By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate” – from the movie, Cool Hand Luke  Fire. Aim. Ready.  If this is your communications plan…..you may want to read on. Amazingly, many companies do not think about communications—both internally and externally—until it is a…

By: John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. “The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”  – author unknown If you get in a car in Chicago with the intent of driving to Los Angeles,…

By: John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. When a multi-unit organization begins to grow, one common step in this process is the creation of advertising and purchasing co-ops that enable stores to pool their financial and strategic resources. Generally, co-ops are determined using Designated Market Areas (DMA) of which there are…

By: John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. If you feed them, they will come…. One of the most successful local store marketing (LSM) tactics to build into your daily operations is a sampling strategy for your products.  If your retail establishment is foodservice, your customers will want to taste the product.…

By: John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. Sports sponsorships are terrific ways to build your brand through local store marketing, because they are so flexible in nature.  Creating and fostering a relationship with a local team, while customizing your sponsorship to suit your needs, can catapult your brand further than simply…

By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This adage held true in your first job search and still holds true today in business.  Building and fostering long-term business relationships not only enable you to be connected to the key decision makers in…

By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. When it comes to the long-term success of a business, one of the key drivers is prudent capital re-investment.  Unlike operational expenses that are used to run the daily business or working capital to purchase inventory, money invested in the business that yields incremental…

By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. One of the most-asked questions I hear from store owners is “What sales volume does my store need in order to make money?”  While it would be convenient to rattle off a sales figure off the top of my head, it undoubtedly is a…

By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. Over the course of the last eight years, I have delivered a speech called “Local Store Marketing for Retailers” at least 50 times. This speech is designed to give retailers – both single store and multi-unit operators–a number of marketing ideas that they should…

By John Matthews, founder and president of Gray Cat Enterprises Inc. With any size retailer, getting customer trial at your store is the easy part.  If the store owner throws out a compelling offer – perhaps a free deal – customers will come to your store to “check you out.”  This is fairly straight forward,…