When we asked our weary readers for happy retail stories, one of the best responses we received was from Jeffrey Roberts of the European Fashion Group. He runs a Palm Beach, Fla. store called Crease Liberty and distributes the brands Hiltl, Gardeur and van Laack. Here, he has some encouragement for his comrades in the apparel industry. Adjust your goals, says Roberts, and success will breed more success.

Good news, like positive energy, has a tendency to attract more of the same. In an effort to generate good news on an immediate basis, one needs to change the parameters by which one measures. If you are measuring your performance this season against last year’s numbers the news very likely could be deemed bad. You commiserate with other retailers about your numbers only to discover their numbers are bad as well, supporting the age old adage that misery loves company.

If however you were to change your parameters for measuring your progress to something more obtainable than last year’s figures, you might find yourself once again meeting or exceeding your goals which puts you in a good frame of mind and allows you to attract more of the same.

What should those new goals be? Why not start by looking at your minimum fixed overhead, cut out for the moment those expenses that are unnecessary to the day-to-day operation of your business. You may have purchased for spring ’09 more inventory than your sales justify; take mark downs to bring your inventory in line with the new reality of anticipated sales. Talk to your vendors and set up a payment schedule that you both can live with. This will put both parties in a better frame of mind. Analyze vendor profitability and eliminate those vendors that don’t make you money. It doesn’t matter how cool the line is—if it is tying up your cash and not turning, you can’t afford it in times like this. It goes without saying that for fall ’09 you have made the decision not to overbuy, so your payables will most likely be even less than your anticipated sales.

So to summarize, you have adjusted your base sales plan to be enough to meet your fixed expenses, using a conservative maintained margin. You have trimmed your purchases to a level that will allow you to meet your plan. You have made arrangements with your vendors to take care of past due invoices. Any business you do above your base plan is a gain or positive or GOOD NEWS! Because your plan is a bare bones plan, you should in fact be able to meet and exceed your goals. When someone asks how business is you can take a positive approach and answer that you are meeting, even exceeding your revised sales plan. The more you see this happening, the more confident you become, and that confidence is picked up by your employees and your clients. Success breeds success.

Once you see yourself beating your plan you are going to be on the phone or in market looking for more inventory because you will be under-bought, a relatively new phenomenon. Pretty soon the effect of more and more retailers adopting this thinking will lead to more stores needing inventory and when they call the vendors for goods and ask how business is they will hear that it is picking up nicely and maybe the whole thing will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By the way our store in Palm Beach was up 33% in April against last year and is up 41% in the month of May against last year’s full month. At this rate we will exceed May 2008 by double. How did we do it, you ask? An awesome salesperson and a reference to the store in The New York Times. So there is some good news out there.

Jeffrey Roberts can be reached at jeffrey@europeanfashiongroup.com.