As a follow up to a recent post about creating great interview questions during the hiring process, here are some great behavioral questions I encourage you to use for inspiration.

I’ve always been a proponent of behavioral interview questions because they allow to get a peek into how a candidate has conducted themselves in the past, rather than relying on what they say they would do in the future (or in a hypothetical situation). These five questions will help you find a candidate with the skills and traits you’re seeking.

1. Tell me about a difficult customer service situation you experienced. How did you handle it? What did you do right and/or wrong? How has that experienced changed how you deal with customers today?
2. How to you personally measure job satisfaction/success? How do you think this position will measure up?
3. Give an example of a difficult situation with a fellow employee and how you handled it.
4. We believe that creating and maintaining strong customer relationships are critical to making sales and growing our business. Can you give me an example of how you create strong customer relationships?
5. Tell me about the best boss you’ve ever worked for, what you learned from them and how you apply those lessons today.

If you have done your homework before the interview and created a thorough list of skills and traits you’re seeking, you can score each answer based on whether the candidate displayed those traits in how he or she handled previous situations.

We know it’s coming and it’s fast approaching… the craziness of the holiday season. Time flies, demands are high both from work and home life, and it’s easy to feel pushed to the limit. Now consider that your employees and customers are likely feeling similar holiday stress. So, how can you alleviate some of this stress while still getting everything done? I’ve been reading up on the subject lately and here are some timely tips you can put into practice:

Set priorities
Remember that monsters live in the dark, so make a point of shedding light on the enormity of what you have to accomplish during the holiday season by creating an overall plan of attack before it begins. Then make a habit of creating a "to do" list each day, and assign a priority to each and every item on your list. Your priority ranking should include three categories: critical, must be done today; important, but can be done tomorrow; and low priority, can be done in the next day or so. Share your priorities and "to do" list with your staff as well.

Remember stress relief techniques
For some reason, in the hustle of our busiest times we tend to forget the techniques we use in calmer times to manage our stress, such as walking, deep breathing or practicing yoga. Create a system to remind yourself and your staff of the stress relief tricks that work best for you. Get daily reminders by "Liking" About Stress Management on Facebook or installing an app on your smartphone.

Affect your environment
Create a calming environment both at home and at work that will carry you through your most stressful days. At your store play to the five senses by choosing a soothing scent, calming holiday music and perhaps even serve calming herbal tea to customers and employees. Keep in mind that “laughter is the best medicine” and foster an air of humor and fun among your employees and customers. For example, create a fun, unobtrusive game with daily prizes for employees. Have a game for customers as well, such as spinning a prize wheel for daily prizes.

Have fun and enjoy the holidays!

With the end of the year looming, I’ve taken a few minutes to look back at this year’s goals for my business, and I encourage you to do that as well. Now is the time for us to get fired up, kick it in to high gear and finish this year strong.

Here are a few tips that I hope can inspire you to achieve a successful fourth quarter:

Consider your health and the health of your staff
For your business to finish the year strong and healthy, you must also be strong and healthy. Shore up your immune system, get enough rest and make it a point to eat well. Encourage your staff to do the same.

Know where you are
Take some time to examine your sales, financial and inventory reports so you know exactly where your business stands. Once you know where you stand, you can make plans for how you will achieve your business goals for the rest of the year.

Assess your amenities and services
It’s always easier and cheaper to grow per customer sales than to win new customers. Grow per customer sales by creating greater value for loyal customers, like offering free delivery, free gift wrapping or a free customer loyalty program.

Schedule an exclusive shopping event
Consider hosting a holiday shopping preview event for your best customers to boost holiday sales. Events are a great way to create exclusivity and excitement, especially during the holidays.

Cheers to a great end of the year!

The National Retail Federation recently released a report that said a whopping 97% of retailers surveyed utilize background screenings during the application, hiring and employment process. Hiring this year’s holiday staff will likely result in a large influx of applicants and conducting background checks is one way to whittle down candidates.

Here are a few tips to help you use background checks effectively and avoid getting into legal trouble. As always, I recommend seeking professional legal advice for your specific questions.

