involved with each return.

A written set of instructions about how to open or close the store can be helpful not only in making sure the task is done properly but also can be used to assist someone new to the task in learning it more quickly.

All retailers have experienced situations in which a cus-tomer has been unhappy or even angry with their store or one of the employees. Research has shown that helping an unhappy customer to become a customer who is happy with your business can lead to increased sales – not only with that customer but with the friends whom that custom-er tells about his or her experience.

Getting to the resolution with the customer can come more easily and quickly when the employee knows how to prop-erly defuse a troublesome situation. Experience has shown that detailing how to do so, and practicing this approach with fellow employees, creates an environment where these situations are more easily resolved or prevented.

These are but a few examples of components of a policy-and-procedure manual that can be a useful management tool for your business.

Because you have many other responsibilities within your store, the policy-and-procedure manual is not something that you are likely going to spend days to work on until you have it completed. This is to your advantage because a policy-and-procedure manual works best if it is imple-mented in pieces and continues as a series of documents that you can adjust and tune within your business.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• Policies are the rules for employees as well as the explanation of how certain things, such as job reviews,

are carried out within the store. • Procedures are the instructions of how employees are perform tasks within the store. This could be range from

writing a special order for a customer to instructions for opening and closing the store each day. • Policies and procedures allow a business to operate more efficiently because you are not relying on instructions

being passed on from one employee to another.


CHAPTER 9

The Staff-Education Program

The staff-education program should not be one that is overwhelming for the owner or manager. The decision to make a commitment to excellence in the store, and put that commitment into action, is likely to be the most dif-ficult task for the owner. This is because the decision to have a quality business, created and growing through a staff-education program, is one that will have a beginning, but not an ending.

Creating the policy-and-procedure manual described in the previous chapter is something that works closely with the staff-education program. For stores that are already open, the policy-and-procedure manual is likely to be cre-ated over a period of time as the staff-education program progresses.

Initial Staff Meetings: Getting the “Buy-In” from EmployeesHolding the staff-education meetings is not something that should wait until the policy-and-procedure manual has been created. Instead, the manual is something that will be rewritten and improved over a period of months and years as the staff matures and learns more about the busi-ness, and the owner learns more about his or her staff.

For the situation where the owner has yet to open the store, creating this program is a component similar to establishing the business plan, financial plan, merchan-dising plan, and other key components. This business has no employee track record, and no one who might say, “We have never done it this way before,” or “Why do we have to start doing this now”?, because the business is entirely new.

The majority of retailers that are reading this book have been open for business for a period of time. But the poten-tial employee questions in the previous paragraph are a real issue and can be a challenge. The questions are also appropriate and reasonable; employees have a right to ask, “Why has the owner or manager chosen to make changes in the way he or she does business?”

The owner of the business who answers these questions for herself or himself as she or he begins the exercise will likely provide a lot of the answers for the employees. How-ever, the component necessary at this point in creating the staff-education program is getting the “buy in” from the employees. The employees have to understand that the continuance of the business, and their jobs, is dependent

on their taking care of the customers and the store to the best of their abilities.

The owner’s answers to these employee questions can indicate that being able to increase sales will lead to in-creased pay. In a challenging economy, being able to make sales will mean that everyone stands a much better chance of being able to keep their jobs.

Explaining the need for the policies and procedures could include a quick calculation of how much revenue the busi-ness loses every time a mistake is made or a task has to be repeated. Again, being able to diminish these costs that occur because of a failure can lead to increased pay or a better chance of job retention.

However, when the owner decides to approach the ques-tion of why he or she is creating an education program with policies and procedures, the employees need to hear the explanation in the form of a “What’s-in-it-for-me?” answer.

The owner can likely expect that the more experienced em-ployees, as well as those that have been employed by the store for a longer period of time, will voice their objection to the idea of staff education. A resolution to this objec-tion can be found by enlisting these employees as a part of the teaching team. Asking these employees to assist you in creating the list of items that should be a part of the policies or procedures, as well as sharing their ideas of how these issues should be addressed, can often gain the participation that will help the staff-education program become a success.

After you create the initial list of components to be de-veloped, you must decide upon the format for the staff-education program.

Again, the program will surely necessitate a flexible format. You are likely to see additional issues and oppor-tunities as you proceed with the program, and must ad or clarify these as you go.

Employee AttendanceAnother component to consider while creating your edu-cational program is which of your employees should be a part of it. The best answer is that you should have all of the employees engaged, from the person who works in the office to the person making deliveries or receiving mer-chandise.

19Chapter 9: The Staff-Education Program

You can expect some resistance to your decision to include everyone in the educational program. The logic to includ-ing everyone, however, is that every person in your store will likely come into contact with customers at some point. Whether on the telephone or in person, each of your employees needs to be able to convey to the customer with whom she or he is speaking that she or he knows what is going on in your business and are a part of the business.

If the customer wanted to hear an employee saying, “That’s not my job. You will have to ask someone on the sales floor (or in that department),” he or she could easily go to a mass merchant or chain store to hear that.

Getting the most from your classes will require some planning and effort on your behalf, as owner. The best staff meetings occur as the owner or manager develops a plan not just for one session but also for a much longer period of time. Some of the best staff-meeting schedules observed have been those that have a plan that has been developed covering a year. There may be adjustments and changes made through the year, but there does ex-ist a written plan for the staff meetings. You can create this plan as you think about all of the components listed below, but be sure to give major consideration to the peak selling seasons that occur in your specific business.

You know that before the start of school and the Christmas season you are likely to see the parents and spouses of some of your customers coming in looking for gift ideas. Dedicating part of the staff-education sessions during these seasons to the topic of suggestive selling is going to be a wise investment. The same goes for the weeks before the start of any art classes that your business, a school or art center will be holding. Educating your employees on techniques for “add on” sales will also be a wise invest-ment of meeting time.

Having a schedule with information about the content of each of the staff meetings and posting it near the time clock or in the employee break room conveys a strong mes-sage to employees that the ownership and management of the business is taking very seriously the concept of a staff-education program. In fact, to gain the buy-in from employees as well as to get the most from the investment of your time and the expense of employees being a part of a staff meeting, you should work to develop a long-range plan for your staff meeting programs.

Outline Your Staff MeetingsEarlier in this book we mentioned job descriptions, job specifications, policies, and procedures. In addition to product knowledge and sales techniques, these four com-

ponents will provide you with a part of the content for your sales-staff meetings.

Begin scripting your staff education meetings by creating a grid for what must happen during the staff meeting. You will likely want a blend of the components: sales tech-niques, product knowledge, job descriptions, job specifi-cations, and the policy-and-procedure manual. Because of the amount of material you will want to cover in any meeting you will not likely be able to include all of the components in every meeting.

This is why you create an outline for your meetings -- to ensure you pay the proper amount of attention and time to each of the items you need to cover. Even with just one main component you will need to map it out so that it is completely covered. As an example, on the topic of product knowledge you will want to include all of the categories of materials that you offer. You might discuss the brands and qualities of oil and acrylic paints during separate staff meetings. Brushes, canvases and easels are just some of the aspects of product knowledge that you could spend an entire staff meeting on each discussing. The same could be said for staff meetings that would fo-cus on sales techniques or the review of job descriptions, job specifications, and policies and procedures.

Establish within the length of your staff meeting enough time for opening comments and a brief outline of what is to be accomplished during the meeting. Allowing ques-tions at any point during the meeting will help to ensure that your staff remains focused on the content of the meeting.

Charting all of the components you plan to cover during one staff meeting will help you to eliminate the situation where you find yourself attempting to decide what to say next during a staff meeting. As you develop this chart, it will help you to create another component of your staff-education program that will help demonstrate to your employees that you are serious about the meetings: class notes.

