What We Focus on Expands (After the Show – Lessons from Paul Erickson)

Welcome to Rooted in Retail After the Show

Crystal Vilkaitis: Hello, and welcome to after the show, I’m your host, Crystal Vilkaitis.

This week’s guest was Paul Erickson from Management One

Crystal Vilkaitis: And this week’s guest was Paul Erickson with management one and holy guacamole. He packed a lot into this one episode. So if you have not listened to it yet, you’re going to want to make a point to do. So you may even listen to it a second time.

That’s how I was feeling as I was listening through it again. There’s so much. Paul is such a great storyteller. He shares a lot of stories in this episode and a lot of great tips to help you be a more successful retailer. But my goal of this week’s episode was to really help ease your mind when it comes to any worries you may have around the economy, that it’s an election year and that the cost of goods have increased.

And Paul was a perfect person to have this conversation with because he has so much experience in the retail industry. To know what happens to see the trends and know what to focus on.

My biggest takeaway from this episode is “What we focus on expands” – what do I mean by that?

Crystal Vilkaitis: My biggest takeaway from this episode this week is what we focus on expands.

And so if we are focusing on the economy, And on that, it’s an election year, and there’s so much noise around that, and there’s a lot of noise around the economy, and prices have gone up on some things.

They’ve also gone down on some things, but, if we’re focusing our energy, there, that is what’s going to expand. We all know this. And it’s easy to forget. It’s easy to forget when we are around people that maybe their energy is focused on the negative sides of what’s happening in our world. It’s easy to forget when we are scrolling on social media and you see a lot of posts that maybe are more focusing on the negative sides of things.

And this could be just negative sides on any aspect, right? Doesn’t have to necessarily be attached to the economy and election year and cost of goods rising. It’s all about where we’re really putting our attention. And so I want to focus on that in this quick after the show episode.

Now, before I go further on that, a reminder that if you’re watching this in the Facebook group, say hello. Chat in. If you’re watching live, if you’re watching the replay, if you haven’t joined the Facebook group yet, be sure to do that. That’s where all the conversations are happening. Friendships are happening. I’m in there. Share a picture of your store. I want to meet you. I want to see you and participate in those conversations.

Now, so getting back to this episode when we are focusing our attention on things and we see that amplification, I think we want to focus on the positive, on the good things. And I’m not saying that we’re going to walk around and be delusional and just live in our own little happy bubble.

I will honestly say that part of me says, what’s wrong with that? Why can’t we live in our own happy little bubble? And I think that can be hard for some people, and I think some people might listen to this and be like, Oh man, that’s very naive thinking, or it’s just not possible. I just feel like we can create our thoughts, create feelings. And when we focus wherever we are focusing, that’s going to amplify.

I choose to focus on the things that are good so I can amplify the things that I can control. What happens when we put our focus on the things we can control?

Crystal Vilkaitis: So I choose to focus on more of those good things and the opportunities and the things that I can control, which we talked about in this episode.

I can’t control all those things that I’ve been listing. In what Paul and I talk about you and I, we can’t really control those things.

I think it’s important to have our ear to the ground, to understand what’s happening, to learn, you know, have your finger on the pulse just to be in the know. But I don’t think that it needs to take a ton of our effort in our energy and consume us. Because what if you took that energy and that focus and put it on your customers instead, or put it on your merchandise or put it on your operations or put it on your team or put it on your community?

What does that look like for your store? If you focused that energy there and really showed up and then if where we put our energy, it amplifies. So if we’re putting our energy on our customers, Then let’s amplify the customers. And as I was preparing for this after the show, it made me think of something that happened to me many years ago in crystal media.

What happened in my business when I shifted my focus to things I could control?

Crystal Vilkaitis: There was one summer that I was just really struggling and we get in these ruts as entrepreneurs and it’s hard running the business. And I was just feeling stuck and in a rut and just more negative than I was excited and positive and happy and optimistic and and that’s not me, I don’t like when I am down like that, you know, it happens to us all but it was feeling like it was going on for too long I needed to change something and so I knew that when we give, you get, you feel better.

And I was like, oh, I need to give right now. Like I think that’s something that’s gonna really help me get out of this funk that I’m in and help me feel better. And so I got outta my bed, I went into my office and I opened up our insider membership Facebook group. And I said, for the first 10 people that comment on this post, I’m gonna give you a free social media review.

Boom posted and then I just walked away from it and I opened up a few hours later and I had over 10 people who were like me me me me, you know, like everybody wanted this review I think there was like 23 comments, 23/26 something like that, comments and I’m like, “Oh my gosh people are really wanting this review. This is amazing.”

I love how people are saying yes to this. So I was like, okay surprise everybody who comments on this you’re gonna get a review for free. So then I started doing these reviews and it got me out of that funk. I was giving back. I was looking at our retailers social media. I was finding opportunities for them.

