The End of An Era I:  Ruth Evensen To Leave Pandemonium

After nearly 10 years of employment at Pandemonium (the last six as Store Manager) Ruth Evenson will be leaving the store as of the end of the month.  Ruth had been wanting to leave for some time, but graciously agreed to stay on until I got through business school, and the store got through the move.  We are all going to miss her.    
 

The End of An Era II:  Julia Liberman To Step Down As Book Manager

It is also my sad duty to inform you that I was forced to lay off our book manager, Julia Liberman, as a full-time store employee.  I truly wish the situation were otherwise.  Since the move, Julia has blossomed into a fantastic manager: smart, hard-working, cheerful and best of all,  possessing of a genuine instinct when it comes to ordering new releases.  Unfortunately, the store’s finances have deteriorated to the point where, even with Ruth’s departure, the store simply cannot support another full-time employee. 

At the beginning of the year, before the move, the store had some pretty big and scary debt.  After being closed for three months and with the capital outlays needed to get a new location up and running, the store now has 100-foot-tall Mecha Debt, with admantium claws and kryptonite vision. 

When Mecha Debt comes calling, there are only two things we can do: cut costs and/or increase revenues.  While our revenues at the new location have remained roughly the same as at the old, we need more to take on Mecha Debt.   That leaves cost-cutting.  Given the store’s financial straits, the only cost that can be cut right now is our payroll.  Even with Ruth’s departure, we cannot support our current level of manpower.  So I have sadly and reluctantly asked Julia to step down as full-time book manager.  Wonderful person that she is, she asked to stay on as a part-time worker, and so she shall.  I can only wish that I will demonstrate such grace if faced with such disappointment.
 

The State of the Store and Plans for the Future

In regards to the store’s financial situation, let me hasten to inform everybody that this does not mean the end of the store.  Sure, things are dire, but in Pandemonium’s 18-year history, this sort of thing has happened before.  Cash goes crunch, and then we have to live on hardtack for a year or two.   I had hoped that we would be able to avoid this sort of austerity program, but things did not work out that way.  It sucks, but the store is likely to survive. Now that we have made these painful cuts, our money situation should start improving slooowly over the next few months.  If we ignore the Mecha Debt (and let’s, shall we?), Pandemonium is otherwise in a pretty good position.  We successfully made the move to Central Square, keeping the core of our customer base.  Events at the store are beginning to gain momentum, and I hope to see business pick up as a result of that.  Additionally, while we will be losing our full-time employees, I have been deeply impressed by the quality and dedication of our part-timers.  Over the last three months, they have taken on increasingly larger amounts of the workload and I am confident that they will be able to handle their responsibilities without constant supervision.  I hope that the people who come to work at the store in the next month will be of the same caliber.

However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the store still needs to significantly increase its revenues if it is going to get out of its current situation with any speed.  Having looked at this problem for awhile now, I am actually not going to ask people to spend more at Pandemonium.  While it would be good for us in the short term, it would mean poorer customers and lower sales in the longer term. 

So what should we do?

What the store needs now is not more money per se, but rather more regular customers.  While Pandemonium’s customer base is extremely loyal, it is not very large.  The store only has about one thousand regular customers (“regular” defined as someone who comes in at least once every sixty days).  When I was drafting my business plan in school last year, I calculated that the store only got about 3-4% of the total science fiction literature market of the greater Boston area.  There is a very large number of fans in the Boston area who simply are unaware of the store’s very existence.  I think this is especially true on the college campuses in Boston proper and in the suburbs beyond the reach of public transportation.  Our task then is to increase Boston fan awareness of the store.

Even as I write this, commercials for the store are playing on the SciFi Channel in the 86,000 RCN households of the Metro Boston area.  This is our first foray into cable advertising, and while I have hopes for it, I think there is a better way to let people know about the store.
 

Missionaries Wanted!

One of the things I learned about in business school is how very, very effective word-of-mouth can be in insuring the success of a business.  Starbucks, for example, does virtually no advertising.  They built the stores and people came.  Of course, they built stores people wanted to come to, stores that customers were willing to recommend to their friends.  Pandemonium has relied on word-of-mouth nearly exclusively over the last 18 years.  Now, with your cooperation, we would like to do so again in a more directed effort, in what I am calling Pandemonium’s Missionary Fan program.           

It’s a simple referral program.  Anyone who comes into the store and becomes a store member as a result of a customer recommendation will receive a 20% discount off their first purchase.  Furthermore, if that new customer buys at least $50 within the first year of membership, the customer who recommended the new member will receive $5 in store credit.   It this way, everyone benefits.  The new customer gets a great discount (plus discovers a new store), the referring customer gets a little reward, and the store gets a new customer.  

This is how it will work: in the next few days, customers will be able to pick up Missionary cards at the store. Recommending customers (“Missionaries”) write their names on one side of the card, and give them out to friends who have not yet become store members (“Converts”).  The Convert simply fills out the other side of the card (name, zip code, email/phone#), and brings it in on their first visit.

If this program generates even 100 new regular customers, it will give the store a major long-lasting boost.  I hope customers reading this will take a moment to look around to see if you have perhaps one or two friends who have never gotten around to visiting the store.  The program, like Pandemonium itself, depends on your participation to make it work.  Thanks again to all the wonderful customers, past, present and future, who have helped Pandemonium stay alive for 18 years, and hopefully will keep it alive for another 18 years.  

See you in the store!