Advertisement Ideas: Empower Your Staff!!!
One of the words that has been used time and time again over the last few years is empowerment. The term is defined as follows to give power or authority to; authorize, especially by legal or official means: to enable or permit. I chose to write about this today as I have witnessed so many opportunities lost due to the lack of empowerment given to staff and as a result sales have declined and brand awareness has been weakened. I have witnessed a lack of empowerment in many areas of businesses however the one area where I think empowerment lacks the most is in the marketing arena. I have been out in the community promoting The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Sunrise, which will take place on May 5, 2017 from 6 PM – 12 AM (Midnight) at Piper High School. I have been approaching places like McDonald’s, Subway, and Pizza Hut and each store manager at these establishments told me the same thing you have to go through corporate for that. Now I don’t mind calling corporate as I have been doing fundraising for over 40 years and I know how to present ideas that will make sense to a business. When I called corporate recently for these three businesses I was told oh we have a committee that takes care of that and you have to fill out a special request form. Again I don’t mind doing this however if the managers at these locations were empowered and given the authority to make a decision based with a marketing budget the local stores would benefit more as they would feel that they had a stake in the location and as a result would work harder. Corporate would benefit as they wouldn’t have to be bogged down in paper work and their brand would gain more recognition and their revenue would increase. Think about it we are told that people do business with people they know like and trust so what better way to get to know people get them to like you and trust you than having an empowered staff that will be dedicated to growing your business.
Each day businesses lose out on sales because they have failed to empower their staff members and have also failed to understand the concept of cause marketing. I remember working for Brunswick Margate Lanes as a counter control supervisor and sales associate and having a charitable organization approach me about helping them with a fundraiser. I went to my GM and asked if we could give them the lanes for Free as we could write it off as a marketing expense. He said yes as a result the charity booked 10 lanes bowled 3 games at a cost to the bowling center of about $150 however we sold over $500 at the snack bar to this group and had over $350 in sales from the bar plus we booked 3 birthday parties. By empowering me to do this we exceeded our sales goals for the month. In being empowered to make special offers and create special short season leagues I was able to put 1,599 bowlers on the floor for the summer which led to the opening of a pro-shop at the center creating an additional revenue stream. The key is to empower your staff and let them make decisions that make sense for the business.
When I worked at Sinbad Sports I kept asking the owner to let me know what we paid for items so that I could effectively price them and allow for some negotiation room. The owner never wanted to share this information and one day i said something about it and a few days later was told I decided not to move forward with you I need your key. I gave him the key and explained that in the month we had sold $12,000 in product and that I was responsible for $8000 of the sales. His response was oh we would have sold that anyway. I thought really who else was going to be able to turn a customer who was looking for a $20 tee-shirt for his wife into a $250 memorabilia sale. I suggested to him many times to allow me to make some decisions and he kept telling me don’t tell me how to run my business. In not empowering me and his other employees he has sacrificed sales.I know this as I recently spoke to his former GM who told me after I left that their sales dropped off. It was funny to see the other day that he did finally implement some of my suggestions. had he empowered me to implement my suggestions he would have kept a good staff member who was dedicated to growing his business and his sales and brand recognition would have increased. Remember that when you have a good staff member to empower that staff member as they may truly have the best interest of your business in mind.
Sometimes the greatest way to empower a staff member is simply to listen to their ideas and if it makes sense implement the idea and see what happens. Many times a staff member who has his of her boots on the ground and is in the business daily is better equipped to make a marketing decision than the person sitting in a corporate office 1000’s of miles away from the location. Remember what works in Deerfield Michigan may not work in Deerfield FL so it is important to empower your staff to make decisions when it comes to supporting community projects, local area marketing, and other aspects of the business as they may know something that the person sitting in a corporate office may not.
