by Kas Kunz
To keep moving forward you need places you can tap into that keep giving you fresh, new perspectives, and ideas — even solid reminders of what you already know and its importance. One place I've found is on Tom Peters blog, the well known business consultant, who made an impact over 25 years ago with his book In Search of Excellence.
The place on his blog is called Tom's Cool Friends, which are interviews of authors on a wide gamut of topics. It's one of those resources whose value is not apparent at first. It's easy to get locked into a market, mindset, process, knowledge base, etc, it's much harder to change, shift, improve, and when it's best, hold steady. Tom Peters is relentless in pursuing new knowledge and information. These interviews are great snippets into this pursuit and if it's a trigger for you — you can get the book to explore it further.
His current Cool Friend interview is with George Whalin, who in the 1960s opened and managed the first Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. After a number of years in retail he founded Retail Management Consultants. He has a new book Retail Superstores: Inside the 25 Best Independent Retail Stores in America.
The good news is George Whalin has a blog, Retailer Blog. One post this month I thought of particular value, When Smart Retailers Do Dumb Things!, he writes about the mistakes he's observed smart retailers make repeatedly.
- Expanding into markets far from their home base
- Opening in markets with significant cultural differences from one they've operated in for years
