Specialty retail is a performance, and there’s a giant difference between a ho-hum experience and one that earns rave reviews from the harshest critic.
Your people wear metaphorical “makeup” so folks can see them from the back row. They exaggerate their movements and animate gestures to make a solid impact on the entire audience. Hopefully they don’t overdo it.
Maybe your show’s been running for years. Decades, possibly. Which brings to mind the big question: How are you evolving it to ensure the audience leaves wanting more?
Are you tweaking the props or scenery? Altering the lighting? Upgrading the talent? Are you putting a new spin on the big, dramatic monologue? Or maybe even using the crowd for some sort of inclusive moment?
How the heck are you tweaking the experience to make it unforgettable to folks who’ve seen it a dozen times?
We can learn a lot about retail from the entertainment industry—a world where one bad performance can literally ruin a multi-million dollar production. Or worse, destroy folks’ careers.
The late actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, offers sage advice to aspiring actors. It is also applicable to the retail world (and frankly, to life in general). He said all actors need to act whenever and wherever they get the chance. Even if they are unprepared, or sure it’ll flop, they should do it anyhow. And here’s the kicker—when given a chance, they should act their hearts out.
Act as well as you possibly can and there’s no way people will forget it, Hoffman said.
This is just like retail, isn’t it? And the way I see it, it boils down to one main thing—a choice. Sure, it’s also about innate talent and practice and time and everything else that helps an actor (or a store) kick ass. But none of this can happen without first making an intentional decision to go all-in. It’s a daily, if not hourly decision to always be on-point.
We must never do anything vaguely. Anything done in general is the enemy to art.
Hoffman said, “If I show up to work one day and the work’s not good, I’m just another guy out there not acting well.”
Don’t be that store. Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.
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Tom Griffen is a highly sought after trainer and presenter whose message transcends industries. He’ll help you raise the bar while you reinvent your business.
Tom Griffen 