Two Minute Tweaks w/ Lisa Uhrik

Tweak #069: Avoiding the Auction at the POS

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.

Tweak #068: Noticing Things

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 tune up our noticing skills to connect people with their books this season.

Tweak #067: A Surprisingly Fundamental Holiday Hint

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. 

Tweak #066: Untethered

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 small thing that could have a big impact. 

Tweak #065: What I’ve Learned from the Saddest Displays

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.

Tweak #64: Using Personas in Display

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. 

Tweak #063: Keeping it Connected

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? 

Tweak #062: First, Figure Out the Size of the Pie

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?

Tweak #061: Bookselling is a Profession

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!

Tweak #060: Hiring in a Sansdemic

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.

Tweak #59: The Four Questions for Employees Today

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 contributions, their development, and their ability to move forward and stay connected with our book culture work in some way. 

Tweak #58: Do you have your 3 things?

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. 

Tweak #57: Wheee — The Ladder Ride

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.

Tweak #56: Creating Child Caves

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.

Tweak #55: What They Brought

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.