With so many software programs available today, creat-ing thorough, professional-looking class notes is relatively easy. In creating your class notes, you should develop a format that is consistent in appearance and method of use. Printing a copy for each participant and making sure each employee has a pen or pencil implies you are serious about everyone hearing, participating, and learning during your classes.

As the class is taught, the instructor should pay close attention to the various learning styles of individuals.


Some people learn best by hearing, others by seeing, some people by doing, with others using a combination of two or more of the learning methods. Keeping this in mind, the instructor should consider what how they engage each student. The written notes, speaking, a white board, and having samples of products the class can interact with can help to engage each student in a manner that is most advantageous to them.

The class notes do not need to have much detail. Instead, a single-sentence heading of the major points you are going to make during the class will work best. This will allow you to plan your staff meetings well in advance, yet provide you with the flexibility to change the specifics of a particular class as the need arrives. Only if you are able to maintain a strict timeline for a staff meeting should you consider establishing an exact time frame for each single component of the meeting. Appendix F gives a sample of class notes for a staff meeting.

Although no class could contain a component from every one of the sections we have outlined, you will find better participation if your staff meeting contains more than one component. As an example, you might have a class that focuses on sales techniques and includes a review of a procedure for the purchasing and redeeming of a gift card. Depending on the answers received from the assessments in the previous class, you might want or need to review the material from the responses of your staff.

You will also find your staff will be more active participants when you invite their comments and suggestions for future classes.

As you structure your staff meeting and utilize the class notes you have created, asking for questions at the conclu-sion of each segment brings closure and allows you to bridge to the next segment. Experience by way of trial-and-error will show you how much content you can include dur-ing each of the staff meetings. In teaching your employees the importance of being punctual, it will be important that you start and complete the meeting according to your schedule.

With each completed staff meeting, an assessment program can also prove to be valuable. As you are already paying employees to be in attendance of your staff meet-ing, you want their participation as well as the assurance that they are making a concerted effort to learn and use in your business what they learn in class.

To measure the success of a class, as well as to reward your employees for participation, a written assessment

after each class has been shown to be very helpful. The assessment will be detailed in a later part of this book.

Staff-meeting assessments should be in writing, with a form given to each employee at the conclusion of the staff meeting. The written form should not be something that takes a long time to complete, nor should it be something employees can complete in only a very few minutes. A ten-question assessment asking for short-essay answers (four to five sentences) works very well. Balance the number of questions dedicated to each of the components according to the amount of time you have dedicated to each com-ponent in class. Give your staff sufficient time to answer the assessment; you might say that assessments are due by the end of the first shift, that day, or at the beginning of an employee’s first shift the next day. Appendix G is a sample class assessment.

An addition to the assessment that has proven to add to your staff’s learning experience is the inclusion of one question about a component that you did not discuss dur-ing the staff meeting. Tell your employees that the topic of one of the assessment questions was not covered during the meeting. A part of your staff’s task, then, is to deter-mine which question that is, and instead of giving it their best guess, they are to seek out the instructor from the class and ask him or her about the question before they turn in their assessments. Experience has shown that this frequently opens a dialogue between the class instructor and student so that an additional period of learning about the topics occurs in the staff meeting.

You should have an expectation as to how quick an em-ployee must hand in his or her completed assessment, as stated above. The instructor should then grade the assess-ment as soon as possible and return it to each employee. Several minutes should be spent with the employee to explain any questions that were answered incorrectly. Put a copy of the assessment in each employee’s file for use as a part of his or her job review. Job reviews are discussed later in the book.

For the assessment, you should establish a predetermined expectation of what is considered a successful completion. Similar to the grade that a teacher gives in school, you should consider a reward for those employees whose score meets or exceeds the level of successful completion.

Experience has shown the reward does not have to have a significant cost. It can be as small as giving additional meal time off or, in a business that creates a weekly work schedule for employees, allowing employees to select a part of their schedule. The key is to recognize their achievement and effort to learn more about your business.


Format and Content of a Staff MeetingOne of the first questions you are going to face is that of the quantity of information you can share during each of the staff-education sessions. The answer to this lies in the amount of time you are going to dedicate to each session. As the staff-education meeting is likely to be held on a day that the business has been open, you will need to consider those that have worked that day and the number of hours they have already been in the store.

With this in mind, you are likely to eliminate the possibil-ity of a meeting that continues for several hours unneces-sarily. But you’ll also likely find that very short meetings result in little productivity because of the amount of time needed to assemble the staff and get the meeting started. Your employees will have wasted valuable work time on a meeting that delivered little.

Experience shows a 60-minute educational session is likely to be the time frame that you select.

As for meeting time, a smaller store can easily have the entire staff meet at one time, but obviously during store hours. Which is better: before or after store hours. Employ-ees are fresh before a meeting, but an after-hours meeting would eliminate having to hurry the meeting because the store opening is looming. Just keep in mind that we’re all basically ready to go home after a long day at work.

The only way to determine if a democratic approach to set-ting meeting times is to try it. If you end up with fighting employees, you’ll have to do the scheduling..

The owner’s decision of which day of the week to hold the meeting must take into consideration several factors: the hours of the store, which evenings the store is open, the schedules of all the employees, and outside activities of the employees. Showing that you are considerate of their personal lives can help in obtaining the employees’ “buy in” to the educational program, although you are unlikely to find the single day and single time that makes everyone happy. You might want to consider alternating the time and day of the class, just be sure to communicate that information so that you do not have employees missing the class because of the “I-didn’t-know-the-meeting-was-yesterday” situation.

Some store owners find a weekly store meeting sets a good routine. If you find that employees forget about monthly meetings, perhaps you should consider weekly or biweekly. Some store owners find meetings held on as “as needed” basis work well.

Review of Policies and Procedures, Job Descriptions and SpecificationsThe initial creation of the job description or job specifica-tion has already been explained, but you as owner can’t always expect an employee to retain all of this information for the length of his or her employment, even after he or she saw and read those documents during the job-applica-tion process.

Reviewing a job description or job specification during a staff meeting can provide an employee with the opportu-nity to make suggestions about ways to update the docu-ment or even change a job description to make his or her job become more in tune with the goals of the business. In a format that is carefully monitored, you could also allow all employees to provide input with regard to a variety of jobs so that the interaction between two given jobs could become a smoother process.

The same could be said of a review of the job specification written by the employees who perform that specific job, and also said of those employees whose work is dependent on the performance of that job.

Policies and procedures are components of the manage-ment toolbox that are more fluid than the job descriptions and job specifications. You might even find that some poli-cies or procedures no longer have a place in your business and can be eliminated.

This review of any of these four items can and should be a component of your staff meetings. However, you should not devote an entire staff meeting to reviewing these items. Your employees can easily see that product knowl-edge and sales skills are highly important components of their jobs. The other four components, although necessary, are not of the nature that your employees should spend much of their time with the creation, review, and evalua-tion of these four.

Other Essential Components of Staff-EducationSome art materials retailers will dedicate a part of their staff-education program to showing employees how to better display merchandise. As your customer is obviously a visually oriented individual, it is important that merchan-dise be shown in a manner that invites the customer to examine and touch the item; this as compared to simply stacking merchandise much like a grocery store or mass merchant.

This can include various components, such as how to build temporary displays and window displays, how to set up shelves for merchandise, as well as “facing and front-ing” merchandise. “Facing” merchandise is the process


of placing an item so that the most attractive part of the product or the label is what the customer first sees. “Fronting” merchandise means placing merchandise at the front edge of a shelf or hanger, with any empty shelf space being behind the merchandise. This makes the item easier to see; the customer doesn’t have to look into the shelf or hanging space for it.

