“We’ve created a new policy”

Is the first thing you think of, when people won’t do what you want them to do, to make a new rule they must obey in order to patronize your business? If so you have a Napoleon complex. You know: Submit

Read Full Post »

Here’s a birthday present for you.

The greatest gift one can receive, I think, is to feel that one has made a difference. That’s the birthday present I give myself today, and the one I wish for you every day. At the NARTS 2010 C0nference a few weeks ago, I was honored to be asked to present a workshop on success. [...]

Read Full Post »

Are you #1?

Lots of consignment, buy-outright, thrift shops opening up. TGtbT.com, my web site, has sold more operations manuals this year than in any other year. NARTS Conference is going for a new record number of attendees, after setting a record last year. The shop I volunteer at is having its highest year in over four decades…and [...]

Read Full Post »

Mudflap Moments

Many years ago, when making the rent on my consignment shop was a major focus of the first few days of every month, I owned a Volvo. I loved that Volvo. I miss it. I still have the Hoosier cabinet that fit into it with millimeters to spare that I won at auction and drove [...]

Read Full Post »

When is FREE more than you can afford?

Do you suspect that you are head-over-heels in love with “free”? Now, mind you, free is my favorite price. But when is free truly free? After all there’s no such thing as a free lunch is an old chestnut because it is true. Here’s the symptoms that you are unwisely enamored of “free”: You spend

Read Full Post »

Where did that hour go?

So I wake up this morning and remember that I lost an hour last night. Then DuH spends (I swear) 35 minutes setting the clocks forward. And that doesn’t count the PolkaDot PT’s clock or the one in his ancient pickup

Read Full Post »

Others skate to the puck…

Okay, a bow to the Olympics. When asked what his secret of success was, hockey great Wayne Gretzky said “Others skate to where the puck is. I skate to where it will be.” Can you

Read Full Post »

Wacky Wednesday: Best Piece of Advice you ever got?

It’s Wacky Wednesday once again. A free giveaway for consignment, resale, and thrift shop owners/ managers. Here’s a topic that proves great minds think alike: both Tiani, a new shopkeeper, and I came up with the idea of: What’s the best

Read Full Post »

Things you can learn from First Ladies

Maybe there’s a harder job than consignment shopkeeper or resaler. (Though personally, I doubt it.) If so, these ladies might have had it. The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances. — Martha Washington More…

Read Full Post »

You aren’t a ditto business, are you?

There are original businesses and there are ditto businesses. Especially in retail. And even more especially in resale, where

Read Full Post »

Spelling is important too.

Just a little further note on yesterday’s entry about how important wording is in the resale and consignment word: Spelling is vital, too. As per the following example. I SWEAR to you that I DID NOT make this up. Here’s a blog entry I just happened to run across two years ago. I saved it [...]

Read Full Post »

What are you proudest of having done in ’09?

Forget the New Year’s Resolutions for a moment. Don’t beat yourself up with stuff you know you NEED to do. Instead, indulge yourself today and think about how great you are and how far you’ve already come. Go ahead, think about what

Read Full Post »

Thought for the Day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it… Serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read Full Post »