Credit reports… Checking an applicant’s credit report is one of the most common background checks by employers. Be sure you are getting express written consent from potential employees to check their credit. If you use anything in the credit report as a reason not to hire, you must provide the applicant with a copy of the report and let them know they have the right to challenge the information.

Criminal records… Whether or not you can check an applicant’s criminal record varies by state, so make sure to look up the law in your state or consult your attorney.

Medical records… From what I’ve read, there’s much mis-information and confusion over whether employers can access a candidate’s medical records. According to the SBA.gov website, you can only request medical records based on whether the applicant will be able to perform specific job duties. Also, laws regarding employers access to medical records vary by state, so on this one I’d highly recommend seeking legal counsel.

Worker’s Compensation records… Much of the information on worker’s compensation claims is a matter of public record and thus you do not need consent to access it. However, if you decide not to hire based on this information you must document that and be able to show the applicant’s injury would prevent them from performing their job duties.

Also, mention to applicants that they are entitled to a free copy of their background screening report. They can contact a screening firm such as ChoicePoint, one of the largest firms, at 866-312-8075 to get a free copy of their file (if one exists for them).

The calm before the storm (the busiest time of the year for most retailers) is the perfect time to implement greater organization that will help create more efficiency and a more pleasant environment for you, your employees and your customers.

Step 1. Purge
Before you even think of beginning to organize, you must do a thorough round of de-cluttering. Get rid of any non-essentials and concentrate on scaling back on the stuff. Avoid the temptation to begin organizing anything, just stay focused on de-cluttering.

Step 2. Think of an assembly line
Arrange different work areas according to their function and think of an assembly line. Assemble everything at that location that’s needed to do the job. For example, if you have a gift wrapping station, make sure the wrapping paper, scissors, tape, ribbon and extra supplies are located within reach of the wrapping station. The same would go for the shipping station and merchandise receiving areas.

Step 3. Keep it simple
Create organizational and filing systems that are simple and easily maintained by you and your staff. We often have grand plans to organize, but make it so hard to keep up that the organized environment doesn’t last long.

Step 4. Create dump zones
Place catch-all baskets, bowls, and/or bins to capture frequently used and needed items such as pens and keys where they can be quickly and easily used and put away.

Having employee contests is a great way to motivate and invigorate your employees, especially during the slower summer months. Here a few ideas.

Use contests to recognize outside-of-work talents your staff may have. For example, Safelite AutoGlass hosts an employee photo contest each year and produces a calendar to be given out to customers from winning photos. You could host a similar contest and decorate your store with the winning photos.

Host a customer scavenger hunt. Create a game that benefits both customers and employees. For example, a customer service call center had a customer scavenger hunt where employees had to ask questions and collect customers’ information to win the game. Create a matrix with 10 items or pieces of information (“A customer born and raised here” or “A customer that graduated from Harvard”) employees have to collect from customers and the first employee to find all the right customers wins.

Use your creativity. Help make tough tasks more fun by creating games around them. Create games around your business’s least popular tasks (inventory day!). Employees love friendly competition, so find ways to throw a little competition into boring, less desirable store tasks.

Ever feel like your to do list and email inbox are growing faster than the national debt? Or that as hard as you’re working, you never seem to be ticking off the most important items on your task list? We all feel that way at one time or another.

Here are some tips to help you harness technology and work smarter, not harder.

Work from anywhere. Save time by making it easy to work wherever you are. There are multiple ways you can insure access to important documents, emails and schedules from anywhere, such as storing it all on the Internet, carrying a small jump drive with you at all times, or using a laptop that you always carry with you.

Automate important functions. Avoid wasting time cutting, signing and mailing checks. Automate your bill paying and payroll as much as possible. Most banks have an online bill paying feature that you can sign up for.

Put your inbox on a diet. Increase efficiency in your inbox by using an email program that allows you to filter and file emails with no action on your part. Set up folders and filters so that you only see important, action-required email in your inbox. Then deal with emails as you read them so that they can be filed and finished for good.

