Joshes and Joshette’s, today is Monday which means Business Monday, yay!!! Do you know what every business needs, a manager. Today I will go over what I learned from being a member of management. Let’s dive into this post.

I have over six years of retail management experience (at the time of writing this post) and I’m still learning new things every day. Managers need to ensure everything runs smoothly at all levels. This means they have to deal with workers, escalations, operations, and a crapload of reports. But I learned a manager needs a good team, doesn’t have to be the best team but a good team. You have to be able to motivate them and ensure that they have proper training. If your team is not producing then, in turn, you aren’t producing. As a manager, I get along with my workers but I know when to draw the line. Your workers can love you but they also need to respect your position. But you must also respect your workers especially when you are talking to them because it is what you say and how you say it. When I am discussing a problem with them I use the technique build, break, build. I tell them a good thing they are doing, then I bring up the problem and then I reiterate the good job they are doing by bringing up another positive thing. This way they don’t feel attacked and they also see that you are taking notice of the good things.

As a manager in retail, I had to learn how to deal with escalations. These can be a headache but you must put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Empathize with the customer and then do your best to please them. Don’t fake it, they can easily tell when you are not trying to help them. If you put in some work even if you are unsuccessful the customer may understand and might be grateful. Just remember you can not please everyone but as long as you did your best no one can say anything. Escalations take time out of your busy schedule and that’s why as a manager you need to learn how to manage your time and multi-task. These two skills are key because you need to get all of your tasks done if not the business cannot operate. You have to know how to rank task based on importance and know the time it takes to perform each task. Schedule your day based on these tasks and get the important ones done first. You also need to be able to multitask because anything can happen because managers have to be able to put out fires (metaphorical fires unless you are a firefighter).

These are just some of the things I learned from being a manager in retail. I’m not talking about a key holder or supervisor, I was an Assistant Store Manager and a Store Manager. I have no clue about being an Office Manager or Project Manager, sorry. Hope you learned something from this week’s Business Monday post.

Remember to be successful it's your right, duty, and responsibility.