Spending time showing and explaining the store’s advertis-ing efforts is also an important part of the staff-education program. This would include sharing copies of the store’s print advertising efforts as well as having the necessary devices to play the store’s radio advertising or show the store’s television advertising. Employees should be knowl-edgeable about all of the advertising of the store so they can better interact with customers on the telephone and in person.

Some retailers also provide their employees with informa-tion about the finances of the store. Sharing the balance sheet of the business is probably not necessary, but a teachable version of the profit-and-loss statement, along with an explanation, can be useful in showing employees how to control expenses, as well as increase margins and sales.

Class ComponentsYour staff-education meetings will become dull and bor-ing if the instructor simply stands before the group and lectures. The inclusion of questions, as previously men-tioned, can help in gaining the participation of employees, although you can involve many other components so that the meeting is fun and your employees retain more.

When your staff meeting is going to have a heavy focus on product knowledge, inviting a manufacturer’s or whole-saler’s sales representative to be a part of the meeting can add a new voice to the learning experience.

When you are including the sales representative, you should have a discussion with him or her prior to the staff meeting to talk about what you want covered and the amount of time you have allotted to do so. Depending on the information you share with your employees, you might want to have the sales representative include comments about which products have higher profit margins or larger dollar contributions to the profitability of your business.

As the sales representative has a certain product line or lines of products that she or he sells, you will also need to decide if you want the sales representative to promote her or his products over other products that your store offers.

Because the sales representative calls on many stores, you can use this opportunity to ask the representative to explain to your staff the many advantages a customer will have by shopping at your store as compared to shopping at another independent store, chain store, or mass merchant.

Some stores have the advantage of having a police officer as a customer. This presents another good opportunity for an outside voice to speak to the store employees, one that could provide important legal details about your local laws regarding shoplifting. This person could explain when to approach a suspected shoplifter and how to safely do so. The person could also address issue of counterfeit bills or appropriate identification for check acceptance.

From your experiences in shopping in other stores, you might have interacted with a salesperson who displayed exceptional customer-management skills. Even though this person would likely have little or no experience with selling art supplies and the related products you sell, he or she could be an excellent guest instructor for your staff with regard to the skills you have seen this person demonstrate. Manufacturers and wholesalers often have material avail-able for their dealers. This could include a DVD about their products, an on-line class, a recording of a webinar, or an mp3 file that you can download and share with your employees.

Always make sure to review any outside sources of infor-mation included in your staff-education meetings to make sure the content they present does not contradict what you have previously taught or plan to teach in future staff meetings. Employee interaction can also help develop the right blend of education and entertainment, and serve to keep every-one focused. Here are several games you can include as a part of your staff meeting to engage your employees.

Hot-Potato ProductThis game is an adult version of the game many people played as a child or youth called “hot potato.” The em-ployees sit or stand close enough to each other so that they can pass a product (the potato) from one person to another.

The game begins with the instructor handing the product to the first employee. That employee has to name an add-on item he or she could sell to a customer if the customer was purchasing the item the employee is holding. As soon as the instructor acknowledges that the add-on is correct, the employee passes the product to the next employee.


This second employee has the same assignment as the first and the exercise continues from employee to employ-ee. The employee must name an add-on that is different than the add-on named by the previous employee.

The instructor sets an alarm to make a sound after a cou-ple of minutes. The employee holding the item when the alarm sounds is now out of the game. An employee that is unable to name a different add-on product, or repeats a previously named add-on product is also out of the game. The process continues until only one employee is left. The idea of this game is to get employees to always be thinking of additional items for each sale. The addition of the timer prompts each employee to think quickly about such items, as if reacting to a real-time situation.

Another version of ‘Hot Potato’ follows the same sequence with an item being passed around the circle. In this ver-sion the person holding the item names a feature of an item and then explains the feature as a benefit. As an example, the feature could be that the rush is made by Escoda. The sales person would then be challenged to explain the superiority of an Escoda brush to the customer.

What Do You Say?The “What Do You Say?” game is designed to help employ-ees learn proper ways of working with customers as well as develop ways to exclude certain phrases from their vocabu-lary. In the staff meeting, employees are asked to create a list of what they consider to be the best phrases to uses when waiting on customers. They could include comments such as, “Have you seen this new item?”

After making this list, the employees create a second list of all the verbal expressions they believe demonstrate little or no sales skills. Each of these two lists are put on large sheets of poster board and hung on opposite walls. An em-ployee playing the part of a salesperson stands looking at an employee playing the role of a customer. The customer can see the poster with all of the wrong verbal expressions behind the salesperson. The salesperson is looking at the customer and also looking at the poster with all of the good verbal expressions that is behind the customer. The

game begins with the two interacting in the same manner as a real customer and salesperson would do in the store.

The instructor is timing the interaction to see how long before the employee playing the salesperson slips up and uses one of the wrong verbal expressions. The winning salesperson for this staff meeting is the one that has the longest time.

You Want a What? You Need a…In this exercise, the instructor creates a list of 25 products that customers come into the store to purchase. The list should be a combination of items that customers ask for both frequently and infrequently. The instructor should write the list down the left side of a piece of notebook paper.

The instructor then passes the list to each employee. Each employee has to determine an “add-on” sale for each of the 25 items as quickly as possible, writing these down in a column along the right side of the page. Fold the page over after each list is created so the next employee can’t see what the previous answers were. The quickest em-ployee wins.

Book the Sale, DanoThis exercise gets employees practicing ways to close a sale. In the staff meeting, ask your employees to list and explain all the various sale-closing comments they can think of. Examples are the “either or” method (“Do you want the medium or the large package?”), the “takeaway” (“This is the last one of these we are going to have.”), and the rhetorical (“Do we have this in a larger size? Do you want it in a larger size?”).

One employee is assigned the role of the salesperson and another plays the part of a customer. As they interact, the customer is reluctant to make a purchase while the salesperson uses the various sale-closing techniques. This exercise requires the salesperson to not only know as many sale-closing methods as possible but also be able to inject them at the appropriate moment in any sale.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• Staff meetings represent a commitment to excellence. • The staff meeting should be held on a consistent basis. • Staff meetings should have a written guideline for participants. • Each staff meeting should include the review of a policy or procedure as well as the main component

of the meeting being sales skills or product knowledge.


CHAPTER 10

Job Reviews, Incentives and Salary Increases

When you went to school, you took tests and received a re-port card so that your parents and the teacher both had an idea of how well you performed and how well you learned. Those involved might have been pleased or disappointed with the results, but they did all know how you, the stu-dent, did according to a predetermined set of standards.

The art materials retailer faces a similar opportunity and need to communicate with his or her employees in a manner that leads to constructive evaluation of the employees’ performance in relation to the employer’s expectations. Understanding the employer’s expectation is why every business faces the need for the creation of a job description, job specification, and written policies and procedures, as well as attendance and participation in the staff-education program.

The challenge that many retail employees face is they do not have a clear idea of why they fail, meet, or exceed the expectations of their employer. Establishing a format for providing employees with feedback explains the reason for your creating a job evaluation.

Most of the tools necessary for a job evaluation have already been discussed in this book along with details on how to create them. Each of the categories of employees in your business will utilize different tools and different quantities of tools. A salesperson uses the job description and job review appropriate to his or her position, while the office manager uses those specific to that job.

The one tool necessary for the job review that has not yet been discussed is the score sheet. It can be applied to all of the job descriptions, and can answer the question, “What is my grade?” that an employee might ask after a job review.

Upon knowing his or her grade, the employee will most likely ask, “What happens as a result of the grade I have received?” If the person gets an “A” grade, what is the reward that he or she will receive? At the other end of the spectrum, the owner must ask, “What happens to the employee who gets a failing grade?”

