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OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
Ears, Eyes And Words Piers Morgan berating and interrogating politicians. Neville and Carragher breaking down the game on a Monday night. Louis Theroux probing on weird and wonderful subjects. Gabby Logan, Ariel Helwani, Joe Rogan, Graham Hunter and a myriad of other podcasts. Boris and his briefings. Nicola Sturgeon with her daily take on Covid. The aforementioned are some of the things that have frustrated, confused and sometimes caused me worry and sleepless nights. These are also some of the things that have kept me informed, educated and often made me laugh. The common thread in all of these is communication. They are doing it through actions, or words, or video or “next slide please”. At a time when we haven’t really met people and interacted physically, the
spoken and written word has taken on an even great importance than ever before. Communicating at its absolute core is - the act of transferring information from one place, person or group to another. For me there needs to be another word in front of it, ‘effective’. For communication to really be effective it also relies on you listening as much as or maybe more than talking. Now anyone who knows me, knows that this is a problem! I am however working on it and am constantly trying to listen and interpret rather than simply speaking. Being on the shopfloor as a retailer you have to be able to connect (and sell) to a wide range of people as you never know 22
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
who will walk through the door. We have to connect and motivate our team. We have to be confident with our banker/accountant and we have to interact with companies/reps large and small. In short, we need to be good at this. Setting the right tone will build relationships long term that matter and in these last 12 months that has never been so important. I am honest enough to say that these lockdowns have been a struggle. Mentally they have been tough and this last one in particular has felt different to the others. This one feels really punitive and in Scotland, with no Click & Collect, it somehow feels that our business has been slipping a little more with each passing day. It has also been tough as we have not had and were not afforded the time to build up enough cash reserves to see us through all the bills and fixed costs that our businesses have. Between each lockdown it feels like we have managed to get our
Above: Gary Neville’s and James Carragher’s heated debates on Sky Sports have given David Robertson blasts of communication! Left: David Robertson (bottom right) listened and participated on the Retail Panel that formed part of the GCA AGM and Conference last year that took place digitally. Below: There has been a lot of noise made through social media over the last year which has been effective communication, if not as good as a real face to face chat.
heads out of the water and catch some breath but without fully stopping drowning. In January I took the unprecedented step of deciding on a strategy to pay my suppliers and I shared this with them. It took the form of two letters, one for card publishers and one for gift companies, that were honest and straight from the heart. All the companies I work with were only too glad to help me put this plan into action. A long time ago I learned that being honest and showing that everyone has struggles is a sign of strength and not weakness. Asking for a payment plan or a few extra weeks to pay a bill is fine, but I also said that if any of the companies needed paid I would do something. I want people to see that what you can’t do is ignore or bury your head in the sand. You can’t because the pressure this puts on you and of course the companies who are trying to get some sort of answer from you is enormous and ultimately can lead to you not being in a good place. You must communicate. Now of course the interactions have been very different over the last year. Zoom, Teams, Google Meet have become common. WhatsApp messages, emails and Facetime