Pareto Principle

There was something weighing on me today as I ran around doing various tasks at the new store. Then I figured it out. It's the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule:

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes. Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients."

In the case of the new store, we're down to the last 20% of work that needs done, but the percentage of effort seem drastically out of proportion. Things like carpet and paint are giant changes that can be done quickly. Now, however, we've got little things that seem to take forever, like spending half a day installing shelves or putting up posters. This is a good thing really, it means we're almost ready to open.

Today was mostly paying bills and balancing the check register, but here are a few things that got done:

• Wireless Internet configured. It took a while with tech support in India until I realized I could plug into the router and do it myself.
• Glass Shelves. Cleaned and installed in the new fixtures.
• Miniature racks set up for slatwall.

There are also contractors at the store checking and replacing lighting ballasts and bulbs. Tomorrow they'll continue with the lighting and also fix a leaky toilet.


My electrician will be in later this week to work on phone jacks. Our phone system is comprised of bare wires attached with alligator clips all the way to the router. There's also some electrical outlets to be put in.

Another group of guys will finish up with the slatwall installation.


Here are some photos from the new toy section:

Meta-Blog

Maybe it's my academic side, but I start wondering after a while what the heck I'm doing. What's the context? What's the underlying meaning? This is especially true of blogging. Truth be told, I don't read other blogs and I can't honestly see the appeal. So here are some questions and answers as I see them. The whys of my blog.

Who is it For?
The intention is several fold. First, it's a kind of diary for myself. It helps me collect my thoughts and plan actions, much like a real world journal. Second, it's for my customers and fans who want to read about what's happening with the new store. In that respect, it's a deliberate marketing effort, which can be good because it justifies my time from a business perspective. Third, and least important, it's a record for my investors and employees. This is a heads-up of what's going on and a means to brainstorm on ideas. "Hey, here's how I spent our money today!" Often when I'm meeting with them, the information in the blog is a baseline for discussion.

Who Really Reads It?
I do, of course, as does my wife sometimes. Often she learns about how my day went by reading the blog. My two most active investors read it, which makes it useful for discussions. A couple friends pop by now and then. A good number of customers are also reading it and I'm often surprised in the store when they bring up something I've said.

Then there's the general public. I've been tracking traffic for about a week now and I get between 50-70 unique users each day from five different countries (total). They spend only a couple minutes on the site, on average, so it's not like I've got devoted readers. About 85% are from the US, 5% from Canada, 3% from the UK. There are 32 other countries listed, but the time spent on the blog makes me think it's a search engine or other crawler software.

What Doesn't Get Said
This includes a lot of industry stuff that I don't want to discuss in front of customers. My latest issues that I reserve for the industry forums: Why my customers with wholesale accounts are allowed to continue ordering. Why Wiz-Kids can't keep their street dates with large retailers or sell Haloclix without parts missing. Fantasy Flight Games is shifting their costs to the retailer with their new Starcraft board game, making selling the game much less profitable. I also discuss store specific information that I don't want public, like choosing security systems, how to deal with unruly customers, the merits of various product lines, and trouble with people in the industry.

I also don't talk about my personal life much, mostly because it's not the focus of the blog. I sometimes would like to discuss how my spiritual life suffers because of the demands of my work, or how we're dealing (or not dealing) with serious illness in the family. It's not what people are reading this blog for and I don't want to make my life into a reality show. My son is also included in that. I would prefer not to feel like I'm exploiting him to make a point. Parents out there understand this. It's something special in your life you don't want to tarnish, as much as you like to talk about them endlessly.

Money rarely gets discussed. I've learned that money is a fantastically interesting topic amongst other game stores. Amongst customers or the less informed, it's just a complex mess with lots of misunderstandings. Try explaining to a customer that you're only making $8 net profit on the $100 board game they just bought. Talk about a can of worms. My own finances are also somewhat off-limits, unless someone gets the impression I'm wealthy. Ha!

