"I have always thought that furniture and football are quite similar".
Possession of the ball
You have to work so much harder when you have not got the ball. When footfall is up and customers are motivated to spend it's easier to sell furniture. Times are not always like that though and we sometimes have to do a lot of running when we are out of possession to get back hold of the ball.
Logically when sales slow down if instead of being human and letting our heads go down we ran harder and fought harder it stands to reason we would get the ball back earlier than those who do not. When we are going through a barren spell if we planned that advertising campaign, invtested time in improving the showroom, invested in our websites and sought out the best products we would benefit sooner. We've all promised ourselves at some point to invest time and money when we have more time and lost enthusiam when footfall slows. When it picks back up we have all then wished we'd spent the time more wisely when we were quiet.
Goals
In order to score goals we need to be pressing. It's unusual to score goals from your own half. `The best form of defense is attack. In todays digital world we cannot sit back and expect to succeed. FaceBook is now working for more and more furniture stores but a lot of retailers have not realised that one reason is because faceBook is like TV advertising. Facebook recommend 2-3 posts per day. If you put on 60 posts a day and Mrs Smith sees 2 posts and visits your store that's akin to a national retailer putting out 60 TV adverts in a month. The customer only manages to see a couple of TV adverts just before Coronation Street because they don't tune in for Judge Judy.
Facebook Shopping feeds are proven to drive masses of traffic to websites but are unviable to run without software that turns weeks of a job into minutes. Free Google Shopping listings as well can be utilised to drive footfall to your website and then it's a numbers game. Again, with the right techniques this can be done quickly. Extra marketing costs can be "expenditure" or "investment". The right furniture software can save wages and drive sales.
Training
In order to perform better during matches training is vital and it doesn't have to cost you much. Most manufactures will gladly take your team round their facility. Seeing is understanding. Good training instills confidence for the players and gives a sense of feeling prepared for big events.
The Game Is Changing
The game is changing and that tends to catch some teams out. The paper directories went from generating lots of money for furniture stores to almost being obsolete. Online needs to be in everyone's game plan but the journeys from 1999 to today has been a rocky one with many pot holes along the way. A lot of people have wasted a lot of money. The path is starting to become clearer now though.