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This podcast is designed for convenience store managers who are responsible for leading teams, driving performance, and maintaining store standards. Each episode focuses on leadership, accountability, communication, and the systems that keep a store running successfully.
Managing a store requires more than completing tasks. Thrive breaks down how to develop employees, improve execution, manage performance, and create a culture that delivers consistent results.
If you are responsible for a store and want to strengthen your leadership skills while improving operations, this podcast provides practical guidance you can use every day.
T Episode 90 Thrive Resource Intro: Documenting Your Skills
Hello everybody. I'm Mike Hernandez, and this video is specifically for convenience store managers. I spent time as a manager and moved up, but I wanted to share some of these resources that I've made available. They've been around for a while, but not everybody knows about them. One of them is my newsletter called seastorethrive.com, and a couple of things you're going to find. First of all, there's a ton of content on here,
and you come in, you listen to whatever is of interest. Some of it is job specific. Some of it is based on just topics that affect, I think, all positions, right, from sales associate, system manager, manager, district manager, independent owner. So a lot of this may not apply to you. A lot of it may sound like Greek, like, what is this? I don't need to know that. And that's going to be the case, right?
I don't know what you know, what you don't know. So I am laying the foundation. And if it doesn't apply to your position, that doesn't mean you shouldn't know about it. At least that's my belief. Because the more you know about something, the better prepared you are for if and when you promote up, right? You might be an assistant manager. Well, you become a manager, and that's a big transition, a lot of responsibility.
So I've created these different, and I think there's 531 of these. It's a big library, big catalog. And there are no barriers, no restrictions, no walls. Listen to, read whatever you want, whenever you want. Some people prefer to read, but not everybody has the time. And some of these are longer, right? And I'm going to show you, for example, here how to record and reconcile vendor invoices in convenience stores.
You may not have time to read all this. You may. Some people prefer to read. But if you're in the back doing paperwork, right, you can listen here. I've got two languages, English, Spanish, because I've been to different parts of the country, and we have a lot of Spanish speakers, and they're usually restricted to what they can learn in a lot of cases because of language barriers. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't, because the stronger they are, the more developed they are, the better trained they are, the easier your job gets. And a lot of these concepts overlap.
Management in the kitchen is management in the store. It's the same thing. You got to manage people. Invoices, same thing. You've got to be able to manage inventory. So a lot of these topics, while they may not be specific, they are there, and it's easier to listen to. Again, somebody's doing a food inventory, right?
They can be listened to as you're on the way to the bank, you're on the way home, you're coming to work. So I wanted to make it easy. There are 150, 30,000 convenience stores in the US, employees working different shifts, different times. Anybody, anywhere, anytime can come in here and learn something.
Okay? Some of these are going to require an email to access the content.
Now, I'm going to be really clear on what I'm going to tell you. Here's an example. I think this is going to yeah.
So subscribers, all right? I hate newsletters. I hate getting emails. If you look up here, this is one of my email inboxes, 12,811 emails. I don't have time to go through all this, and I'm not going to clutter your inbox with emails. You providing an email when you sign up is only going to give you access. It's not going to get you email.
You log in, you're a member, boom, you get access to this. I haven't done a lot later on these because I've been trying to cover other areas, but I'm in the process of going back, and I have a lot of content that I need to put on here, right, and make it accessible. So there'll be more to come, but there will be times when it's going to require an email, right? That's just the price of admission, right? So hopefully that makes sense. Now, speaking of resources, I need to get the right resource for you guys.
I have while this thing opens up, let me close this real quick. So coming back over here, I started a series called Seastore Legends, and you can see it right there.
Every week, short podcast. And there's one for sales associates called Dive because they're diving in to learn the business. Assistant manager survive. That's the hardest job. If they can survive that, then they're on their way to thriving. You guys are thriving because I want you to be good at your job and not have to worry about every month, month to month, right? You're only as good as your last audit is what we say in the business.
I don't want you to worry about these things. I want you to feel comfortable so that you can thrive and you can have a good work-life balance, have the opportunity to max out your bonuses, things of that nature, right? So one thing I did with this is
I provide a weekly objective, right, like a weekly challenge. And it's kind of the same across all five, right, because I want everybody to be on the same page, your sales associate, your assistant manager, your manager, you, district manager, and even independent owners. If everybody's receiving the same message, then everybody can focus on that the same week. And it's from a different perspective. Sales associate gets it from their perspective. You, as a manager, get it from yours. Assistant manager gets it from theirs, right, and how they would look at something like that.
And so it's going to help everybody get the same message. It's going to help everybody move along, or at least that opportunity is there. Whether they do it or they don't, that's really up to them. But more importantly, right, there are no boundaries again, right? You get to listen to what the district manager would listen to, right? So you know if you have a desire to move up in the world or in your company, whatever the case is, knowing's half the battle, like they say. So it doesn't hurt.
You can listen to that. When I was a district manager, how I wished I could pick a day and take a manager with me the whole day, because that way they see what it is, because, well, my DM's supposed to be here. I'm waiting for him. And
people make assumptions, and they don't really understand, right? And I'm sure it's the same with you, right, your assistant managers. What does my manager do? Just sit in the back office all day, right?
They don't know. And so that's the whole point of this, right? You can get different perspectives, right? So that's what this is. If you're an owner, if you're a district manager, why wouldn't you want your employees on something like this, right? I'm kind of doing this so that you don't have to. Now, your policy, company policy, that supersedes everything, right?
This is supplemental, kind of like AFLEC, right? Supplemental training. So now let's go to the resource. And so on these Legends podcasts, I send a code word. Hey, text me this code word if you want a resource. I have a certain resource. If you want it, text me the code word.
