FAQ July - Creating Excitement for the second half of the year

One Friday each month I dedicate the post to looking at some questions I have heard recently from developing leaders. Sharing those questions and my thoughts for them is a way for me to spread the information to as many leaders and future leaders as possible. If you have a question about leadership or just a situation you would like some additional insight on, please email me at Effective Retail Leader. Let’s take a look at this week’s question.

I am having a meeting with my team to recalibrate for the rest of the year - how do I create excitement for our busiest months of the year?

The mid-year point is almost as important as the beginning of the year in terms of goal setting and assessing where you are at. Also, reigniting energy is a crucial step at the halfway stage of the year. The biggest difference between now and the beginning of the year - the slate is clean at the start of a new year. In July, you have results already, and it can feel daunting to overcome a slow start. However, in almost every retailer’s environment, there is significantly more sales and profit tied to the back half of the year than the front - this is reason enough to get everyone fully engaged in what lies ahead. Here are a few ideas for ramping up your team for a strong finish to the rest of the year.

Assess and celebrate successes so far this year

Take some time to review and celebrate the accomplishments that have already occurred this year. Nothing is too small. Get as many wins as you can find on the board and talk about what they have meant to the business. Many of these smaller wins, especially when combined, will be the catalyst for winning in the coming months. Call out those that have contributed to those successes - recognition is a great way to get everyone pumped up.

Evaluate current projects and processes

What is working? What is not? Why? Those are some key questions to ask the team and open up for discussion. The midway point is an excellent time to revisit your KISS method from the start of the year - Keep doing, Improve upon, Start doing, and Stop doing. If there are things that are just not panning out as you had hoped at the beginning of the year - get rid of them now. You will want to be as lean as possible in these critical months ahead. Take the team’s input and agree upon the plan forward on what should and should not be a part of the strategy.

Reestablish goals

After looking at what has been accomplished so far this year and building the framework from what is and is not working, it is time to reset any goals you have. Are there any that are just not achievable at this point? Are there others that the bar is set too low for? Update those and agree upon what the new goals will be for everyone. This is another place to reinforce with recognition and celebrating what has already been accomplished. Paint the picture of what is still possible.

Create that first step

I have said it before, and I am repeating it now - talking about plans and goals in the clean environment of a meeting is great, but reality strikes as soon as your team gets back to their stores. It is essential that you walk away from your session with that first step that everyone will take as soon as they get back. What is the one thing everyone can do to begin the motion of moving towards what you agreed upon in the meeting? It might even be a good idea to conduct a conference call at the end of the first week after your meeting to review how everyone did on that first step. Keep that energy from the meeting alive.As I mentioned at the start of this, the back half of the year for almost every retailer carries more weight than the first half. Most stores will experience some lift from the back to school season, Halloween, and the fall/winter holidays. In some cases, this can represent more than 75% of the profits companies will capture for the entire year. When you look at it from that perspective, ground can be made up from a soft start to any year. This may be a worthy exercise to conduct with your team to illustrate that there are still many opportunities to win the entire year, let along for five months ahead.Getting the team re-energized going into the busiest season is a great plan for every leader. Put some additional time into planning how you want the message to come across and then gather everyone to assess, celebrate, evaluate, and establish goals to win the year.Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive FREE leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills all at no cost. JOIN NOW!No spam ever - just leadership goodness.