How to cope with burnout

Any advice on how to pull yourself out of burnout?

- Name withheld

JIM CROWELL: It’s easy to lose your spirit when you’re getting beat up. It’s hard when the weather is such a factor. What you need to do is look toward the future, try to wrap what is happening now in a bigger picture.

I think when you’ve been in retail for so long, you’re used to winning. Then all of a sudden you start facing the problems of economy, weather, gas prices and so on. Older owners have a little bit of a challenge facing failure because we’re not used to it.

A retailer friend of mine is having his first down year in his history, and he’s been there for 14 years. He’s scared to death. He can’t believe it. We talk every other day. What do we do to turn it around? I don’t know, and that makes it pretty hard.

This past April, I probably lost 20 days out of 30. If you are a baseball or basketball team, you’ll probably be pretty close to bottom in your division with those kind of stats.

I can only control personnel, buying and that’s about it. So when the business is hurting and I’m worried, I want to start cutting. If you have a mortgage payment, then all of a sudden things get tight, you can’t slow down that payment.

When it comes to pulling yourself out of burnout, I do think there’s some personality characteristics. We retailers have strange moods and personalities. What are you going to do? Take medication? No, we talk and share.

Manage, don’t micromanage

Another thing I think we need to do when we get burnout is to take a step back and manage rather than micromanage. I can get caught up in the mundane job and not manage. We should work on strategy. Work on communication.

I don’t think garden centers communicate well. The day that I walk into the store, call over the nursery manager and do a walk through, getting a report on what the department did the day before, check on if we need anything, those are good days. I make calls to solve the problems that crop up right away.

I have my worst days when I don’t communicate. When I come in and begin running and don’t talk. In the spring, which is the most vital part of the year, I tend to have more days when I communicate less. The day owns you. I guarantee the Wal-Mart manager isn’t on the floor very often. He’s controlling the store -- bringing people in, showing sales, telling some they’re doing great, others that they’re not doing so great. When we stand out on the floor, unload trucks, water plants, we don’t do a lot of thinking or a lot of communicating.

Family dynamics can be an incredible influence, too. When I’m burned out, I get an angry tone in my voice that I can’t hide, and that makes my kids like me less.

I think not formalizing our management style feeds into burnout. We tend to have zero management in the spring because we’re all tired. So you have less time together strategizing, because you’re all running to unload trucks. But spring is when we should be meeting more. We always have more meetings during summer and winter when you don’t have as many customers -- or as many issues -- to handle.

JACK BIGEJ: I just don’t get burnout. I’m on an adrenalin rush -- this business is better than drugs! We retailers live on adrenalin. We seek a euphoria on this. During the spring months, you get so hyped up, then you recoup. Actually, you don’t even do that, you turn around and begin preparing for the next season.

There are several people -- Don Riddle, Eddie Anderson -- you never see them down. They’re always on a high.

I’ve seen people who say they hate going into the store. If you hate going back to that store, then get out! I’ve been going to the same store for 46 years, and if you’d told me that 46 years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that was nuts. But I still go in because I look forward to it every day. I go in early. On my day off, I check in two or three times a day.

It’s a passion. Maybe, when I was 50, I was getting some burnout. The situations weren’t what I wanted them to be at the store, and I changed it by buying out a partner. My kids then came in and that was like an I.V. straight to the system.

I don’t have issues with my kids. I’ve got three in the business -- four fantagalistic kids, but only three in the business -- and we all get along. There’s no harsh words. They coordinate with each other. We’re just not the kind of family to yell at each other, probably because the wife would beat you about the shoulder.

This is the worst April in the past 10 years. And, well, I’m down. I caught a cold, and I normally don’t, so it’s probably a depression cold. But the store problems, it’s going to break. It’s not raining today, so we have one leg up. Boy, when this sucker breaks loose, watch out!

We’re sitting on $5 million of inventory that has to be moved in the next 45 days. We’re not done. April was down 25 percent, so that means May has to be up 35 percent. We have some kicking to do. We’ve been playing with the advertising, the prices on flats to get them moving.

Really, it’s loving what you do and having a passion. If you’re getting burnout, maybe you need to look at something else. I should have retired 10 or 15 years ago because the kids are doing great, but I’m having too much fun.

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July 2008