What I Would Like To Say
Usually I just say what I would like to say, but it would be nice to actually steer the blog towards more positive topics. Unfortunately, if I'm willing to write about something, it usually means it really excites me or really pisses me off. Spirit of the Century and D&D 4.0 are like that. Rackham is somewhere in between - what a spectacle! The game industry itself is a really easy target to take shots at. It's mostly a bunch of people in their basements who aren't big enough to warrant attention or a few corporations that can't seem to do anything right after many attempts. If I can rattle some cages in an industry forum to get results (like I did today), that's somewhat productive. To rant on a blog is just ineffective unless you're trying to communicate a problem or come up with a solution. Maybe it's because of that 2-minutes the average US reader spends reading it.

Great Progress

A lot got done today:

• DSL installed.
• Alarm system installation finished.
• Hot water heater in bathrooms replaced.
• Door latch replaced.
• Locks changed.

Miniatures section is coming along

Bullyland

Is the product line of the day. This German company makes rubber dinosaurs and army guys. They're kinda nice. They arrived this afternoon.And check out this Soldaten Sortiment.

Telefono

I spent most of the day at the old store, as we call it now. We just concluded the worst week in two years. I ascribe that to the wonderful decor and the absence of the main sales guy.

I had a pinprick hole in one of my wheels and the Mazda dealership is within walking distance. That's right, a hole in the metal wheel, not the rubber tire. It was strange enough that they needed the service manager to approve a replacement. It was a $350 wheel, so I was glad to have it covered under warranty. Anyway, that had me grounded until around 4pm when I could get over to the new store. I really like my Mazda 6, but it seems to spend a lot of time at the dealership.

When I arrived at the new store, I learned that my yelling at the property manager had finally done the trick and my electrician now had access to the telephone closet. Within another hour we had phone service, which means the alarm system can be wrapped up tomorrow and the DSL installed on Wednesday.

Would you believe it took 3 hours to load the beverage merchandiser (drink cooler)? Part of that was realizing the shelves weren't aligned properly and attempting to adjust them. Some of the backs were higher or lower than the fronts. Rather than spend the time to take the drinks off, we came up with elaborate ways to lift the shelves, such as balancing rubber mallets. Yeah, sometimes it's best to come back when you're not so tired.

My car loaded down with $300 worth of beverages. Notice how pretty my digital camera takes photos compared to my crappy cell phone. High fructose corn syrup never looked so good. I had to bring over the good camera to take photos of the messed up table we got. One of the legs is glued in upside down, so half the shelves won't fit.

Still room! I went out tonight and filled in some of the beverage holes: Diet A&W Root Beer (happy Joe?) , Canada Dry, Squirt (one of my favorites) and Barrilito Tamarind Soda from Mexico. Hey, Concord is 25% Hispanic. Actually, it's one of my favorites as well.

David and Joe stayed late Saturday night putting the GF9 racks together. They mark the entrance to our game center. Looking at them now, I'm not sure we want different gondola types so obviously put next to each other.

Cooler

We connected the drink merchandiser last night. After a Costco run, we've got a tentative menu of the more exotic drinks:

Red Bull
Price: 2.50

Rock Star
Price: 2.50

Monster
Price: 2.50

Starbucks Frappuccino Drinks
Price: 2.50

Mexican Coca Cola
Price: 1.75

Henry Weinhard Root Beer
Price: 1.25

Snapple Teas
Price: 1.25

Arrowhead Water
Price: 1.00

Next stop is Food4Less for the more mundane stuff. When the drink cooler is full, I'll make a second Costco run for a large variety of candy and snacks.

Other drinks I have to obtain:

• Mountain Dew (our best seller)
• Regular and Diet Coke
• Diet Dr. Pepper
• Sprite

Volunteer Progress

I had a lot of volunteer help today setting things up. We went through all the Melissa & Doug toys, including receiving, tagging and placing them on the correct shelves. David hot glued the toy train display and fixed our leaning puzzle rack. Joe managed the receiving process and in the end everything added up. Lots of other people joined in as well and when I left at 8pm tonight, Joe and David were still there setting up the Gale Force 9 terrain and tool racks. The contractors were playing Warmachine when I left.