The score sheet can become a great motivational tool for employees when they know the actual amount of a pay raise or the perks they are going to receive. Every em-ployee should know this in advance, rather than having a manager or owner tell an employee that she or he has done

a “pretty good job” over the past six months, and then explain the amount of raise, because the problem with this situation is that the employee does not know specifically what he or she did to earn the pay raise. The employee also does not know what he or she did wrong that caused the owner to not give more of a reward. And, the employee does not know what he or she needs to do going forward to earn a pay raise in the future.

Your score sheet can be something as simple as the report card you received as a student in school. The grade of “A” is anything 95 percent or higher, a grade of “F” is anything lower than 65 percent, with the grade brackets between those two points being whatever you as owner wish to determine. Appendix H is a sample score sheet.

Along with the score, the employee also needs to know what the reward is that goes with the letter grade. If a financial reward is what most people expect, then you can be creative and include rewards such as changing the amount of the employee discount on merchandise pur-chased in the store. You could also give employees with better grades an extra 15 minutes of mealtime.

You will also need to establish what is considered an ac-ceptable grade. Your business might decide that a “C” grade is average and warrants no consideration for a pay raise. The letter grade of “D” might be one which merits an employee being given a period of 90 days in which to improve her or his grade to at least a “C” or face termina-tion. You would need to have another job review after the 90-day time period.

A letter grade of “F” might call for an immediate termina-tion, although with the systems you have put in place as a result of this book, you can anticipate that the failure to perform would be detected early, and efforts made to cor-rect it could come into play before a six-month job review.

The job description we have already discussed is going to include descriptors such as: “Employee properly follows the job specifications appropriate to the job description,” “Employee properly follows the policies appropriate to the job description,” and “Employee properly follows the pro-cedures appropriate to the job description.” Using phrases that are this broad allows the job description to include the other management tools you have created without hav-ing to duplicate them within each of the job descriptions. This also means that when a policy or procedure is created

25Chapter 10: Job Reviews, Incentives and Salary Increases

or deleted, you do not have to revisit each job description to update it, but can simply refer in the policy or proce-dure to the appropriate job description.

In the job-review process, the employee and the person conducting the evaluation should first schedule a time when both can be away from their standard job responsi-bilities and work together uninterrupted. The key to the success of the job evaluation is that it be conducted in an atmosphere designed to educate the employee with regard to his or her past performance and future expectation of performance on the job.

For the employer, the job review is an opportunity to learn how the employee see him- or herself as having performed, how well he or she can understand the given instructions, and how the employee can expect the employee to perform at work in the future.

For the job review, the employee and the individual conducting the evaluation should each have a copy of the appropriate job description. The assignment for both is to score the employee on each of the components of that job description. A rating system of 1 to 10, with 10 being superior, is a good way of scoring the review.

After both have completed their tabulations, the pages are exchanged so that each can see how the other has scored the job performance. Employer and employee will most likely see a different score on many of the items, a situation that allows, and calls for, a discussion between the two individuals as to how and why they each gave the score they did.

The purpose of the discussion is to improve the under-standing and expectation of each person as the employee moves forward in the job. As a goal of the discussion, the two people – supervisor/evaluator and employee -- come to an agreement as to what the score for each item should be. Some of the evaluator’s scores might change, as might some of the employee’s.

Once that discussion concludes, the score can now be tabulated for the job review. As the various components of the job description are “weighted,” as previously described in the section of this book on creating a job description, you perform the calculation to determine the employee’s total score.

As an example, the first line of the job description for a salesperson is likely to be a descriptor such as, “Take care of the customer in the store.” The owner or manager of the store might establish this component as worth a 1.5 factor. Hence, a score of 8 means the employee has a total score of 12 points (8 x 1.5).

The second line of the job description might be, “Take care of the customer at the cash register as needed.” As the store might have a dedicated cashier, the salesperson is acting as a backup cashier. This line of the job descrip-tion helps to measure how well the salesperson does at watching the cash register to determine when help is needed there, as well as how accurate she or he can be in completing a transaction. The storeowner might add a “weighted” factor of 1.2 for this line so a score of 9 means the employee gets a total of 10.8 points (9 x 1.2)

Other items in the job description, such as “keeping the store clean” or “stocking the shelves” may have not have a “weighted’ factor.” With these, a score of 9 means the em-ployee gets a score of 9. Do not include any items on the job description with a weighted factor of less than 1 point.

If you have created a staff-education program in which the employee gets an assessment after each class, you might want to include as a part of the scoring system the employee’s average score since the last job review.

The job review could also factor in a consideration for the number of times an employee has won incentives such as those in the examples that we have previously described. If your business uses the green card/red card program pre-viously described, you could also factor in a consideration for the number of green cards and red cards the employee has earned.

Notice that no consideration is paid in the job review for the number of years that an employee has been working in the store. Logically, an owner has no reason to give some-one a pay raise because of how long she or he has been on the job; what matters is how well this employee performs the job.

Another reason for not considering time on the job as a part of the job review is that a business is likely to have a long-term employee performing a certain job, such as a salesperson, at hourly pay rate that is well above that of other salespeople doing equally well, but who haven’t been on the job as long.

Of course, we would expect the employee with many years on the job to want his or her years of dedication to your business to count toward his or her score. The resolution to the situation is that when the top of the pay scale has been reached for the job description, the only way for that employee to receive a higher pay will be for him or her to accept a different position within the store that has additional responsibilities, such as supervisor or assistant manager.


Following these examples through all of the lines of the job description, the person conducting the job review is able to determine the total score for the employee by add-ing up the numerical scores, and then seeing into which bracket – “A,” “B,” “C,” etc. – the total falls. Using the score sheet, the employee and person conducting the job review can quickly see exactly what the total of the job review is, as well as what change to the pay scale and perks that the employee receives. This format should not be viewed as being cold and impersonal, but rather helps to remove the emotional component from the discussion and review that can often occur when a person’s job per-formance is being conducted.

IncentivesAn old business expression says that you can have two kinds of employees: those that respond to a stick (repri-mands and warnings) and those that respond to carrots (rewards and incentives).

Successful retailers will tell you that they have little need in their store for the employee that responds to the stick. The employee that responds to the carrot, however, can produce great results for the retailer. The key to that suc-cess is finding what the “carrot” is for each employee.

Surprisingly, not all employees respond to financial incen-tives, and might rather respond to additional responsibility, a title, time away from work, merchandise, or recognition by their friends and family. Others, of course, will in fact respond to monetary incentives.

Having conversations with the employee over a period of time will provide you with the insight as to what will cause the employee to excel.

In creating a basis for incentives, one of your concerns is how large should the incentives be? You can determine how much you should invest in an incentive by performing the following calculation.

In the case where the incentive is used to increase sales or profitability, you should determine the size of the reward to your business when that goal is achieved. As an example, if your incentive is given when you have a sales increase, you should calculate your anticipated profit as a result of that sales increase. A portion of that increased profit serves as the incentive, with the balance of the increased profit being the reward to the owner of the store for having been successful in incentivizing sales.

Another incentive can be utilized to inspire your employ-ees to eliminate mistakes or expenses. Perhaps your goal is to decrease operating expenses. Some of these operat-

ing expenses, such as rent or a mortgage, that are outside the control of the employees. The employees can control other expenses, such as utilities. As an example, if your employees are adjusting the thermostat to a level that is most comfortable to them, you might be experiencing utility bills that are higher than they should be. Your dress policy could play a part here: In winter, employees should be expected to dress for warmth.

