Five Years of Effective Retail Leader: An Anniversary Post
I believe I say this each year, and I mean it each year as well: I cannot believe another year has gone by. It seems even more odd that this marks the five-year anniversary of Effective Retail Leader. I am not certain that I still recall exactly what I expected when I hit ‘post’ on that first article. However, it is really cool to know that five years later I am still sharing ideas, tips, and information to an audience every week. Effective Retail Leader now encompasses more than 525 leadership articles, with over 225 written pages containing in excess of 55,000 words. That sounds like a lot (on one hand), and like it should be more (on the other) after five years. Additionally, I have accumulated more than 250 leadership quotes that I share on a weekly basis. And, beginning in 2022, I have been sharing a leadership ‘word of the week’ as well as a way to capture quick thoughts on keywords we hear throughout our industry.
Why I keep doing this
I still love that I can share my ideas and thoughts on how I view leadership in the retail space. While I try to keep a retail slant on things, I also know many of these ideas are for anyone in any industry. When I get a note or comment from readers about how much they enjoyed an article or even their agreement on a concept, it is so rewarding to know a connection has been made. That is really why I still enjoy doing this more as a hobby right now than anything else.
What’s next
I would still like to expand what Effective Retail Leader has to offer all leaders in the retail space. I hope to build this into a first-stop resource space that budding new store leaders, or experienced multi-unit or corporate leaders can come to for ideas on how to continue to grow and develop themselves and those they serve. The mission remains the same: to help you become the leader you want, and one others choose to follow. I am kicking around ideas on how the articles can become more useful, or how to create actions around the information that is already available on the site. Plus support how you might be able to use that information to teach and develop your teams more effectively.
Often, as retail leaders, we want to ‘teach’ concepts, but finding the time to gather information and put it all together can be really hard in an already packed schedule of daily activities. I hope to make that easier with different resources that would be available, whether that is short videos, facilitator guides, or even a few slides that could be used for short training sessions. I would love to hear any feedback or thoughts you might have on what you’d like to see. Please email me directly at Chris@effectiveretailleader.com to share your ideas or thoughts.
Finally, I would like to THANK all of you that continue to support what I do through reading the articles and sharing your comments. I appreciate the feedback and thoughts that come in. And, I cannot say THANK YOU enough to my wife Tracy, who spends a lot of time helping to edit and publish the articles I write. She catches a lot of those little mistakes that I would never see and adds a little polish that makes all the difference.
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