1: CASH IS KING. Cash is today — always has been — and always will be King. Every company needs clear, well defined store cash flow standards and goals. But, the National Supermarket Research Group reports that 93% of surveyed companies do not. Yes, they have profit goals, EBITDA goals, and of course sales and labor goals. But, only 24% of companies have clear shrink control goals and only 7% have or teach cash flow goals and best practices as a vital, key performance business metric. Shame !

2: THINK SHRINK. Make time — in the next three weeks — to have Think Shrink meetings in every one of your stores, with every employee. Then encourage all-out shrink prevention awareness and start employing proven best practices to prevent and control shrink in every department. Remember; teach all managers to think “Sales Driven”…and remain “Control-Focused” every day.

3: COHESION…may be just a fancy word for teamwork — but more importantly, cohesion really means the glue that binds all of your employees and the commonality of focus-driven action. This doesn’t take place only in your stores. It starts with the President and CEO and is embodied in every supervisor’s every-day actions. Real “prevention” is the store level manifestation of your strategic company plan and culture.

4: EXECUTIVE PRESENCE. I love this part… mostly because less than 4% of companies have any kind of plan to achieve conscious, thoughtful and deliberate executive presence. Sure, execs visit stores, but what do they accomplish? Mostly, they blow-in, blow-up, and blow-out… Not only is this not good, it’s counter-productive. But, for those that understand productive presence, the impact is nothing short of amazing. Want to know more about this ? Call me at (602)448-8500 or email me. Give me just 10 minutes of your time and I’ll explain.

5: SCORE-CARDING. Where are you now [today] and where do you want to be in 60 days? Although this is often referred to as setting goals or bonus objectives, there’s actually much more to it. Believe me…you will not get there without a bold, fresh action-plan…

but shrink control and loss prevention research has proven that during any given year, 15% of retail executives will do very little to drive down their profit losses. And although an average of 73% will make some incremental adjustments, demand more and actually expect some dramatic improvement in their shrink numbers, ONLY 12% of these executives will actually make the kinds of transformative change that could improve their store profits by a significant 10-18%. It is this 12% segment of retail executives whose businesses will flourish.

How will you get set and ready…? At the Larry@RetailControl.com to find out how you can make 2010 a Different (and more profitable) Kind of Year !