The incentive to eliminate excessive operating expenses could also be easily calculated. As the controllable operat-ing expenses decrease, the amount of savings can be divided between the employees and the owner of the store.A question that retailers often ask is whether a reward that is geared toward the individual is better than one that requires a team effort. Again, prior experiences of many retailers suggest the right answer is a combination of the two.

The rationale for using an incentive should be based on two considerations. One, you should use incentives to increase the profitability of the store. This can be achieved by increasing sales, increasing margins, decreasing operating expenses, or a combination of two or all three of these possibilities. Two, you should use incentives to resolve problems. Many stores have had issues with a sales floor that has not been properly maintained, merchandise that has not been properly put up, employees that do not perform other tasks properly, employees that are tardy, or many other challenges.

Some business owners who read this book might disagree with the concept of providing an incentive to an employee for doing his or her job correctly. However, we will attempt to show that an incentive is far less expensive than ter-minating the employee, then hiring and educating a new employee to take the empty place.

Looking at the first consideration of increasing sales, if your employees have assigned sections of the store to maintain, you could create a reward for employees whose area meets certain guidelines. This way all employees could win. You could also have an incentive for the em-ployee who has the best-looking section of the store.One of the measurements within a business regarding sales is that of “average-ticket size.” This gives an indica-tion of how much the average customer is purchasing on each trip to the retailer. It is also a way to measure how effectively each salesperson suggests additional products or sells up to a higher-quality item with each customer.

You can calculate the average ticket size by taking the gross total of sales for a week, month, or year, and dividing that amount by the number of transactions for the same

27Chapter 10: Job Reviews, Incentives and Salary Increases

period. Over a period of years you would expect that the average ticket size would increase simply because of prices of merchandise inflates.

The retailer can work to increase the average ticket by offering more expensive products, adding products to the offering of the store (such as an art materials retailer of-fering convenience office supply items), and by teaching employees how to suggest additional items with each sale. Although many of these methods of increasing sales might be outside the control of the salesperson, the staff-educa-tion program can teach employees to suggest additional items as illustrated by the exercises previously outlined.

Rewarding employees for their efforts can be easily imple-mented by establishing a goal to increase their average sale by a certain dollar amount. As an example, if the average ticket for the retailer is $25.00, the owner of the business could envision each salesperson making an add-on sale in excess of $5.00, bringing the average ticket to $30.00 if successful.

This incentive is a group effort involving most of your em-ployees. The argument could be made that achieving the goal requires all employees, not just the sales staff. The person who sweeps the floor makes the store look good so that customers come in to shop. The person in the office who processes purchase orders and pays the bills is the one that makes sure inventory shows up to your store on time and is accounted for. Just these two examples give a strong argument for including all employees in an incen-tive program such as this.

In creating incentive programs, you will see many aspects of your business that you have the opportunity to improve. In addition to the incentive for increasing the average tick-et size, you could create a similar incentive for an increase in the number of items in the average sale. Increasing the number of items means that a business that previously had customers purchasing three items would set a goal of getting each customer to purchase four or five items.

You can also create an incentive based on gross sales. Of course, this will work best in a situation where the salesperson is not authorized to ‘make a deal’ for a cus-tomer who is making a sizable purchase, or give discounts because the customer is purchasing multiples of an item. You should have an idea what your gross profit and net profit will be, so you can, in fact, create an incentive that is based on gross sales.

In an economy where you can expect an increase in sales, you will likely want to calculate the amount of increase that you are expecting. As an example, if you are expect-ing sales to increase over the next year by 6 percent, the

incentive for gross-sales increase could begin after the an-ticipated sales increase is achieved. Thus, any sales over that amount cause the incentive to come into play. For all sales above the sales-increase goal, you pay an incentive that is a percentage of the anticipated net profit.

An example of a problem-solving incentive occurs at the cash register. Most every day, as your cash register is totaled and audited, you find discrepancies. The amount of cash that is in the drawer is not what it should be; the total of the number and dollar amount of credit-card sales, check purchases, and “house” charge accounts have the same issue of discrepancies.

The person in the office is likely spending a good portion of her or his day searching resolutions to each of these issues. As an owner or manager, you can calculate how much you are spending in payroll for the person in the of-fice to rectify these discrepancies.

The incentive for saving money in this situation would go to the cashier. The incentive could be an increase in pay for the hours worked that day when the register audits correctly.

An incentive pay for selling a specific product or service is referred to as a “PM” or “spiff.” The item selected for this incentive might be one that is new to your store. It might be something that has a high-profit margin or provides the store with a high-profit dollar contribution. It might also be an item that has been in the store for a long time and you want to get rid of it.

Another incentive program that has been shown to work is the green card/red card program. In this incentive, owners, managers, and supervisors are looking to reward employ-ees for taking the initiative to perform various tasks in the store. As an example, when a light bulb is burnt out, a supervisor often has to tell someone to get the neces-sary bulb and ladder, and then replace it. Instead, when the employee notices the bulb and takes the initiative to perform the bulb replacement, the supervisor rewards the employee with a green card.

The green card is a green tinted index card on which the date, time, employee’s name, supervisor’s name, and details of the action are written. Both the employee and supervisor sign the card. This is a form of recognition for the employee for his or her work, like a pat on the back and does not require an immediate form of financial reward. The green card is then placed in the employee’s employment record folder.

The red card is the opposite of the green card. Even as the process for using the red card is the same as the green


card, an employee uses it to denote a failure. A red-card notation might occur because the employee failed to take care of a customer as well as possible, or it might occur because the employee failed to perform a task that was a part of his or her job or because she or he did not perform the job properly. The red card also goes in the employee’s employment record folder.

To score the green and red cards, have each green card equal one point and each red card cancel out one green card. When the employee has a total of a certain number of points, often 25, the points are then exchanged for a reward, often a $25.00 gift card from a local restaurant.

The idea behind the green-card/red-card system is that the owner will now find employees paying more attention to what needs to be done in the store as compared to waiting to be told what to do. As an owner, when you think about how much time is spent telling employees to take care of things in the store, paying $1.00 to an employee who takes the initiative to perform a task without having to be told is a very low-cost way to get things done while allow-ing the owner time to take care of more important things.

With the incentives we have outlined, you have to decide what the incentive amount is, and when it is paid. As we have given some examples of incentives which can be other than cash, you are likely to include cash as the form of payment for some of these incentives. Although the incentive is referred to as “cash,” you probably should not give direct cash payments but instead include the pay-ment with the employee’s paycheck.

As the incentives make for a positive competitive environ-ment between employees, some employees can forget that sense of positive competition if they don’t look closely at their paycheck (when given cash rewards) or when they haven’t earned an incentive in a while. One way to resolve this is to recognize the incentive payments during the staff meetings. As an example, you could create a form of play money that you could count out and hand to employees during the meeting. Doing so, your employee is recognized for his or her achievement in front of his or her peers, the competitive spirit between employees is fueled, and the employee is aware of what to expect in the next paycheck. One last aspect of incentive pay is when to pay the incen-tive money. All of these incentives involve a cash payment, however, the business owner should keep a balance be-tween paying too frequently and too slowly. Too frequently means you are performing an excessive amount of office work. Too slowly means your employees are losing the desire to work for an incentive because they have to wait too long to receive their reward.

Some of the incentives will have their frequency deter-mined simply by the nature of the unit of measure. An incentive based on a sales increase over the course of a month will mean the reward should be paid with the next paycheck of the following month. If the incentive reward is something other than cash, such as a dinner, it should also be given as soon as possible after the conclusion of the competition.

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• A pay raise should be based on merit and not on longevity of employment. • Using the job description as a basis for a job review makes sure the employee knows how their

job evaluation is tabulated. • Employees should actively participate in their job review. • The job review should explain how certain components of the job are more important than others.

