ColumnistsSep 23, 2025
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Peter Smith: Why Vendor Success Starts With Self-Reflection
Smith shares the importance of looking at your company with openness and honesty to identify opportunities you may be missing.
Peter Smith is an industry consultant, speaker, sales trainer, and author. He can be reached via email at TheRetailSmiths@gmail.com.
In a recent post of mine on LinkedIn, I used a little sardonic humor in writing, “In breaking news, reports suggest retail stores that execute well this holiday season will do better than those that do not.”
I think most observers understood the humor and sentiment, especially as it was accompanied by one of the most wonderful photographs I’ve ever seen—a woman in a busy ballpark holding a baby in her right hand while catching a baseball in her gloved left hand.
I remember reading about the picture a few years ago and it was, apparently, taken at a minor league baseball stadium.
What’s most interesting to me, however, was not the remarkable catch the woman made while calmly shifting the baby to her right side for protection, but that she brought a baseball glove to the game at all, with the expectation that she might actually have an opportunity to catch a baseball while holding her baby.
It’s not entirely true to say that we get what we expect; sometimes, crazy stuff happens.
Who among us controls the price of gold or the tariffs nonsense?
What is true, however, and the point I was making with my LinkedIn post, was that there is so much we can do to give ourselves every opportunity to be successful in the coming season and beyond.
Related stories will be right here …
I think most observers understood the humor and sentiment, especially as it was accompanied by one of the most wonderful photographs I’ve ever seen—a woman in a busy ballpark holding a baby in her right hand while catching a baseball in her gloved left hand.
I remember reading about the picture a few years ago and it was, apparently, taken at a minor league baseball stadium.
What’s most interesting to me, however, was not the remarkable catch the woman made while calmly shifting the baby to her right side for protection, but that she brought a baseball glove to the game at all, with the expectation that she might actually have an opportunity to catch a baseball while holding her baby.
It’s not entirely true to say that we get what we expect; sometimes, crazy stuff happens.
Who among us controls the price of gold or the tariffs nonsense?
What is true, however, and the point I was making with my LinkedIn post, was that there is so much we can do to give ourselves every opportunity to be successful in the coming season and beyond.
That post has stayed with me in recent days as I thought about the challenges many of my vendor friends are having of late.
Some of the semi-mount companies, of course, continue to enjoy the fruits of the lower total cost of a complete engagement ring, given the preponderance of lab-grown centers, but that is not the case with all vendors.
Many are struggling to keep their heads above water and wondering what the near- and longer-term future holds for them.
Having lived through a couple of significant disruptions in my career, including the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, what has always struck me is how companies seem so often to cede their fate to uncontrollable factors, while dropping balls all over the place inside their own organizations.
Catching a baseball while holding a baby (not advised) is an incredible feat, but being objective about your own performance and your own shortcomings as an organization might be just as difficult.
When I recall the various initiatives I’ve helped create during seemingly desperate times, none of them required remarkable cognitive or creative prowess.
They were, nonetheless, critical decisions and actions that were needed given the times and the circumstances. Needed, but not so obvious.
In one instance, we failed to deliver a ring to our best customer and, as a consequence of that miss, changed our entire program and propelled massive growth.
In another, while lamenting the lack of SKUs that were driving sales performance, we made a change that saw those very same SKUs provide a phenomenal platform to boost sales.
Looking at your own operation requires openness and honesty.
The openness to accept that, however successful you may have been in the past, you might be missing opportunities that others might see, and the honesty to know that you don’t have to have all the answers, and that’s OK.
Sometimes, as the author David Baker once said, it’s hard to see the label when you’re inside the jar.
Happy selling!
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