RM Online - Buying groups, employee training and storage

Have you joined yet?

It's not too late to join the rest of us. Enlist now - your future livelihood demands it. Buying equipment, supplies and services at the optimum price is very important for the long-term survival of your business.

Whether you join a group that has been established by an association like A.R.A., a co-op like TruServ, or a consolidator like RentX, it is vital that you move soon to prevent competitors from pricing you out of the marketplace. Not many years ago, independent hardware stores, appliance dealers and other retailers found it necessary to join buying groups. This is not the end of the story - we can't think that if we join a buying group we can sit back and all our business problems will disappear. The next wave of marketing and merchandising is on its way with the "big-boxes" and "category-killers" just around the corner. Therefore, you must have your pricing under control through proper purchasing so you can plan your own marketing strategies to compete in an ever-shrinking marketplace.

Someone once told me not to try to do it all, but empower others to do things that need to be done or out-source some functions necessary to running a business. In the case of a buying group, there are economies of scale because of the number of potential buyers in a group, which will help you get a better price. Also there is the prospect of expertise in the groups' buyers or negotiators to manage better purchasing. How much this will cost will vary, but can you afford the time and energy not to join? Sharpen your pencil, do your figuring, and look long term to the future implications of saving when purchasing your equipment, supplies and services.

Accelerate employee training

The equipment rental business has its hands full when it embarks on a training program for new or experienced employees. (I think you would agree that is an understatement.) Recently, I uncovered some interesting ideas that make training and learning quicker and result in better retention. Some ideas are new and some are common sense - both can have dramatic results.

The techniques are based on studies of the last 20 years or so, and are reliable because they have been repeated in unrelated situations. These findings also have been acknowledged with scientific and educational awards.

We all would like to have every employee be able to learn job functions quickly. Right! Do you know that when we attempt to train or educate employees, they are probably only using about half of their brains. (I am not talking about the right side of the brain vs. the left side of the brain.) It is a known fact that when oral instructions are provided, only about half of the brain is ready and working. It would be nice if we could have more of our employees' brains ready to receive and retain the information. Here is what we can do.

· Get the employee in a relaxed state - which is generally not the case in a business environment. Music helps with relaxation and also activates more of the brain. Make the training fun (games, for example) and non-threatening, for more retention.

Make the training interactive with other trainees or employees to help with retention. Have the training done in a non-judgmental learning situation - stress needs to be minimized during training time.

· Provide the basic three ways we all learned when growing up - each of us prefers one of these methods:

a. Auditory - hearing the spoken word, which is the way we learned in school; generally left-brainers.

b. Visual - seeing the object or the situation in the mind's eye; generally right-brainers.

c. Kinesthetic - touching and feeling the object.

· Using only one or two of the above techniques will be detrimental to your training program. Learning will be slower and more difficult and there will be less retention.

These are some ideas that may help in your training exercises with em-ployees, and possibly your customers, as well. There will be more training details in future Trade Tips, and watch for upcoming Management Training columns by Trysh Mueller-Farber, A.R.A. director of education.

Make it convenient to store

those extra staples and nails

The following tip came from photos taken by Rafael Garzarelli, Howe Rental & Sales, Salt Lake City, of a rental store interior. It showed full boxes of staples and nails on the floor and on an overhead shelf with the companion air staplers and nail guns displayed on eye-level pegboard.

The unusual part of the display was the open top bins (about shoebox size), which appeared to contain the remains of partial boxes of staples and nails. These easily could be seen by passersby, who could inspect and handle the merchandise. (Contractors seem to like to handle the goods before purchasing.) It probably comes in handy for customers who own air guns and need to test the fit of a certain size of staple or nail without opening a brand-new box. Likewise, maintenance employees can test their air guns by going to the bins and taking a "slug" from the loose staples or nails. Maybe this store sold partial box amounts by weight coil or slug. The multi-partial box problem seems to be reduced to a single or perhaps a couple of open wall bins for each type of staple or nail.

This method of storing the "partials" of staples and nails is better housekeeping as well as a great point-of-purchase display for both the resale items and the rentals/sales of pneumatic air staplers and nailers.