The Storyboard Store in Your Future: Always Learning

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Learning must be endless. Nobody knows everything. Even after a decade of owning a store, I’m still learning to improve the business. I recently learned that our backlit versions and comics rated on our wall would have sold better over the years if we had included a brief description that was big enough for people to read along with the price from a distance. We just started doing it this year and it helped a lot with sales; Customer feedback has been great.

What else did you learn? Want to sell products to children? Make sure children can see and touch the product. It seems simple. Children, especially younger ones, are young. You have walked into comic stores and seen children’s comics displayed so high that a child would never be able to touch them and would need to be several feet away from the comics just to see them. Our bottom shelf is for children’s comics and books. Kids love being able to watch comics. They are enthusiastic, and parents are often happy to pay their children cartoons to help them read.

an experience. Failure occurs. do not worry. What works and improves a business is learned by trying new things. I did a podcast last year with Zenescope just using my phone. I was way out of my comfort zone. When I made advertisements for TV, I would be asked Don’t you want to be in the advertisement? I would say no, this is about the store, not me. I was nervous in the podcast. We closed, and I went out to review the store car for the podcast and went back inside. I didn’t lock the door, I thought it would look weird, so of course a charge came up and someone walked in while I was doing the livestream. things happened; I was told by several people that I did a good job; Now, if they’re nice, who knows? Regardless, I was glad I did. A lot of companies sell products through podcasts, and this is something we should try. Why didn’t we? Time, not enough time in the day.

No matter what, not everyone will love you or your store. The more the customer base grows, the more people the company deals with, and the more people decide that they don’t like you or your store for any reason. I just keep trying, and I am glad we currently have such a good and solid customer base. Focus on those who spend money on your business. Those who leave bad reviews may have never liked the store no matter what. The store is very big, it is very small. The owner’s eyes are blue. Who do you know? Focus on those who actually care about the work. Our last sales day on July 16th was a zoo. It was crazy. I foolishly went over the counter and almost fell because of so many people that I couldn’t get out of the counter. My body told me it wasn’t a good idea because I almost fell. We almost broke our sales number that day. So close, again! The next morning, I woke up to review what worked and started preparing for our next sale. For now, it looks like we’ll get it on October 1, a Saturday, and it will celebrate the twelve years of Rodman Comics. It makes me feel old, and proud despite getting older.

Give people a reason to stop. We offer free bags and free meals for every new comic book purchased to add value to your shopping with us. I try to greet everyone who comes and let them know if they need help letting us know. I ask my employees to do the same. Some people like it and some don’t. People love to talk. Listening is important. Remembering what people say is also important. Showing that one remembers discussions shows interest and makes people feel better. Talked to someone after the last sale, he said something I liked as a shopkeeper. He said Rodman Comics is like comic store cheers. You go there, and everyone knows your name. I, of course, loved him. Am I good at remembering everything? My office staff annoys me, sometimes, I don’t remember a name even though I remember everything they buy in the store and what they have on their checkout lists or every conversation I have with them. Strange, I know. I should have joked to the customer after comparing the store to cheers He said: What is your name?

I love comics, writing and artwork which I enjoy. My only regret is that I don’t have more time to track down the comics from my youth. I hope people find out that I’ve been collecting comics for a while and enjoy the comics and find this cool and something to connect with.

Learn to adapt. Things will change; Change is out of anyone’s hands. The work has increased over the years due to no fault of my own. You just received a notification that your state sales tax now has to be paid monthly instead of quarterly. This will just be something new to get used to. We are now ordering comics through Lunar, Penguin and Diamond instead of just Diamond. Diamond has been the only comic seller where we can buy comics for years. This has been the case for more than twenty years for the comic stores. People ask me why I’m dealing with three comic sellers. DC Comics Just Through the Moon. Penguin For Us Get the best Marvel Comics price and free shipping. Diamond is still exclusive to a lot of publishers outside of DC and Marvel. Three different sellers with three different ordering locations. More paperwork for us, too.

The Storyboard Store in Your Future: Learning
Learning at Rodman Comics. Jean Christian’s photo.

