Forty Years of Lessons Learned- A Retail Journey

Today, founder and chairman of the board of Best Buy Dick Schulze came and spoke at the Business Leaders Forum Luncheon at Marquette University. Schulze presented 10 valuable lessons when developing and running your own business.

1. Listen to your customers
– Hassle free shopping
– Quick & easy checkout
– Service after the sale
2. Know your competitors
– Differentiate yourself
-slashed prices, and are known as the low price leader
3. Persistence pays
– Stand by convictions
– Find a unique way to serve a niche
4. Find a mentor
– They ground you, give you directions
– Find someone actively engaged in business within the field of your choice
5. Hire strong people
– Bring in consultants if you aren’t good at something (ex. IT and HR at Best Buy)
– Make a case for company
– Promote from within. “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
6. Don’t Punish Mistakes
– Reward innovation
– Minimize mistakes, and don’t spread them through every area of business
– Hypothesize, test and verify
7. Leverage your strengths
– Strength at Best Buy= innovation
– Allow floor employees to have open line of communication to company’s decision makers
– Allow employees to be intrapreneurs (innovate from within)
8. Learn to listen
– 360 evaluation
– Solicit opinions from diverse groups
– Embrace diversity of thought
– Remove anything that blocks creativity and innovation
9. Create partnerships
– Offer end to end solution (ex. buy a satellite and have installation staff)
– Geek squad
10. Infrastructure is critical

Overlying message, “empower your employees, and delegate!”