Is It Beachworthy?

I love my staff and my customers and my hobby, but the beating heart of my business is the processes and procedures that keep it running. The ultimate goal is for me to be able to sit on a beach and have my business run smoothly. The beach is a metaphor, because if you know anything about me, I would go nuts lying on an actual beach.

The beach represents my ability to run a second business, to go on vacation, to retire, to increase my operational prowess without being laden down by poor processes and procedures. It's being able to do all processes of my business at a time of my choosing and have smooth running procedures back home that don't create exceptions in the system.

The value of my business, it's worth to other people, will fundamentally be about its beachworthiness. If the business only operates with me in it, like so many game stores, the value of the business is what you could get in a weekend fire sale. If it requires me to periodically fight fires or uncover a missing invoice because they're hidden in a box, the value of my business is severely diminished. If it's profitable while I'm on the beach, we go from fire sale to a business valuation that looks like a healthy retirement portfolio.

Getting my business beachworthy, unfortunately, requires my business partners, notably distributors and publishers, to have beachworthy processes and procedures. As my business grows, I tend to discard partners who are not beachworthy, or elements of their business that are not compatible with my very basic goals of reclining on a beach. So let's take a look at where my partners tend to fall short:

Invoicing. Is your invoicing, your fundamental process for getting paid, consistent with industry standards or are you behind or ahead of the curve? Both being behind, such as randomly tossing invoices in boxes, or being ahead, such as electronic invoices only, are painful exceptions for your beachworthy partners. 

Ask your finance people if they believe customers are paying on time and I'll bet you they'll say no. So maybe try an experiment. Maybe put your invoices in a flap outside of the first box. If you do that already, perhaps print invoices on pink paper so it stands out. If you're invoices are electronic only, compare your dating to before you became so sophisticated and see if perhaps you should go back. Can a minimum wage game store employee with six weeks of training spot and process your invoices or are they getting lost?

Sales. How does your customer, sitting on the beach, learn about new products to buy from you? Are you still sending paper? Did you get a request to forward that to the beach or is it sitting in a stack of old Uline catalogs? Are you relying on calling beachgoers to speak with them about things? Have you noticed how they avoid your calls? 

Beachworthy businesses have no time for these interruptions. Whatever it is they're doing, they're doing at their own pace, at their own chosen time. Find consistent ways to inform them of new releases. Follow up on the hits that are important for them to know, as a value add, rather than bombarding them with paid marketing messages from companies they have no interest in. 

Pre orders should be funneled to a website where that information is visible, changeable (to a particular date) with clear indications of shipment times. If you don't have this, the beachworthy business will be forced to move to someone who does. The more beachworthy, the more likelihood of switching. Beachworthy businesses have all the money, by the way.

Clear Processes. Beachworthy businesses have staff with assigned tasks. One of the biggest mistakes of a game supplier is expecting crossover. They envision the game store as a one person operation, rather than a bundle of processes and procedures spread across a large staff. If the person running events is asked to place orders, or the order person is asked to perform event related activities, you've crossed the streams of the beachworthy business and it's likely what you're asking won't reliably happen in that business. Know what you're asking and who you need to handle the task. 

Finally, be aware of who is beachworthy and who is not and find ways to add value to their businesses while they are on the beach. A strong partner will remind the beach goer of events, products, and even upcoming seasonal issues. They might be more flexible when the customer is close to the free freight requirements. This might sound like doing their job for them, but it's easy to lose focus when you're not physically present in your stores every day. There is likely a program worth developing for such stores, which are also likely to be your biggest accounts.

This may sound like special favors for big accounts, but all stores can become more beachworthy with better processes and procedures from distributors and publishers. Beachworthy is another word for valuable, after all, and removing your exceptions and idiosyncrasies from their operation directly contributes to that value.