Two Minute Tweaks w/ Lisa Uhrik

In this season when stores are packed with people and stacked to the rafters with books and gifts, Lisa talks about creating stable displays -- and reveals her own mishaps with displays. Click below to listen to this timely tweak.

Re-telling a Ken Blanchard classic about Butter Cups, Lisa reminds us in this busy season that it's easy to miss the mark with our focus.

Today we're thinking about how our little actions at the point of sale mean so much -- for better and worse. Instead of alerting the store to the total someone just spent on books, we're finding some more discrete ways to thank them for shopping with us.

Noticing Things: A Simple and Powerful First Step in Connecting People with Books It costs nothing and yields immediate results: being really good at noticing things is your most profound superpower that you can use in the next hour. Today we're taking 2 minutes to remind ourselves that our most powerful tool is in our possession right now.  Let's take a note from our skilled dogs and cats and tun...

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, Lisa has been thinking about core ways we can maximize holiday connections and sales. Her thoughts and inquiries with others resulted in a couple of "holiday hints" that are powerful fundamentals. 

Untethered: Freeing Ourselves for Conversation Some personal reflection brings Lisa to the realization that she's feeling tethered to the cash wrap and forgetting -- sometimes -- to linger more in the floor. Encouraging all of us to lean into our relational strengths and untether ourselves from the magnetic cash wrap, where we can perhaps grow a wee bit too comfortable? Food for thought and a smal...

In preparation for a workshop at MPIBA this week, I invited folks to send me a picture of their most tired, frustratingly stagnant or just uninspiring display in hopes of working together to make it better. Here are two things that we saw consistently ... click to listen.

We're bending a marketing term to help us connect with our customers and friends in our bookshops. In marketing, personas are fictional characters you create based on research, representing your customers. Here, we're using your passions to build a persona around yourself or your booksellers to connect with customers and come at things from a different angle. 

Whether you're a solo bookseller or part of a larger staff, keeping the various parts of our bookselling world connected is a challenge. It's like we have one head space for social media and another for events, and still another for curation and display sometimes. When it comes together it feels nice -- we all have experienced that -- so how do we make that happen every day? 

In this episode, we're exploring a single thought about reverse-engineering your payroll to find your store income objectives... figuring out what you need and then collectively working to achieve that so that everyone can get paid equitably. It's a sort of mind flip that has worked for some -- could it make a difference for you?

What we do matters. Let's talk about how and why. In today's tweak, we're pondering the power in talking about the profession of bookselling with staff and customers. We're framing what we do as a social science/art/business competency set and lingering on nuggets of wisdom from experts. Click to listen now!

In this episode we're following up on the art of hiring when flexibility, fun and feeling good is today's currency. Bookshops have a special advantage -- click to listen now as we talk about leveraging that advantage in ways that work for everyone and move the mission forward.

We're thinking about staff and volunteers and about the ways that bookstores can be models of a new adult-adult working relationship (shifting from the parent-child expectations of employer/employee in the past). There are four great questions to ask when someone leaves... and it is a good idea to put those questions on the table on the first day as well, setting the expectation for their contribu...

Taking a cue from author Donald Miller, Lisa and Plenty Bookshop store manager Ashley identified three critical actions for booksellers every day... a way of aligning the action and really building cohesive progress. Hear how it's working and what three they chose, while thinking about your own in this 2 minute moment. 

Bookstores are happy spaces. And it's so wonderful when people let their happy really shine. In the face of so much that is tough about life right now, those things that make us giggle are more important than ever.

We all love spaces that make us feel big -- an important part of creating welcome in our bookshops. With a fresh story that happened yesterday, Lisa revisits the pattern language known as "Child Caves."  It's a small idea (wink) with big potential for all of us. Click to listen now.

They brought things. Our customers brought treasures for the store. If you've experienced that, isn't it gorgeous? It doesn't happen anywhere else that I know of in the world of retail which suggests that our world of bookshopping is a rare space -- one that others feel inspired to add to. Let's explore that a little in today's Two Minute Tweak. Click to listen now.

In this episode, we're exploring the power of child caves -- and thinking about the adult equivalent too. Do you have spaces that make people feel big? Ensconced?

Sustain: The Final Five S Strategy This little idea can easily save you a month (or more) every year and I say that with confidence. I've seen it happen a lot.  It's even happened to me, and that's saying something. We're looking at the last of the Five S strategies -- with a review of the first four in case you missed it -- with the hope of giving you a clearer, more efficient space to do your th...

This segment is the follow up to the 5 step organization method (called Five S) started two weeks ago called Sort and Set in Order.  (What can I say -- we teach what we need.)  Today, we're talking about the 3rd and 4th S's with a review of the first two just to keep us all in the loop: standardize and shine.     While some will drum their fingers in delight, others may feel this is less than the...

We need easy strategies that improve the browse experience. This short podcast from Lisa Uhrik offers a small challenge you can use to see the shadows and bring things to light -- literally and figuratively. It's a little bit of focus that can yield immediate and profound results. Click to listen now.  

We all work around things that cost us time and are nagging annoyances in our cash wraps, offices and storage areas. Using Sort & Set In Order -- the first 2 steps of the Five S strategy -- can help us make quick improvements so that we can redeem hours of time each day for the things that matter most -- connecting people and books. We teach what we need and I really need this right now -- hoping...

Words matter and the word we're thinking about today is: sidelines. Rethinking that word leads to a fresh perspective on all the "other-than-book" things we carry in our stores and, perhaps, how to make it all work a little bit better. 

Inspired by Jeff Deutsch's book In Praise of Good Bookstores, Lisa is chewing on an old idea with new depth. Browsing is an art, an experience and one of a bookstore's best offerings. 

Taking a look at a challenge with a fresh perspective can turn that obstacle into an opportunity. Lisa shares a small idea that's had a powerful personal impact in the face of on-going flooding situations, with hope that it provides some helpful inspiration for you.