The most important bit in the whole book is this part. Big Idea: Knowing what the hell you actually are; this is the absolute foundation stone of a great retail business. Once you work out what you are, you can get really good at being that thing and get really good at telling people what that thing is and why they might like it: You can build a store that people want to come to and spend money in because they explicitly understand what you’re giving them.
Every great retail business is built around a Big Idea—a reason for existing, the thing that business is for; it informs absolutely everything that the retailer does and says, and informs every decision made within it. It is the starting point for everything in the business. I’ve put it in this section of the book because it has a big impact on the team—you can recruit, motivate, and inspire people around a great Big Idea.
Big Idea is the thing that has Hotel Chocolat growing and, for the want of a Big Idea, has Thorntons shrinking. It’s what makes IKEA so compelling and Wal-Mart so powerful. Let’s look at Wal-Mart’s Big Idea, which is “Every item in the store will be offered at the lowest possible price.” That’s Wal-Mart’s reason-for-being and it’s an idea that customers and staff alike understand utterly and fundamentally. It is the Big Idea that has driven Sam Walton’s company since the moment he articulated it one day when he did a bulk deal on ladies” pants and realized he could be more competitive by passing on the savings to customers.
Don’t confuse Big Idea with a marketing strapline: Sometimes they will say broadly the same thing but the idea itself is more than a throwaway creative frippery—it will inform the strapline but will rarely use the exact same words.
Take Wal-Mart’s Big Idea and contrast it with Target’s, which is to offer “cool things at lower cost.” Both sell in roughly the same categories, in the same types of stores (they’re classed as “discount variety retailers”). Now, what these two different Big Ideas mean in practice is that Wal-Mart must always opt to sell a 10¢ glass tumbler because it’s the cheapest possible price a glass tumbler can be sold for. Target, on the other hand, are able to say “Hmm, that 10¢ tumbler is a bit cheap and nasty. We’re about selling at lower cost so we can’t stock the really swanky 30¢ tumbler but we’ve found one that’s 12¢ and is a nicer shape, with more consistent molding and heavier glass than Wal-Mart’s, so we’re going to sell the 12¢ option; it’s cheap but it’s nice too.”
What this has meant is that Target have been able to use their Big Idea to drive a space for themselves to compete against the world’s biggest and most powerful retailer. Customers are surprisingly attuned to this sort of subtlety and the result is that Target’s customers are younger, wealthier, and better educated than Wal-Mart’s.
Let’s look at some more Big Ideas in a bit of detail. I’m going to start with more on Wal-Mart because they are so amazingly focused on their Big Idea, and it gives good insight.
What’s the Big Idea that drives your retail business? Is it clear? Does it make sense? How does it position you relative to the market and to your competitors? If you’re the top person at your place and you answer “no” to any of these questions, please stop reading and go sort it out now. Without that clear understanding of what your business is for, well, there’s nothing we can do for you! If you’re a team member in-store and you have the misfortune of working for a business that has no Big Idea, see if you can work out what it should be. Make it relevant to your local customers and share it with the team—see if you can use it to at least make your store a high-performer. Once you’ve proved that it has a positive effect, share it with senior management too.
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