4 Stages of Competence and Game Stores

Psychology includes an explanation of understanding referred to as the four stages of competence, formally summarized by Gordon Training International in the 70s. Summarized, they are: Unconscious incompetence A person does not know how to do something, and does not recognize their lack of knowledge. They will make mistakes they do not recognize as mistakes, …

Why your store should have a custom email address

Like it or not, the game industry suffers from an image problem. It doesn’t take much to fix your email. Here’s why you should. Credibility You have a home repair project, so you search locally and find 2 plumbing companies. One has an email address called “Bob@BobsPlumbing.com” and the other is “JoePlumber14565@yahoo.com.” Given no other …

The most important 3% of your budget

Marketing, real marketing, is the single most important part of your budget in a game store. I’m not talking “oops I ran that event below cost let’s write it off as marketing” screw ups, I’m talking about genuine “get people in your door and excited” marketing. If you read around the game industry, and retail …

The Competition: Working side by side

I see a lot of store owners sweating their competitors. Mostly the ones who apparently operate without business sense or an infinite advertising budget. Or a trust fund. There’s lots of those, in every industry, but far more important is to recognize the good, healthy competitors you have and work with them. Aren’t your competitors …

So you want to be a Game Store owner? PART 3

HOW TO SHOUT IT OUT? This is part of a series of articles written by James Mathe on his old website. I have brought select articles over here, for reasons that are mostly personal. All author credit remains with James Mathe’s estate. He is credited here as a guest author. Advertising – Yes, you need to do it. …

So you want to be a Game Store owner? PART 2

HOW TO DO IT? This is part of a series of articles written by James Mathe on his old website. I have brought select articles over here, for reasons that are mostly personal. All author credit remains with James Mathe’s estate. He is credited here as a guest author. Timeline – Create a timeline to open. Use it …

So you want to be a Game Store owner? PART 1

This is part of a series of articles written by James Mathe on his old website. I have brought select articles over here, for reasons that are mostly personal. All author credit remains with James Mathe’s estate. He is credited here as a guest author. I own 3 game stores in the Milwaukee (Game Universe) area and …