[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
[Voiceover]: Today's checkout features Susan Martin from Smart in Planning. Susan is not just a merchandise planner, but she is one of the best in the country with her experience at leading retailers such as Cotton on, Best and Less and the Warehouse Group. Today, Susan is the CEO of Smart in Planning who consults leading retailers on how to optimize their inventory and ultimately their profitability.
Nathan Bush: Susan, welcome to the checkout. We're going to ask five quick questions. We've heard all about merch planning and some of your career to date, but we're going to get to know a little bit more about you with these five questions. Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Susan Martin: Okay, so I recently bought this little device that is. It's supposed to close a sliding door. So, like if you open it up, you know, you sort of stick the one part to the one side of the door and the other part to the other side of the door. It's got like this little pulley system and it's supposed to, you know, pull the sliding door shut again. So bought a few of those and the whole, the whole point was to keep the cat out of a particular room. So this cat is such a brute. I mean, he's young, but he's lean and he's powerful. He can actually open the door, still go, goes into the room, lets the door slam behind him, can make his way back out again. So he's actually just made a mockery of us. Slams the door like a petulant teenager. But it was quite a quirky little gadgety thing that I bought online. I really fell into that. Oh, yeah, that will solve my problem.
Nathan Bush: It wasn't wish.com, was it?
Susan Martin: No, it wasn't actually. It was something I saw on LinkedIn. I was like, I see all these fascinating gadgets and I'm oh, from that shop. Okay, I'm going to go get one. But there you go.
Nathan Bush: LinkedIn is the new retail store sales channel. I like it.
Susan Martin: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: All right.
Nathan Bush: Number two, this is a hard one. Because you work with so many great retailers, who is your personal favorite retailer?
Susan Martin: It is hard because our reaches is quite big. But I think my perception is heavily influenced by that personal experience as opposed to as a consumer. And I can't go past cotton on when I reflect back to how it influenced my thinking the time that I spent, the way that executive team, Nige and Pete and Mick and Ash and their extended team, the way they think, the way they innovate, and I think being in that role sort of really gave me that fitness for working across such a wide range of businesses all at the same time and at that pace. There's just something absolutely addictive about that environment and yeah, just the way they think. So I think Cotton on is always going to have a place in our heart because of that.
Nathan Bush: Such a nice thing to hear after someone leaves an organization where they've obviously worked hard and put in a lot in to still look back on it and go, oh, they still hold them up there. And you know.
Susan Martin: Yeah, absolutely. You know, you always say you learn from every environment that you're in. You learn from every experience, but I think that just there was something in that mindset and something in that sort of. It was a growth time, like a real. Yeah. Expand my reach and my thinking. And I loved how they never focus on an obstacle. They just. They focus on how can we get this done, how can we get it done? We take opportunities, we make opportunities, we innovate. We just want to know how we're going to do it.
Nathan Bush: That's great. All right, number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
Susan Martin: Oh, probably some that I bought into in the 80s, but I'd say wearing my merchandise planning hat, I'd say any fad that gets overcooked, it really jars with me from a planning point of view. I know it's the nature of the fad in some ways is that you kind of do it until it's corny, but it's such a risk for retailers to. To try and squeeze out the last drop and then they. They get caught in the situation of losing a big chunk of their gains with that. That hangover. Yeah. So for me, fads make the hair on the back of my neck stand up a little bit because I just know how much carnage and pain is likely to sit at the end of that from a profitability and inventory management.
Nathan Bush: Are you talking about hand sanitizer here?
Susan Martin: Oh, hand sanitizer. Colored denim. All of them. All of them. They go there eventually and you kind of. Unless you've got a super agile supply chain. Yeah, they make me nervous, I hear.
Nathan Bush: All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Susan Martin: I don't know how much it'll help your. Your listeners. And they kind of their oldies. I grew up listening to A series of tapes. And I think they might have been pirated, but, I mean, it's a long time ago called the Psychology of Winning. And when I say I grew up listening to them, I actually think like a few times a night I'd be listening to them falling asleep. Like, my father was like, this is good stuff and you guys should learn it. And we were young.
[Voiceover]: Yeah.
Susan Martin: And. And I reckon there's a bunch of that stuff that is just in me and has always been. And another one is. And again, these probably aren't the trending popular things because they're oldies, but Todd Duncan had a book called High Trust Selling and I heard some audios on it that I went back and listened to again and again. This was now as an adult and there was just so much around the way he talked about, I guess, the customer that really stuck with me and maybe just really hit that mark with me around service. That's. That's that hospitality and service mentality that I always had. And what stuck with me were the quotes of people before profit and reputation, before revenue. And I feel like they cover such a epic way of thinking around that whole dynamic. And they've just also really stuck with me. So those are just two of my faves.
Nathan Bush: That's great. And then those retail and business fundamentals rarely change, no matter how technological advanced we get or how the sales channels change.
Susan Martin: No. And all the trend stuff at the moment, like the personalization and the customization and all of that, that is just a newer way of saying customer service, customer is king. All of that stuff that was ever there before, it's just in a different environment or a different delivery now.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great point. Great point. All right, last one I've got for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is as exciting
Susan Martin: and dynamic as it's ever been.
Nathan Bush: Oh, Susan, I love it.
[Voiceover]: Thank you so much.
Nathan Bush: You've made us excited about merch planning and everything, inventory as well. So we love passion, your enthusiasm and for everything that you shared with us back on the main episode. It's phenomenal.
Susan Martin: No. Fantastic. Thanks, Nathan.
[Voiceover]: To hear more from Susan, jump back into episode 138, where Susan shares what a stock plan and inventory forecast should actually look like from starting out with an Excel document all the way through to a specialized enterprise system. Susan really explains how. How to get this up and running. We also discuss the importance of planning even in uncertain times like we have today, and why all retailers should be looking up to no one else but Con the fruiterer as their inspiration. It'll make sense, I promise. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart it's finally happening. Registrations for E Suite's E Commerce Accelerator program are now open. If you're looking to get into e commerce upskill in e commerce or just want a refresher, we've got you covered. I've taken the lessons from my e commerce career and the insights from all the e commerce leaders I've been lucky enough to speak with here and distilled it into 10 weeks of e Commerce learning. We cover the foundations of e commerce including strategy, marketing, technology, finance, analytics and supply chain. You'll even leave with an official Shopify certificate. Every week I will host a two hour live lesson which will be supported by templates, case studies and resources to accelerate your e commerce career. And because you guys lend me your ears, I'll lend you a discount code. Use the code addtocart all one word to get $200 off your sign up. That's add to cart as the discount code, so don't wait. Class commences on the 14th of March and registration is now open. Head over to learn.esweettalent.com that's learn.esweettalent dot com to secure your place today. See you in there.