I’m sending these videos to them. They’re thanking me like overly like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Thank you so much. This is so helpful. And that really was filling my cup back up. Just that giving, I changed that focus and that energy onto giving. It amplified. We ended up having, that was in May. I don’t remember the year.

I think it was 2016, maybe around then. And historically during that time, our highest sales that we would see a crystal media is when we were on the road speaking when I was speaking and we were on the road in May yet we had our highest month because I did these reviews because guess what happened as I’m seeing opportunities in these reviews, I’m like, Oh, if you’re not in, or will they all were already insiders if you’re not on get listed or if you’re not doing ads or we have this course.

That can help take you further. If you need to go further selling is service, right? So I was able to find some opportunities that they could fix on their own. I found some opportunities that we could help if they had the budget for that, if they wanted the help and it just led to sales. And it was like, wow, I really focused on giving that build my cup way back up.

I felt so much better and more in my flow and in the zone. And then we also sold well. So it was like this win, win, because it helped the retailer. They got free advice. It pointed them to products that we can help grow their business even more. I felt a lot better instead of sulking in my bed.

It was giving, I was giving to our amazing members.

So I just want the big takeaway for this week’s episode to be focus on. The positive things, the things that you want to bring more of into your store and into your business. What do you want to expand? What do you want to amplify? Where’s the store going? What visions do you have? And focus your energy on those things.

Try this journal prompt for focus

Crystal Vilkaitis: The final thing I’ll say here, a journal entry that I actually did this morning was writing your vision, your like dream life and then after and write it as if it’s like already happened. You’re in it. You’re in the dream life. And then write the steps you had to take to get to the dream life.

Thats something thats a way better use of your time and energy and focus to do a journal prompt like that versus getting really sucked into the, all the media and the news and everything around the economy and the election year and cause the goods and all the things that are just so daunting. Again, you can have your finger on the pulse.

You don’t want to be like blind and deaf here. We want to have an idea of what’s going on in the world, but let’s put majority of our time into the things that will grow us, expand us. That feels good. That puts us in a good place. So we can help give back. To whoever that is, our families, our communities, our customers.

And I think that journal prompt, that was something that was super fun for me to do and gave me these steps and action steps. And now I can go work on these steps and that’s a really good use of my energy and my time. So I encourage you to do the same thing.

Be aware of where you’re focusing your energy because it will expand. It will amplify. And I want you, I really do feel like it’s going to get louder as we get closer to the election. It’s going to get more noise, it’s going to get intense, it’s going to be heated. We’re going to see a lot of stuff on social media. Unfortunately with AI, there’s the ability to have a lot of fake stuff.

And even without AI, people are just posting fake stuff and not researching anything. You guys, there’s so much noise. Let’s just focus on the stuff that we can control. Let’s just focus on the things, fill us up that amplify that we can monitor and manage and and live a little bit in a happy bubble.

I don’t, I honestly don’t see anything wrong with that. So I encourage you to do that.

Join us for Paul’s webinar “The Psychology of Price”

Crystal Vilkaitis: Paul mentioned a webinar on this call and we are doing it party people. So if you want to register, this is a free webinar. You can go to crystalmediaco.com/POP Okay. P O P. The webinar name is the psychology of price with Paul Erickson. It is happening on Tuesday, May 14th at 12 PM, Eastern nine AM Pacific standard time. So come join us on Tuesday, the 14th. You can join us live. If you can’t. Do that time. That’s okay.

We’re going to record it. But really try to make time to show up live. Cause you can ask them questions to Paul too. He’s super engaging, has a lot of great experience. If you enjoyed his episode this week, you’re going to love his webinar. So join us. It’s just going to make you a better retailer and something I want to share.

I loved how Paul answered the final question of what’s the future of independent retail look like on this week’s episode, because His answer will teach you how to be a successful retailer. Listen all the way through. Don’t skip to that question and see how he answered it. Listen to this whole episode.

Cause it’s packed. It’s like a masterclass. And be sure that you’re really listening to how he answers that question, cause it’s really good. It’s simple and it’s powerful. And I think for some, it could change. It could change your business. It could change you. It could change your life. It’s a really empowered. It’s a very important thing that he said. So enjoy this week’s episode.

Coming up Next Week

Crystal Vilkaitis: Next week, we’ve got Lori Foster, the owner of the dressing room. She is an amazing retailer doing incredible things. You’re going to be very impressed with Lori. She has so Such great advice in this episode. I loved my conversation with her and I’ve known her for over a decade.

So it’s really fun to connect and you’re going to get a lot of encouragement, words of wisdom and inspiration from Lori. So be sure to tune in. I’ll see you on that episode. And remember that I am rooting for your success. Have a great week ahead. Bye.