Consider a sign in the window if you are selling your newsagency. A customer could be in the market for a business and yours could be a good fit. Brokers tell me buyers in rural and regional situations are more often locals.
A sign in the window can work – as long as the business – the shop itself – looks healthy and appealing. A FOR SALE sign in the window of a shop that looks like it is on its last legs will not help drive a sale.
Too often retailers selling their business go to considerable lengths to hide that the business is for sale and through this they miss opportunities – including selling to existing staff and or customers.
By putting a sign in the window you also remind yourself every day that the business is for sale and that you need to keep it looking at its best. It also reminds you to talk more about what there is to love about the business than what you don’t love.
Yes, this approach will have people asking. You could be the best sales person of the business. Be sure to have a broker as a backup for the more formal questions.
Might put my sign up today.
You are not wrong allan, feeling the same way myself… sorry but time for a rant. Just been through the turmoil of being called out to the shop at 2.15am by the security company and discovering the shop has been broken into AGAIN (2nd time in 9 months). I know thank goodness no one was here, thank goodness they only took ALL the cigarettes and didn’t trash the whole shop, etc…etc…etc… But damn it I am feeling sick and angry. Angry that I lost so much trade today, angry that some low life good for nothing SOB has over $8k at cost of my stock with which he can buy well pretty much whatever he wants I guess. Meantime I still work 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year minimum 85 hours per week and for what. Half my stock arrived on Tuesday night in prep for the long weekends trade (double order), they have not even presented that cheque yet. Had to order emergency supplies hoping to receive tomorrow and guess what yes got to pay for them tomorrow too. Between the insurance company (the 8 page claim form looks about 5 pages too long right now), the police (who do a great job by the way but can only be in one place at a time and realistically no one here was in imminent danger) and the glazier (cant blame him for capitalising on the situation) who insisted that he would only come out if he got paid today (not waiting for insurance company again took too long last time) I feel like I have had it. And all of my well meaning genuinely kind customers who kind of insisted on asking me for every detail of what happened, I just want to go home have a sleep and damn it feel sorry for myself for 1 lousy hour. The next 2 hours are going to go extremely slowly I am guessing. Then of course its on again tomorrow by which time it will be old news and I can get on with doing everything I have not done today. Would someone please tell me if I am having fun yet? End of rant….
Michelle,I feel your pain. We had breakins at least twice a year while in a shop on the street for 25 years and every time we got called out and I saw the glass and the mess and I knew I had to clean it before we could open the shop I wanted to yell and kick and kill the SOB’s who had done it to us.
Thankfully now we are in a centre and we have never been broken into (just robbed every day by the landlords).
Don’t you love the glazier who wants his money upfront and the suppliers who want to be paid for your STOLEN stock.
Life is a bitch sometimes but look sideways hon and you’ll find a rainbow (probably not with a pot of gold mind you).
Go home early – shut the shop and scream in the car on the way home – that will help.
Buy takeaway for tea – have a bath and go to bed early.
Tomorrow is another day- oh and pray that the SOB has a nasty accident on his
way to wherever he’s going (cos it sure isn’t Heaven).
Do you feel a bit better now?
Share the pain – we feel yours!!!!
Michelle that’s so bad, I feel for you.
Can you do something to prevent this happening again?
I know it’s expensive but I’m guessing you lose out with insurance when it comes to cigs. We did the each time we were robbed.
First time we lost cigs and they burnt opened the safe and took all our mony, so we put an alarm in, but they came back and broke in downstairs, got upstairs into shop, filled large boxes with all our cig cartons then back downstairs to leave, all this took a couple of minutes and the alarm was going off.
We then put an security bar door at top of stairs (like the horrible one at front of shop) and no more problems.
But then I used to worry that we would be robbed when downstairs rolling papers in a back lane of suburban Sydney.
Next shop we had front door smashed and we were robbed of cigarettes and again lost thousands of dollars so we had a cabinet built (cost a few grand) to lock cigs up in every night.
Each time we were out of pocket plus insurance premiums went up.
When we moved into a shopping centre we stopped paying insurance on cigs as it just got too expensive.
If you can invest in bars on every door and window it’s worth it, ugly look but seems to be the only way to keep the bastards out.
Do your sums for Sunday trading and if you aren’t making much, close on Sundays and get some quality of life back.
A tough time Michelle. Thanks for sharing here. Venting can help.
Many here have tough stories. No matter how tough we find it, it’s important we own the situation. By this I mean, we made the choice to be in business. Yes we didn’t ask for certain circumstances to arrive. But they have.
In my years in business I’ve found that three things help: looking in front of me; taking a small step at a time and breathing.
Michelle, I know exactly how you feel, we were in the same boat 6 months ago. The worst thing was re watching the video footage over and over with the police, it sends shivers down your spine every time. We found out that they sussed the shop out for 3 nights and came in during operating hours twice. The only thing they were interested in was the smokes so we got rid of the smokes and put in a beautiful gift range it was the only way I could get out of the depressive state I went into.
I also agree with June if you don’t already plan to do so close early for the public holidays, splurge on a decent bottle of wine and a nice cheese and fruit platter.
I am sending you the best of wishes and secretly hoping for pain for the scumbags that did this to you.
We had concertina security grates put on all our doors years ago – relatively low profile and they match the colour of the surrounding facade so they’re hardly noticeable. I believe there are some available that you can take in/out so you can just put them in a storeroom during the day.
If anyone has trouble with cigarettes being stolen during break-ins it might be worth getting a battery powered GPS tracker. It would be relatively easy to hide one in a dummy cigarette carton and very quick to locate the unassuming thieves. Just charge it during the day and pop it in the fake cigarette carton before you shut up shop.
Something like these products – http://www.ozspy.com.au/gps-tracking
June, Jenny, Mark, Jessie and Jarryd thank you all for your comments. Ranting is healthy reading your thoughts cathartic. It really is important that as a community we communicate with those that understand what we go through our business can be very isolating. It can also be a hell of a lot of fun too and rewarding. I am going to have a great day today I truly hope you all do to.
Great stuff Michelle!
Well done Michelle, hang tough, you will get through it. Hope they catch these scumbags and get a judge who is tough on those sorts of crimes.
Al