Again, going back to my email, I don't have time. I'm not going to be texting, and I'm one person trying to do all this, right? And so you text me, I send you the resource, you work on it. And here's what it's going to look like, right?
You're going to get something like this. You're going to fill it out. You're the store manager, right? You're going to check these things off. But you're also going to put in here, right, what was your total credit recovery this week? So aside from reading something or actually in the podcast listening to something, now my goal is to get the skill to transfer, right? So it's something tangible and output, something that's going to make you more valuable, better at your job, more valuable for yourself and to your company.
And at a time, if a promotion opportunity comes available, you're going to know your business. And more importantly, you're going to have proof of work. And that's why I take this route.
I'm the DM. I come talk to you about something, or the operations manager, division manager, whatever it is in your organization, come interview you. Man, you're going to know a lot of stuff. And more importantly, you're going to have the portfolio there to prove that you know this, that you did this, right? You're going to have the work. If you want to take it a step further, and this is actually what I do have in mind, is you, at some point in the future, you get this. One, I'm keeping track of what you have, what you don't have.
But this is going to turn into a certification, an industry certification, so that if you go apply for a job somewhere else, one, you're going to do a great job with the interview because you're going to know this stuff. But two, you pull out your portfolio or your certification and think about somebody else who's applying for the job. They're not going to have that. So when I was a district manager and even a manager, I'd always put my hands out and I'd say, "Look, if I tell you there's a $20 bill in my hand and you clearly see that it's not, say, Mike, you're full of it." But I'm never going to do that. If I don't have a $20 bill in my hand, I'm not going to reach it out to you and say, "Here's a $20 bill." It's obviously not there, right?
This is the same thing. I'm giving you something tangible, something you can see, right? And so eventually, like I said, it gets submitted and I keep track so you don't have to, and then you complete it, and then boom. I don't need a lot of personal information. I just need this. And as we go along, you'll see, right?
Let's start off. Text me. This is what you're going to get, right? And again, I'm not going to be texting back. I don't have time. I'm not going to do anything with your numbers or your information at all, right? First name is all I need if you want me to give you a shout-out on the next podcast.
And so I hope this makes sense, right? So now we're going to come over here. We have Thrive. These are the podcasts. There's 87 episodes. I feel like this is the position that needs it the most, based on my experience, because you're overwhelmed. There's so much going on.
And I hate learning curves. So the sooner you speed up, the sooner you're aware of these things, the sooner you can start implementing things, and that's going to help you stabilize. I've seen a lot of managers working 70 hours a week, right? Listen to these, and that's going to help you. This group right here, your assistant managers, they have the most downloads more than everybody else. District managers are second, right? So think about that.
You should be listening. But if you want to hear, you want a refresher for some of these things, maybe you forget, you can listen to whichever ones you want. You want to know what it's going to be like in the future? If you're a DM, listen to that. What your boss, the owner, might think, what they might have to worry about, what they struggle with, what they should be thinking about, right? All these things are all different pieces of the puzzle. They give you a broader perspective, a better understanding of the business, which, again, you may not need those right now, but that's going to help you.
That's going to help speed up your development. So give these a listen. And they'll get better, I think, over time, like anything else. The more we do something, the better we get. I have so much more to go, so much more to bring you guys, but this is already here. And so I want you to check it out, take a listen, share with your employees. Again, it would baffle.
I did this primarily for district managers, right? And I know how store managers are overwhelmed, but I did it for the district managers because I would sit in meetings, tell you about your staffing, "Where are you short? What are we doing? Who's going to fill the gaps?
Blah, blah, blah. No bench strength.
We
call it I forget the name right now. It just gets
my mind just went blank. But succession planning, that's what it is, right? And so this kind of helps you with all those things because you can see your assistant manager. If they're going through and they're texting and they're getting the whatever the form, then you're signing off on it so you know they're doing the work. Same thing with you, right? Why wouldn't you? It's your portfolio.
So come in here, listen to these things. If there's a topic that you want me to cover, if there's a question that you have here on YouTube or through any of these things, email me at admin@seastorecenter.com. I don't always have time for comments and stuff like that, but if you email me, I know you're serious. That's like your skin in the game, right? I can reply, and I can take suggestions or whatever the case is and try to get to them when I can, right? Because if you have a question, other people do. And in that sense, you're contributing to the development of others as well, right?
It doesn't have to be limited to just the people within those four walls of your store. So it's an opportunity for you as well. And with that, I think I'm going to stop this. I hope this makes sense, and I hope that I see you subscribe because that helps it get out to more people, right?
And again, 153,000 commuters of the United States. Theoretically, there should be 153,000 store managers. We know that's not the case. Think about your company, your organization, whatever it is. There's always somebody that's down a manager. Same with the assistant managers. Theoretically, there should be 153,000, but there always aren't.
I've been in districts that didn't have them. One district only had two, and there were 11 stores. So think about that, right? Share this, develop people, help them. There's a need. I know there is. I just need you to
take advantage of this. And I always told people, "The moment that you realize " and I mean people, my employees, assistant managers, managers, anybody who worked for me or with me, "The moment you realize I'm here to help you, that's the moment your whole projection changes, right? Things are going to get a lot easier. I'm here to support you. I'm here to help you. I want you to be successful." And the minute you start understanding that and you believe it, it's going to take some time.
But once you start believing it, right? Proof, right? I have a phone in my hand, right?
I'm not lying. Once you understand that, I'm never going to say, "Hey, I have a phone in my hand," and lie to you, then you're going to be you're going to see your progression just rapidly improve, your situation. So talk to you next time. I got to go do one for the district managers now.