29Chapter 11: Employee Termination

CHAPTER 11

Employee Termination

Having a great staff has little to do with luck. It does not necessarily have to do with your paying your employees more than your competition does. It deals with how you accept applications, how you conduct interviews, how you hire, how you educate initially and continually, how you resolve problems involving employees, and how you ter-minate employees. Look at businesses that have a quality staff and you will find they have addressed these issues.

Paying attention to all of these components makes hiring the next employee even easier because the applicant is going to see how his or her future co-workers perform and what is expected of them.

Terminating an employee is often an unpleasant task. Some businesses might have to terminate an employee because of a lack of sales, but more often an owner terminates an employee because of poor performance, lack of performance, or failing to follow store policies and procedures.

Because the laws regarding employee termination will vary from state to state, and because the laws change from year to year, outlining all of the legal requirements for a termination is not possible here. Instead, we will discuss the aspect of reviewing an employee’s poor performance and the general process of termination.

Far too many businesses wait too long to terminate an employee who is not performing up to standards. Very likely, other employees in the business have long noticed the underperforming fellow employee. As they watch the underperforming employee, the rest of your staff might see the situation as one in which you have chosen to not apply your policies, procedures, job descriptions, and specifica-tions to everyone equally. This can cause your performing employees to disengage, thus lowering employee perfor-mance across the board and costing you revenue.

In some cases where the business owner has failed to fully engage his or her requirements for the employees, and another employee is terminated for a failure to follow the requirements after the first underperforming worker was let go, the termination of the second employee can be ruled as being improper by a state unemployment hear-ing because of the uneven application of the business’ guidelines.

Employee termination should not be done in a moment of anger or in the presence of other employees. To minimize the possibility of a ruling against the business for im-proper termination, the owner should establish as much documentation of the dates, situations, and details of the employee’s failure as possible.

Your legal counsel might suggest that you have a docu-ment that is signed by the terminated employee as well as the individual performing the termination. The document can be as simple as, “I, John Doe, understand that as of [date] my employment has been terminated at Jacob’s Art Supply Store.”

Some notices of termination might include the reason for termination in the statement. If so, all aspects of emotion or subjective interpretation should be removed from the reason(s) given. As many specific details as possible be supplied. As an example, instead of saying, “John Doe is constantly late for work,” the documented dates and times of tardiness along with a copy of John Doe’s time card should be presented in the termination notice.Experience has shown that terminations that take effect immediately are best for the business. Items that involve the security of the business such as keys to doors, pass-words in computer systems, and anything else to which a limited number of employees have access should be changed immediately.

When an employee leaves the employment of your busi-ness, an opportune time to perform two tasks arrives. One task is to interview the person as she or he leaves to hear what this now ex-employee thinks of your business and what could be done to make the business better. This exit interview often provides the leaving employee with an op-portunity to vent frustrations he or she would not mention while in your employ.

As this session should not be one in which the exiting employee is simply complaining, it will allow you as the owner, or the person performing the interview, a chance to hear if aspects of the business might have caused that employee to resign or underperform.

The second task to consider with a departing employee is that of reevaluating your current scheduling of employees. If the person that is leaving is a salesperson, you definitely want to perform this exercise.


As owner, do not discuss the conditions surrounding an employee termination, or the reasons for a termination, with any customers or other employees. A statement as simple as, “We have decided that, effectively immediately,

Artist’s Brush Up Reminders• In terminating an employee you should be careful to comply with the laws of your community and state. • Frequently, a retailer will wait too long to terminate an employee as the other employees have already noticed

the poor performance of the underperforming employee. • Termination of an employee should be immediate with items involving the security of the business being

changed so as to eliminate the possibility of theft or revenge by the terminated employee.

John Doe will no longer be employed at Jacob’s Art Supply Store” is sufficient. No further public comment is necessary.

31Appendix A: The Job Application Form

APPENDIX A

The Job Application Form

Note: This application is provided as a guide to creating an employment application and is without legal review. NAMTA suggests that any business utilizing any or all of this form do so after confirming that the questions in this form are appropriate according to the government bodies that have jurisdiction over your business.

Welcome to our business. We are pleased that you have selected our business as a place to apply for employment, and look forward to exploring the possibility of your working in our business. Please tell us about yourself and answer all of the following questions. Then, let’s visit.

Name _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Street Address _____________________________________________________________________________________________

City, State, ZIP Code ________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone Number (_____) ______________________

Are you eligible to work in the United States? Yes No

If you are under age 18, do you have an employment/age certificate? Yes No

Have you been convicted of or pleaded “no-contest” to a felony within the last five years? Yes No

If yes, please explain: ________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Position Applied For _________________________________________________________________________________________

Days/Hours Available

Monday ______________ Tuesday _____________

Wednesday ___________ Thursday ____________

Friday _______________ Saturday _____________

Sunday ______________

Hours Available: from __________ to __________

What date are you available to start work? ________________

EDUCATIONName and Address Of School Degree/Diploma Graduation Date

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Skills and Qualifications: Licenses, Skills, Training, Awards

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EMPLOYMENT HISTORYPresent Or Last Position:

Employer: __________________________________________________________________________________________________

Address: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Supervisor: _________________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone: ____________________ Email: _________________________________________________________________________

Position Title: ______________________________________________________________________________________________

From: ______________ To: ______________ Salary: ______________

Responsibilities: ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Reason for Leaving: _________________________________________________________________________________________

Previous Position:

Employer: _________________________________________________________________________________________________

Address: __________________________________________________________________________________________________

Supervisor: ________________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone: ____________________ Email: _________________________________________________________________________

Position Title: ______________________________________________________________________________________________

From: ______________ To: ______________ Salary: ______________

Responsibilities: ____________________________________________________________________________________________

Reason for Leaving: _________________________________________________________________________________________

May We Contact Your Present Employer? Yes No

References:

Name/Title Address Phone

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I certify that information contained in this application is true and complete. I understand that false information might be grounds for not hiring me or for immediate termination of employment at any point in the future if I am hired. I authorize the verification of any or all information listed above.

Signature __________________________________________________________________ Date _______________________


Applicant’s Recent Employment History Questionnaire

1. What would you consider to be your greatest achievement at your last place of employment?

2. What did you like best about your last place of employment?

3. What did you like least about your last place of employment?

4. If you could change one thing about your last place of employment, what would it be?

5. What do you think about the people you worked with at your last place of employment?

6. What special talents do you bring to our business?

7. Why did you select our business as a place to apply for employment?

8. What part of what our business do you like best?

9. What do you see yourself doing three years from now?

10. At your last job, what was the biggest mistake you made? How long ago did it happen? How much did it cost your employer?

11. If we were to ask your last employer, what would he or she say about you?

33Appendix A: The Job Application Form

APPENDIX B

Job Description

Jacob’s Art Supply Store Job Description: Cashier

The cashier at our store is most often the first and last contact a customer has with us. Your ability to make a good lasting impression is most important.

As a cashier at our store, the functions of your job are:

1. Complete the sales and returns transactions at the point-of-sale in accordance with the instructions in your job specifications.

2. Greet all customers and watch for those that might need assistance or information. As you are not able to wander about the store, call for someone from the appropriate department to come to you and the customer so that the customer is properly taken care of. Never point a customer to a specific department or aisle.

3. Take incoming phone calls and pass them to the appropriate individual or department.

4. As needed, accept items for servicing and complete service order forms for customers.

5. Using the phone system, call for additional cashier assistance when you develop a line of customers at the register. If you are the backup cashier working the sales floor, watch the register to be able to assist the primary cashier.