Automate marketing tasks. Set up auto-responders for emails and social media messages. Create auto reminders for consistent tasks such as writing blog posts or submitting artwork for your newspaper ad. Also, create checklists and forms for tasks you do regularly so that you’re not reinventing the wheel each time.

Sweat the exceptions only. Avoid spending time reviewing items, reports, statements and paperwork that don't really require your attention. Make a habit of only reviewing items that are exceptions, such as budget overruns or missed sales forecasts.

I was interviewed recently by the Wall Street Journal about the specialty retail market, and for the first time I was able to provide concrete data about our industry.

Specialty Retail Report commissioned the first ever study about the specialty retail industry from Alexander Babbage, an independent market research firm who specialize in the retail and shopping industries. The results cover more than $600 million in sales from more than 5,800 cart and kiosk retailers in North America over the past two years.

Here are a few noteworthy pieces of data that I pulled from the report:

• Specialty retail holiday sales grew by 10.6 % in 2010 — more than three times higher than the GAFO sales growth of 2.9% for the same time period.
• The toy category was the fastest growing area of year-on-year in category sales growth in 2010 with a 35.5% increase.
• The holiday category saw a 40.9% jump in the number of reporting units.

I am excited by the results of this report as it confirms that specialty retail is thriving and outperforming the big box stores. It also indicates that savvy entrepreneurs are still earning profits and specialty retail is worth noting. It can’t be ignored based on this record performance

SRR is committed to the industry and will continue to offer updated reports on a quarterly basis. Click here for more information or to participate in the next round of the study.

A very big thank you to the Max F. James Family Foundation for sponsoring this report.

For most independent retailers, inventory is likely your largest investment, and in challenging economic times, tighter inventory control becomes money in your pocket.

Here are a few of the most important inventory management pitfalls to avoid:

Carrying too much variety
We know that inadequate inventory and selection can mean lost sales, but too much selection can mean much needed funds tied up unnecessarily. Take a close look at your product selection to find opportunities to trim the width of your selection and keep more cash in your coffers.

Pushy vendors
Vendors want to clear out inventory and would prefer to push it down the supply chain to you. In many cases this could result in some favorable deals and perks, however, avoid the trap of ordering items or quantities that you don’t absolutely need. Push back on pushy vendors to avoid this mistake.

Ordering too infrequently
The closer you can get to just-in-time ordering, the better. Gone are the days of ordering and holding large inventories. To improve your cash flow, create a leaner inventory by ordering more often and improve your forecasting and budgeting capabilities.

Lack of planning
Lacking effective forecasting and budgeting will no doubt stymie your efforts at inventory management. You may need to upgrade your inventory management system, but the expense may be well worth it in the money you save.

While reading up on employee motivation recently, I ran across some interesting suggestions based on new research. I thought I’d share some of the top tips to help you put a renewed spring in your employees step.

Help them see the impact of their job on others Employees will work harder and smarter if they are directly connected to the impact they have on others. For example, a study showed that lifeguards that were told stories from people whose lives were saved by lifeguards were much more effective and motivated at work. As a retailer, make sure your employees are plugged in to the vision for your store that gets you out of bed each morning. Connect them with your passion. The next time one of your loyal customers visits the store, invite your customer to share what it is they love so much about their shopping experience, then share it with your employees at the next staff meeting.

Create environment where employees can connect personally with customers Recent studies show that when employees meet customers face-to-face and hear a personal story, they are more motivated to work harder for that customer. Train employees to personally engage customers during every visit. This will help your customers have a more welcoming visit, and they will spend more time and more money in your store. All of this will increase the motivation of your employees.

Sweat the small stuff Make sure you create an environment in your business that pays attention to the small stuff. What may be small to you may go a long way in motivating your employees to work harder and smarter. For example, I recently read about an hotelier that learned it could motivate housekeepers by making sure they had newer model, working vacuums. Imagine that! Encourage employees to share with you those small things that will help them do a better job and motivate them to be their best.