Out thinking the big box

Adam Nappi, left, owner of Bow Street Market, and Paul Bowie, who fills one of a the new store leadership positions developed as part of the market's expanded customer service initiative. Photo by Katherine Arno, Director of Training and Communications for the Maine Small Business Development Centers, in its Portland center at the University of Southern Maine.

In "Thinking outside the box," Katherine Arno writes about how a small city-based grocery store is responding to the opening of a Wal-mart. From the article:

"Fear of the unknown" is what small business owner Adam Nappi says was his biggest fear when he first learned that a box store grocer was locating in Freeport, encroaching on his longtime territory. Nappi, owner of the 3,000 square foot Bow Street Market in Freeport, immediately undertook a formal market assessment and got his second piece of alarming news: he faced a potential 40% loss in business when the box store grocer opened its new 70,000 square foot Freeport store.

The news that Nappi got just over a year ago is the same news being heard almost weekly by dozens of Maine small businesses who are facing the arrival of a big box store in their communities. Many of them are asking "What should I do - close my business, re-locate it, or hunker down and see what happens?" "None of the above," is what Maine Small Business Development Centers' State Director John Massaua, would answer. Instead, Massaua says, small business owners must first check their attitude.

"Accept the fact that there will be a change in your business," says Massaua, and "then affirm that you have the ability and desire to make that change." Without the right attitude, he says, business owners will "defeat themselves; it's up to them to figure out how to make it a positive change rather than an adverse change."

Adam Nappi did just that. In the 14 months since the big box competitor opened in Freeport, Bow Street market actually has grown its business. Total sales are up. To begin his change-making, Nappi - with the help of a grocery industry consultant - did a second formal study of what customers valued most and what they valued least about Bow Street Market. Massaua says starting with your customers, "especially your best customers," is just where small business owners should begin.

"Using that market research," he says, "you can build a plan on how to re-enforce those reasons that customers are coming to you." Massaua says market research should also include identifying the weaknesses, "the Achilles' heel", of the new box store competition. "Inevitably, it will be service," he says.

Service is exactly what Nappi found his customers valued most. "I started to learn that the true assets of Bow Street Market are our people," he said, "it's all about people." To strengthen that asset, Bow Street Market overhauled its job descriptions, reorganized staff, created new leadership positions, undertook professional development training that continues today, scheduled each shift with leadership trained in customer service skills, and focused on hiring candidates with people skills versus experience in specific functions.

"If you can develop people to be leaders in customer service work, you are setting yourself up for some quantum leaps," says Nappi, "We are growing and we expect to continue to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace as we move from our core group, expanding the customer service training to our other staff."
The market research, he said, also "confirmed what we already knew - we are not a grocery store where people do a once a week shop; we're a market that people visit daily." "People aren't coming here for a selection of 40 different types of paper towels," he said, "so we reduced the varieties of paper towels and added the kinds of things that daily shoppers wanted - the rotisserie chicken, home-made deli items and the bottle of wine."

A third market research piece, said Nappi, was identifying what value Bow Street Market offered to the community of Freeport. In the process, Nappi says he started to more fully appreciate how important it was for him and Bow Street Market's 24 employees to be active in the community.

"There has been a lot of awareness-building and moving ourselves to where we need to be," says Nappi of the year of preparation and year of co-existence with Freeport's first box store grocer, "expanding our sincere and genuine involvement in our community" has been part of that process.

Massaua, who once served as a successful turn around manager for a niche-market New York specialty retail chain facing big box competition the likes of Lowe's and Home Depot, says changes like those Bow Street Market are making should be part of a "whole new business plan and a whole new strategic plan" for a small business. Nappi has done just that and continues to use a grocery industry consultant to help him track, revise, and add to his market research, staff development, and annual goals. "It's on-going and there appears to be no end in sight," he says, "It's all about people and as our customers change, we have to lead or keep pace with that change."

Nappi offers a final important observation. "With or without new competition, this kind of planning will make your strength greater and profitability better, which puts you the best position for competition any day of the year!" Massaua, speaking from his Maine SBDC office at the University of Southern Maine, agrees. "The big box forces you to think outside the box and sometimes inside it," he says. "But in, out, and around the box thinking is something that small businesses should be doing anyway - everyday."

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It's all about focus, learning, growing, and improving. You can never rest on your laurels, because one or more of your competitors is working to improve...