Welcome to January, also known as Bowl Season.

There was a time, not so long ago, that we only had to remember four seasons (Frankie Valli notwithstanding).

I interviewed BrandSource dealer and AVB board member Sam McVay a short while back, and one thing in particular really stuck in my head. 

I generally offer recommendations on how to generate more sales (aka income). Here’s some ways you can keep more dollars on those sales (aka earnings).

Disclaimer:  While I personally can’t predict the future, the Magic 8-Ball never lies. 

It happens every year; people get a couple of glasses of champagne in them and start making all kinds of resolutions they will never keep.

With just a handful of days left in the wild carnival ride called 2021, it’s time for me to unveil my predictions for 2022.

One sunny summer day about ten years ago I decided to go new car shopping.

If you ask me, customer loyalty is unfortunately becoming a thing of the past, and for a variety of reasons.  In fact, the Myth of Customer Loyalty may quite possibly be the single biggest lie in the world of retail sales.

You may have heard it said in high school, college or a corporate meeting between the hoi polloi and muckety-mucks.

A few years back I visited Best Buy headquarters to interview their CEO and his top lieutenants.

The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent …

Starting around the day after Halloween and lasting until after the Rose Bowl, you can hear the seemingly endless droning of holiday music. The performers range from The Ray Conniff Singers to 50 Cent, all sharing their seasonal sentiments on radio stations, retail store PA systems, and of course, elevators.

It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the big-box store in your market area or regional powerhouse right down the street from you.  If you want to survive and thrive in today’s marketplace, you need to truly understand your competition. You need to know what they do well, as well as what they don’t. 

You’ve finished counting the dough you made over Black Friday weekend and have torn off the next-to-last page of the Classic Cars or Cute Kittens calendar hanging in your office.

Most people think of a brand as a two-dimensional logo, which is made up of a font, color palette, and sometimes a graphic.

You can tell the end of the year is near by the leftover Halloween lollipops and the Christmas music playing in the Bed Bath & Beyond My Budget.

It’s a simple question when you get right down to it.

There’s been an awful lot of talk in the news and social media lately about pay rates.