Know what your customers want. Matching customers to the comics they love is difficult. There are so many comics popping up that I fail to keep up with all of them. Just last week, I read Marvel’s Variables Address to see what it’s all about. Featuring Jessica Jones. One of our customers is a Jessica Jones fan and wasn’t getting it, so I made sure to tell her it was from Jessica, and she chose the 1st and 2nd editions. Knowing what writers, artists, and characters enjoy is helpful for leading people to new cartoons that can lead to more sales.

Deal with expectations. As they say, one has only one chance to make a good first impression. I know over the years, I sometimes fail to make a good first impression. A lady once came and ordered two comics the day before wednesday when we were supposed to sell out. I screwed up and thought, cool, secret shopper and he was less than ok. She wasn’t a mystery shopper, she was new to comics, and she’s been a regular customer for years. Fortunately, it didn’t spoil my reaction to her reading her as a secret shopper. To this day, I keep thinking, should I talk about it? Will you even remember? I try to make a good impression. People have expectations about what they expect and think they deserve. Everyone is different; Some people are very sane. Some feel entitled to have it all, and no matter what we do, it will never be enough. Does that mean I make a great first impression when someone comes along? No, unfortunately, I am human. Sometimes I get bad news while I’m in the store. By bad news, I mean very bad news like the death of a friend or family member. I probably felt good when I came to work, and like many people, I unexpectedly got a severe headache or something while at work. It happens to everyone.

People often like to file and post a complaint online about what they feel is insulting to them. Over the years, online reviews seem to have at least subsided. Currently, I rarely read online reviews about the store. It is, for me, a time drainer when I should be doing something more important. A customer sent me an email with the various store reviews, which I’ve already read. One reviewer said I was “crazy,” and the other was that we were going to destroy the comics market, which is very exciting. If Rodman Comics can destroy the comics market, I don’t see how. Someone posted we sell comics before their release date. No, the good thing when pictured shipments arrive early is that we can show customers the assorted covers for the same issue, and they can just tell us which cover they want us to keep for them in their checkout box. The moon often appears very early. Penguin appears with Marvel early on, too, but not as much as Lunar. Diamond? Well, they still like to cut it close and be on Tuesday and make us sweat so much that they might be late. It could also be because Diamond is now getting Marvel Comics through Penguin. Many customers appreciate the choice of the cover they want for themselves. I told the person before he left that we don’t sell early in front of our customers, and after they left, apparently, they thought I was lying and left a review claiming we sell early. It’s the way things go.

I remember the goals of the store and why I opened the store. Obviously money is a factor in opening a business. People work to earn money. Over the years, I’ve learned that my time means as much as everyone else is working. Meaning the free games, which we did when we first opened were a terrible use of time. Shift our focus to people who spend money here rather than people who spend time hanging out for free. I have many reasons to open the store. One was to get the children to read and immerse themselves in the comics. Over the years, there have been parents who have been thrilled that their children started reading comics and got better at reading. At school, they became more focused and less resistant to reading. Reading comics made reading fun for them and less like work.

In a move, that might be considered bad business. I have a few things in store that remind me why I’m doing this. The comic book hanging on the wall is a copy of a book I read when I was a kid. Signed stickers by Jeff John And the You are Lucia with the card from Steve Lieber It all hangs here to remind me of the wonderful people in the industry. This is what I call mental fuel.

Accept failure. Sometimes new ideas don’t work. that happens. The trying is the important part. In my early years as a shopkeeper, there was a point where I realized this might not work. Wounded like hell who said it was all in my head. Meaning I was worried and thought that if I failed, it would reflect on me. Like I’m a bad person or something. No, many people have opened a business and had to close. This does not make them a bad person or a failure. Forces occur beyond anyone’s control. As I mentioned before, if Covid had hit me in my early years, the opening odds would have passed. We simply didn’t have a client base back then as we do now. People were worried about the store when we closed. We did the sidewalk, and I sold some art in the shop for a discount for the money. We had clients flock to the store that we didn’t have during the first few years of our business. I told people not to get gift certificates from us if we didn’t reopen the door. They were surprised; They did the curb and bought directly from us.

I am writing this to remind myself of the reasons why I own a comic store and I hope people learn from sharing these columns. What else have you learned in all these years as a shopkeeper? I am one of the lucky sons of Venice.

The Storyboard Store in Your Future: Learning
Nobody ever knows what they could go on in Rodman Comics! All images for this article were written by Jean Christians.

Posted in: Cartoons | Teacher: Comic shop, comics

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