As the new year approaches, we’d like to offer you the most powerful, useful, cost-effective tools to maintaining your tea business for 2024: MAINTAIN CHECKLISTS and SCHEDULE TASKS.

CHECKLISTS ARE KEY

Who can keep everything in one’s head? Nobody! So use the tried-and-true medium of the checklist to make sure you are doing everything that needs to be done, including keeping your inventory neat and beautifully displayed to be available to SELL. Computer software helps enormously but the printed checklist is quite a powerful tool.

Make Checklists for All Delegated In-store Tasks—It’s easy to miss dusting the bottom shelf or forget to restock paper cups for your tea tasting station. Put every possible thing to do on two separate checklists, one for opening and one for closing the store. Go through them with the persons you charge with the lists and have them add or delete as appropriate. List everything from setting out and bringing in sandwich boards to opening and shutting down sales equipment. Make copies and have the person check off the items as they do them. It will definitely make the process more efficient.

Make an additional checklist for in-store needs like staff bathroom needs, paper towels and other cleaning supplies, pens, shopping bags, receipt paper, etc.

Do the same thing for weekly or monthly product inventory ordering/re-ordering. Make a checklist of regular items from loose leaf teas to packaged ones, filters and accessories, perennial teapot and kettle favorites or seasonal items. If you have one, use your computer inventory software to help track when supplies are low. Reorder promptly.

Stay informed about technology to keep track of inventory and all shop tasks to be completed. Connect with local chambers of commerce, tea business conventions, and other retailers of all types to ask how they’re keeping on top of things via technology. One great answer can help you save loads of time and money.

SCHEDULE TASKS

By putting tasks from minor to major on your calendar, you will achieve all your goals for the new year. License renewals, tax deadlines, bill paying, and payroll are non-negotiables. In the hustle hurry of busy seasons or everyday distractions you can be late with these and be culpable for late fees or worse. Put them ALL on that analog classic, the wall calendar with big 2” or larger blocks for each day, works wonders. It’s highly visible, easy to write on, and big enough not to ignore. Remember, if it isn’t on the calendar, it can be forgotten!

Schedule Prep for Professionals. Schedule the paperwork necessary for your accountant or lawyer to fulfill payroll, taxes, bill payments, and any other legal or accounting tasks. Note this BEFORE they are due, perhaps a week in advance, so that you’re never in a time crunch.

Every morning before you open the shop, check the calendar and do the most urgent tasks first. If you’re not done by opening time, delegate running the store to others until you complete the task! That way, the most important task ALWAYS gets done. When in doubt, delegate.

DELEGATE

Ask for suggestions from staff. Get to know your employees. Learn their hobbies, interests, and especially, their talents and skills. Former teachers make exceptional trainers; writers of all media create powerful sales content; fashionistas and doodlers carry their design sensibilities to windows and in-store displays. Techies and nerds are clued into technology that can help you sell and maintain inventory and manage paperwork.

It’s perfectly fine not to do everything yourself. Delegate those tasks outside your ken to knowledgeable people whether a staff member or an accountant, window display designer, web maintenance provider or publicist. The benefits are enormous: less stress on you, powerful expertise from professionals who save you money or manage money-related tasks. And, learning which are tax-deductible is a delicious sidebar.

Weekly Meetings with Staff — Make it short to update info they need to sell and serve, and always provide a great cup of tea. In this way, you can give them a treat while you share information about new teas and accessories you’re selling and delegate tasks and services among the staff on a variety of topics. Inform everyone about changes to any buying/selling protocols, updates in website content, and ask them to sign up to all your social media to keep them hip to what’s being posted by the designated media person. Keep staff alert and interested by rotating the mundane (dusting the shelves, cleaning up, replenishing inventory) and rewarding efforts with gifts of tea or bonuses if you are able.