What business measurements do you use? Do you keep records or do you rely on past experience?

I would say that customer satisfaction and sales targets are the most important measurements, split fifty-fifty. It's tough to measure customer satisfaction. It is very subjective, but I think it can be done by observing repeat customers and how your business grows. We've also surveyed our customers, although it's been some time since we last did. I recommend that to anyone. You can get some interesting feedback: you'd be surprised what people do and don't like. As for sales targets, we set them using the history of how we've done in the past, trying to decide where we want to be in the future, and deciding what we need to do to attain to those goals.

What we do first is compare month-by-month: I look at July for last year and see how we did this July. Then I can know how I'm doing compared to last year. We write everything in a ledger. It may sound silly, but it's the best way for us: I can look back and even tell which days were best. For example, last year we did a booming business on the July 4th weekend, and this year was kind of slow. To keep track of inventory, we track it visually and by talking to each other. We have little power sessions on what's selling and what's not. I couldn't tell you what my best sellers are, though. Except for Treska jewelry: I sell about $12,000 wholesale a year in only 875 square feet, and $20,000 of Two's Company. It just flies out of here. We don't even worry about jewelry, we just keep reordering.

One of the things that we do is go to our local Chamber of Commerce mixers. We have to judge our business not only by the gift industry but also by how other local businesses say they're doing. A lot of local businesses have had "doom and gloom" declining business, and we ask ourselves, "What are they doing wrong and how can we avoid it?" As for comparison with the rest of the industry, that's part of why I go to so many gift shows. Just seeing how many vendors show up for the show is a good indicator. Plus I've got friendships with some of my vendors so I'll just ask them how their show is going. In the shop we do pay attention to how things are moving, and drop something if it's not popular. In fact, we have 24 kinds of soap and the one we just dropped is the one I use!

I keep a daily manual record. Michael Bohannon, my manager, computerizes it and gives me a monthly report, and my accountant gives me a print-out once a year and lets me know if I'm up or down. I'm more of a creative thinker, and prefer to delegate the "numbers" part of the business to them. It is common sense for me. I compare one year to the next. I know what comes in and what has to go out. If I had to break out every single item it would send me over the edge looking up all the numbers. Inventory turns, and I makeit turn. I do keep track of my best and fastest sellers. It always seems to work out. Merchandise moves, we're advertising, and people keep coming in.