April 23, 2009 - The first part of this call focused on forms of advertising other than television, radio and newspaper. In the second part of this call Tom outlines how to develop a staff education program and what you should include in it. During the question and answer part of the call, there was a lively discussion about challenging employees.

May 28, 2009 - We first talked about the lack of mistakes probably means we are not trying enough new ideas. In the second part I announced, the new books on retailing that I wrote for the NSSF can be had by calling 203-426-1320. The main component of the session dealt with the strategies and tactics a business should use to be successful.

June 25, 2009 - The focal question of the conversation was to ask what a business is expecting to get from their advertising. We discussed what percentage of operating expenses to spend in advertising, and why advertising does not work. Of course, there are no final answers; only information to help a business fine tune what they are doing with their advertising, and how to do it.

July 23, 2009 - Inventory control was the issue for the conference call. We discussed 'open to buy', close out sales, using the cost of inventory calculator from the Profits Plus website as well as calculators for return on investment, discounting and sale price determination, and several others. We covered targeting the right customers for our business, and why we should quickly mark down inventory to keep the cash circulating. Velocity coding of inventory was also discussed.

August 27, 2009 - Pricing. This conference call had two focal points. The first one was the issue of discounting merchandise. Does the idea of creating too many sales, or decreasing the entry level price points do damage to your business? Is it the way to go? The second component of this conference call was to look at how we price items. Here's a hint: you don't apply a multiplier factor to the cost of the merchandise. Because of a storm we were experiencing in Florida during this call, the recording was knocked out during the call.

September 23, 2009 - The September 2009 conference call dealt with the issues of the financial statements. We discussed the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, budgets, cashflow, margins and all the components of financial management the accountant never told us.

October 22, 2009 - A timely conversation in which we discussed what we can do during the holiday season to influence what the customer buys. When we know the natural tendencies of a customer it is much easier to have products and information about services in the places they are most likely to look. If you have ever heard a customer say, 'I never knew you carried that', it is an indication you were able to get a customer to look around in your business.

December 17, 2009 - This conversation discussed how to deal with an unhappy customer. We also discussed the return policy of a business and if you could make it work to your advantage. The third component dealt with Tom's controversial position that, "Can I help you?" is an improper statement to say to a customer. So, what could you say to them?

January 14, 2010 - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TweetDeck, UberTwitter, AudioBlog, and a bunch more. The conference call combines what to do with each of the social media with how to do it. Tom shares the media he has chosen, the shortcuts he has found, and how little money it takes to make these work. The key is automation so that you are spending a lot of your time away from other responsibilities working on these forms of advertising for your business.

February 25, 2010 - Looking for answers? I am not going to give them to you. That is how this call started. The idea is that when you give someone the answer, they come looking for the next answer and stop hunting for themselves. It is what causes our management problem.

March 25, 2010 - Who is your customer? Can you describe them and what they want to buy? If this is a challenge, then you want to listen to this conference call to get some ideas of how to identify your customer and what you should be selling.