Build Flywheels of Growth
Amplify Your Solution “Stickiness” by Aligning Business Users, Deepening Product Usage, and Leveraging Client Satisfaction – for Tech Startups, Teams & Agencies selling Retail Analytics for Physical Stores.
Eons ago, I did site surveys for technology companies. Days and days, and nights, I sat in fashion stores, luxury stores, big box stores, supermarkets, neighborhood marts, banks, and airports and watched.
I watched how people went around the store. I wrote down locations and stay times. I jotted notes on the interactions between employees and consumers. I spoke to managers and front-line employees. I worked with operations, workforce, and merchandising corporate managers. And I evaluated videos.
I always believed the secret to a successful retail store is more than awesome products and clean stores.
Stores are about people.
Today, you have cost-effective and accurate in-store technology solutions that generate real-time product, people, and sales data.
Most importantly,
Whether selling technology solutions for a $40 million Walmart store or a $1 million fashion boutique, you will be working with professional retailers.
What’s the difference between winning and lagging stores?
More Technology
If you guessed “more technology,” you’d be wrong. Retailers will test almost everything in a pilot store. It matters if your technology solution is rolled out or not and why.
Better Technology
If you guessed “better features,” you’d be wrong. Products do not exist because “you can do it.” It matters who are the users of the solution and why.
Smarter Retailers
If you guessed “smarter retailers,” you’d be wrong. Often, retailers don’t share because they don’t see your value as a partner. It matters which clients love you and why.
Unless you ENGINEERED your retail solution for “sticky” usage by the corporate managers and front line staff, continuous communications, and fast-decision autonomy, the impact, and the sales, of the technology you’re working tirelessly to scale will fizzle out.
The Challenges
Being “customer-eccentric” is a buzzword, not a practical reality for many retailers.
Retailers are logistical operators with razor-thin profit margins. That’s why the in-store technologies that sell well relate to payments and products. There is a long list of failed customer-facing “digital transformation” ideas, such as digital fitting rooms.
To many retailers, the value of a physical store equals a distribution point.
Many retailers consider their stores as tactical sales floors. In other words, the physical store is one distribution point in the omnichannel ecosystem. Seeing the front line staff beyond payroll costs is still counterintuitive. And only a handful of retailers understand that you can’t get closer to your customers than in a physical store.
To get value from technology, retailers need a process for change management.
There is a vast difference in skills and knowledge among retail companies and inside the organization. The challenge is acute in the physical stores. Turnover is high. Salaries are low. Training is a misnomer. Worse, communication is usually one-way, with almost no structured feedback from stores to management.
To sell in-store technology solutions, you need a step-by-step system to connect what happens in the stores to the desired outcomes. Working with “Why We Buy” techniques can improve store performance, sales, and profits.
“I first met Ronny when I enrolled in the Behavior Analytics Academy. After the first one-on-one session, I was impressed with her deep knowledge and understanding of the Retail Tech Industry. She soon became our Advisor and our “growth hack” into the future of the industry. We quickly incorporated all her insights into our strategic planning. After taking her Mastermind Course, we built better processes and products, we acquired big retail customers in the region, and we ended up merging our operations with a key industry worldwide player. Ronny, working with you was the pivotal point in this story, and for that and much more, I’m forever thankful to have been your client and your friend.”
Nicolas Guiloff, CEO, Intelligenxia
Get Clarity with Behavior Analytics
Case Studies
Deepen your relationships with current and future clients with behavior-based case studies promoted on Behavior Analytics blogs, courses, and social media.
Sponsorships
Sponsor online and in-person workshops for your clients. Includes user conferences, management boot camps, and Behavior Analytics Academy events.
Client Workshops
Get shared revenue opportunities for online courses, events, and publications of the Behavior Analytics Academy.
Executive Coaching
Get expert feedback on products and Go-To-Market strategies with the Discovery programs – for companies selling in-store analytics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I work closely with my retail clients. Why do I need an Executive Coach?
My focus is Choice Architecture and In-Store Optimization. In other words, my job is to increase the business benefits from your technology solutions for physical stores.
Here are common scenarios:
You’re developing one feature after another for fashion retailers, a supermarket, or an airport, only to find out that the problem-solution path is different. In other words, you developed a technology but not a solution.
You are stuck in a niche with no viable growth path.
Your retailer sends you an image of the store and says, “That’s what I want.” And you realize that she has no idea what she wants. And you have no idea where to start. You end up with a pilot project that goes nowhere and a disappointed retailer.
By focusing on behavior-first analytics, you have a step-by-step system to deepen the usage by current users and align benefits with other users.
Q: Discovery: What are the programs for Solution Providers?
The programs for solution providers include the One Year Discovery, 12 Weeks Discovery, and Discovery Sessions for Managers.
Discovery programs are about your market, your company, and your solution. The focus is on Go-To-Market strategies and “Jobs-to-be-Done” product development.
The programs were tested globally on five continents, with innovation teams from big enterprises to nascent high-tech startups. Each program is customized to your needs.
Q: Workshops: How exactly will the workshops help my clients?
The workshops emerged from two decades of experience. I worked with over 100 high-tech startups, in different industries, before focusing on behavior analytics for physical stores. I had a front-row seat to the future with the Stanford University Vision Project.
Here are common challenges:
You got a Quick Win. Your data got the retailer to change something, which increased sales conversion by 2%. Everyone is happy, but that’s where the project stopped. The technology is not “sticky.” A year later, you realize these are signs of churn.
You build relationships with clients who use your solution but still face challenges in achieving their desired goals, for example, reducing shrink, increasing compliance, and improving customer satisfaction. You know the technology works, but the retailers struggle. You suspect that it is an organizational challenge that you cannot solve.
“I’ve learned more in three sentences than in the last three months,” said a client. “We have been working on the wrong strategy for the past two years,” concluded a CEO. “The phones didn’t ring. Now they do.”
The workshops, boot camps, and events are laser-focused on Behavior Analytics. That neutralizes egos, silos, and politics to build a data-driven process for optimization. Most importantly, people are empowered because they learn skills for success.
Q: Workshops: Who is the ideal participant?
It depends on the theme of the workshop and the problem you are trying to solve.
If you sell merchandising solutions, the ideal participants are senior and director-level corporate managers. if you sell in-store tracking solutions, the ideal participants come from store operations. The participants may include the Vice-President of Store Operations, Regional District Managers, and innovative Store Managers.
The management boot camps often have different sessions. For example, the program includes strategy sessions for senior executives and hands-on training for corporate and district managers.
Q: Conferences: Can you run a public workshop?
Absolutely. The workshops are customized to user conferences, marketing events, and even podcasts.
The public workshops are focused on themes, for example, in-store customer journey, loss prevention, store compliance, retail KPIs, and the audience (retailers, brands, malls, banks, etc.)
Q: Case Studies: Why publish with Behavior Analytics Academy?
Behavior Analytics Academy is an education company. We are technology agnostic. We are not a marketing company. Our focus is adding value to technological solutions.
The case studies help retailers, brands, malls, and others, discover benefits, innovate policies, and provide relevant and practical strategies to empower their employees.
The case studies help to present complex concepts with storytelling techniques, multiple perspectives, and real-life examples.
Q. Partnerships: What are the Shared Revenue Opportunities?
Behavior Analytics Academy offers shared revenue opportunities for online courses, events, and workshops.