6. Call for additional help on the sales floor as needed.

7. Watch for customers that might cause you to have suspicion for shoplifting and notify manager on duty.

8. Call customers when special orders have arrived, and when repair items have been completed.

9. Monitor the amount of money in your cash drawer, calling for supervisor to bring additional change as necessary and to remove excessive paperwork and large bills from cash drawer.

10. Be familiar with the price chart that is kept at the point-of-sale for those items that do not have a price tag on them.

11. Be knowledgeable of our current advertisements and sales circulars.

12. Greet and receive sales representatives calling on our store.

13. Keep checkout area clean and well stocked for necessary supplies.

14. Read trade magazines, manufacturer’s literature, and product labels to enhance your knowledge of the products and services we offer.

15. Make recommendations for changes and additions to the policy and procedure manual, job description and job specifications for cashiers as appropriate.

16. Attend all staff meetings and staff education classes as required by management.

17. Comply with the section with sections of policy and procedure manual that apply to you and your job.

Your immediate supervisor is the manager on duty at that time.


35Appendix C: Job Specifications

APPENDIX C

Job Specifications

Job Specifications: Warehouse/receiving staff

Warehouse functions:

1. Sweep out the warehouse and storage area daily

2. Break down all cardboard cartons and fill the dumpster daily. Dumpster should remain locked with the exception of the dates of pick-up by city sanitation department.

3. Place orders for all supplies needed each week with buyer so that your supplies can be included with orders to appropriate vendors.

4. All merchandise that has been returned as damaged or defective is to be processed for return or credit by Friday afternoon.

Merchandise receiving instructions:

1. Verify that packages are for Jacob’s Art Supply Store. Our address is 123 Main Street, Your town, State, and that all packages are in good condition before signing delivery receipt. Make sure the quantity of packages received is the same number as listed the receipt you are signing.

2. The packing list, if one exists, is to remain attached to the package. All other forms, such as delivery receipts, and invoice or freight bill, are to be placed in the “freight-receipt drawer” in the warehouse area.

3. All merchandise received is to be brought into the building immediately and stacked in the storage area. Nothing is to be placed on the processing table or in the area around it.

4. The receiving book should have the following information written in the appropriate columns:

a. Initials of the person receiving the merchandise. b. Vendor of the merchandise. c. Carrier of the merchandise (such as UPS, postal service, name of the freight company or vendor’s own truck). d. Total number of pieces received.

5. To check in merchandise, collect the purchase order from the office. If merchandise is to have price tags attached, the price stickers will be attached to the purchase order. A bin label will be attached if the price has been changed. Collect the documentation from the freight-receipt drawer and the packing list if attached to package. Staple all of these documents together.

6. Verify the quantity received against the purchase order. If the quantity is correct, a green horizontal dash is made to the left of the quantity on the purchase order. If appropriate, attach a price sticker to the item.

7. Merchandise that is kept in security areas of the store (i.e. spray paints) is to be given to the person in charge of that area of the store. All other merchandise can be placed in a cart at the back of the sales floor for placement in the appropriate area of the store.

8. If the quantity received and quantity ordered do not agree, enter the quantity of the item received instead of making the green horizontal dash on the purchase order. Determine if the vendor has partially shipped the item or if this is a shortage on the shipment. You can determine whichever case by examining the packing list or invoice.

9. If a shortage does exist, use the discrepancy for this situation, as described below. If an overage occurs, notify the buyer before processing the overage of the item to determine the proper disposition of the excess merchandise.

10. If the vendor has made a substitution for an item that was ordered, the buyer must give approval for that item to be received as a substitute.

11. Upon completion of checking in the merchandise, sign and date the purchase order and place all of the documents in the processed-order bin in the office.

12. All items that have been special ordered for customers will be done on a purchase order that identifies that customer and provides his or her contact information. Upon completion of processing the order, place the duplicate copy of the purchase-order form on the clipboard at the checkout so that a cashier can notify the customer of the arrival of his or her item.

13. All special-order merchandise should be placed in the secured special-order area of the warehouse. Special-order merchandise that is a security item should be put in the security special-order locker.

14. Discrepancy form: An overage or shortage occurs when the quantity received is different from the quantity ordered and/or the quantity on the invoice or packing list. Complete the discrepancy form by filling out the appropriate lines to identify the vendor, purchase order number, item number, item description, and quantity of discrepancy. Overages that are to be returned to the vendor are to be put in the secured-overage area of the warehouse along with a copy of the discrepancy form. A second copy of the discrepancy form is to be attached to the paperwork that is being turned in to the office.


37Appendix D: Business Policy

APPENDIX D

Business Policy

Policy letter #1: The Basics

This letter puts in writing the necessary information you are given when you begin working at Jacob’s Art Supply Store. It includes items such as meal breaks, afternoon breaks, schedules, and staff announcements.

The Jacob’s Art Supply Store employee-education class is a part of your work schedule. You are paid for your attendance in the 1-hour sessions; attendance is required. You should punch your time card upon arrival and at the conclusion of the class.

For those working an 8-hour shift, a meal break is 45 minutes long. You should punch your time card for leaving and returning. If you are working the sales floor, do not leave for a meal until the person scheduled before you has returned to the sales floor.

If you are working an 8-hour shift, you are given a 15-minute afternoon break. If you are working the sales floor, it is your responsibility to see that only one person at a time is off the sales floor. In taking a break, use the break room or leave the store area, inside or out, so that a customer does not interrupt your time away from the store.

As the store is open for 5 hours on Sunday, no meal breaks occur that day. Fifteen-minute breaks are taken at a time to be set by the supervisor working that day.

On occasions when you have need for time off from your schedule, an additional day off, or to change a day off, you must write up a request and give it to the store manager. You will be given a prompt reply of approval or denial of your request. Requests are considered on a first-come basis, but with consideration to the number of requests you have made.

Should you be unable to meet your schedule do to an emergency or illness, notify the manager, assistant manager, or supervisor on duty in the store. Remember when you miss your schedule others must cover for you, so please be considerate of them.

Time cards are used for two weeks, beginning with a Monday and ending with a Sunday. The front of the time card is to be used for the first week, with the back of the time card being used for the second week. Be sure to sign your time card, putting your employee number on both sides of the card.

Paychecks are ready at 4 p.m. on the Tuesday afternoon following the completion of the two-week time card.

Announcements that are relevant to everyone will be made during staff meetings. When time does not allow the announcement to wait until the staff meeting, the announcement will be posted on the bulletin board above the time clock.

Your signature below indicates that you understand and will comply with all of the components of this policy.

Signature __________________________________________________________________ Date _______________________


APPENDIX E

Procedures

Procedure Letter: Telephone Usage and Manners

This procedure letter will emphasize the importance of properly handling a phone call as well as the details of how to properly operate the telephone, paging, and intercom systems.

Jacob’s Art Supply Store spends a considerable amount of money each year to advertise the phone number of the store in various forms of advertising: yellow pages, television, radio, newspaper, direct mail, and the Internet.

When a customer calls our store, we are presented with an excellent opportunity to introduce our skills and knowledge. The phone system at Jacob’s Art Supply Store is designed so that a call can be initially answered from any phone in the building.

In addition to ringing, a slow-flashing red light will indicate which line to answer. When the line has been answered the red light for that line will change to a solid red light. At that point, no other phone can answer the same line.

The proper response for initially answering the phone is something to the effect of, “Good morning/afternoon, Jacob’s Art Supply Store. This is [your name]. How can we help you today?”

We answer in this way because the employee answering the phone might not be the best one to help the person calling, and this answer, using “we,” allows you direct the call to the right person. This response can also save your time so that the customer is not asking you a question that has to be repeated to another employee.

To put the phone call on hold, ask the customer if you may first put them on hold. Inform the customer that you are going to do so, that music plays while on hold, and that you are going to direct the call to the proper person. If possible, tell the customer the name of the person to whom he or she is going to be talking to.

Pressing the orange button in the lower right-hand corner of the phone will place the call on hold. The fast-flashing red light for the line will indicate the line is on hold.

To page over the store-wide speakers, press the green button in the upper-right corner of the phone once. Speak slowly and clearly into the phone, repeating your page one time.

At this point, hang up the phone. Be sure to watch the phone to make sure the phone has been answered.

If the phone call is for a particular extension in the store, press the button once that corresponds to that particular individual instead of pressing the green button.

If you are answering the phone as a salesperson, a proper suggested response is, “Good morning/afternoon, this is [your name] and I am ready to help you.”

In answering a phone call as a salesperson, be prepared with pen and paper to write down any details about a product or service that a customer might inquire. In checking on a product for a customer, save your customer and yourself additional time by noting the product sizes, quantity on hand, and prices before returning to the phone.

When pressing the button for the phone line to take it off of hold, be sure to thank the customer for being patient and waiting for you. A phone call that has been put on hold can be answered from any other phone in the store.

When making or receiving a personal call, you should keep these calls to a minimum. Any personal call, incoming our outgoing, must be from a phone that is not on the sales floor. It shows poor customer service to have a customer overhear an employee taking care of his or her personal life when customers are present. For this same reason, personal cell phones should not be used at any time on the sales floor.

39Appendix E: Procedures

Research has shown that a high percentage of purchases in our store begin with a customer making a call to the store. Therefore, it is important that personal calls be kept to a minimum.

In our business, details make a difference in the quality of the experience a customer has. Your assistance is always necessary so that our customer sees our store as being of the highest quality.

Your signature below indicates you understand and will comply all of the components of this procedure.

Signature __________________________________________________________________ Date _______________________


APPENDIX F

Sample of Class Notes

Jacob’s Art Supply Store brush class

This class is designed to help you have a better understanding of the various types of brushes that Jacob’s Art Supply Store sells. Completion of this class will provide you with the knowledge of the brands, types, and sizes of brushes we sell. You will also be better equipped to help the customers make the selection that is best for their needs, skills and budget.

Brush Class Topics

1. The brands of brushes we sell and why we sell them.

2. Selling the “good,” “better,” “best” concept.

3. Helping a customer to select the right brush for the right project.

4. Terminology of brushes.

5. Policy and procedure review: Using the telephone.

41Appendix G: Sample of Class Assessment

APPENDIX G

Sample of Class Assessment

Jacob’s Art Supply Store Brush Class Assessment

Name _________________________________________ Completed assessment is due on _________________

1. Which of the brands of brushes that we carry offer a series of brushes in the category of ‘best’?

2. A customer is looking at two brushes of the same size; one brush is thicker than the other. Give a reason why a customer would want one brush over the other.

3. In deciding whether to offer a customer the “good,” “better,” or “best” brush for a particular project, what questions could you ask the customer to help you determine which quality to offer first?

4. What types of paint would you use a bristle brush with?

5. What does the ferrule do on a brush? What can the ferrule be made of?

6. Name five styles of brush tips.

7. Sable, goat and camel hair brushes; Which of these are incorrectly named? How is it incorrectly named?

8. A customer asks for a ‘rigger brush’. What does the name refer to?

9. You see a size of brush listed as 4/0. Another is listed as 0000. What is the difference?

10. A customer calls and asks if we have a certain item in stock. The item is on the other side of the store, requiring you to place the caller on hold. What do you do first?


APPENDIX H

Sample of Job Evaluation Form

Jacob’s Art Supply Store Job Review for Cashier

The cashier at our store is most often the first and last contact a customer has with us. Your ability to make a good lasting impression is most important.

Employee Supervisor Agreed-upon Weight Total score score score factor score

1. Complete the sales and returns transactions at the point-of-sale in accordance with the instructions in your job specifications.

2. Greet all customers and watch for those who might

need assistance or information. As you are not able to wander about the store, call for someone from the appropriate department to come to you and the customer so that the customer is properly taken care of. Never point a customer to a specific department or aisle.

3. Take incoming phone calls and pass them to the

appropriate individual or department. 4. As needed, accept items for servicing and complete

service order forms for customers. 5. Using the phone system, call for additional cashier

assistance when you develop a line of customers at the register. If you are the backup cashier working the sales floor, watch the register to be able to as-sist the primary cashier.

6. Call for additional help on the sales floor as

needed.

7. Watch for customers that might cause you to have suspicion for shoplifting and notify manager on duty.

8. Call customers when special orders have arrived.

9. Monitor the amount of money in your cash drawer, calling for the supervisor to bring additional change as necessary and to remove excessive paperwork and large bills from cash drawer.

2.0

1.8

1.8

1.5

1.5

1.4

1.0

1.1

1.3

43Appendix H: Sample of Job Evaluation Form

Employee Supervisor Agreed-upon Weight Total score score score factor score

10. Be familiar with the price chart that is kept at the point-of-sale for those items that do not have a price tag on them.

11. Be knowledgeable of our current advertisements and sales circulars.

12. Greet and receive sales representatives calling on our store.

13. Keep checkout area clean and well stocked for necessary supplies.

14. Read trade magazines, manufacturer’s literature, and product labels to enhance your knowledge of the products and services we offer.

15. Make recommendations for changes and additions to the policy and procedure manual, job descrip-tion, and job specifications for cashiers as appropriate.

16. Attend all staff meetings and staff-education classes as required by management.

17. Comply with the sections of the policy-and- procedure manual that apply to you and your job.

1.5

1.6

1.0

1.2

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

Totalscore:


Bibliography of Books That Will Provide More Information on Topics Covered in this Manual

Customer service180 Ways to Walk the Customer Service Talk by Eric Harvey

Building Customer Loyalty by Joanna Brandi

Butterfly Customer by Susan O’Dell and Joan Pajunen

Customer Centric Selling by Michael T. Bosworth and John R. Holland

Customers for Life by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown

Customer Winback by Jill Griffin and Michael W. Lowenstein

How Customers Think by Geral Zaltman

How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life by Michael LeBoeuf

I love you more than my dog by Jeanne Bliss

Infinite Possibility by Joseph Pine and Kim Korn

Managing Customers as Investments by Sunil Gupta and Dolald R. Lehmann

Outrageous by T Scott Gross

Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

Solution Selling by Michael T. Bosworth

What Customers Want by Anthony W. Ulwick

Sales skillsAmazing Face Reading by Mac Fulfer, JD

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

How to Read a Person Like a Book by Gerald I. Nierenberg and Henry H. Calero

Sell Yourself First by Thomas A. Freese

The Power of Face Reading by Rose Rosetree

Staff managementCoaching for improved work performance by Ferdinand F. Fournies

Drive by Daniel H. Pink

Getting Employees to Fall In Love With Your Company by Jim Harris

Here comes everybody by Clay Shirky

I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You by Terri Kabachnick

It’s OK to Ask ‘Em to Work by Frank McNair

Linchpin by Seth Godin

Motivating the “What’s in it for me?” Workforce by Cam Marston

Please don’t just do what I tell you! by Bob Nelson

Rethinking the Sales Force by Neil Rackham and John DeVincentis

The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

The Southwest Airlines Way by Jody Hoffer Gittell

The Starbucks Experience by Joseph Michelli

The Enthusiastic Employee by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer

RETAIL OPERATIONS FOR ART MATERIALS RETAILERS Managing … · are the best salespeople and you...

Documents

Transcript of RETAIL OPERATIONS FOR ART MATERIALS RETAILERS Managing … · are the best salespeople and you...