It’s been one of those weeks.

I’ve been tired. There have been challenges to deal with, problems to sort out and a few things that simply haven’t gone to plan.

Even this morning, I walked into two more.

The change we ordered from the bank hadn’t turned up, and one of our mail-order deliveries had either gone missing or been delivered and not collected.

Nothing catastrophic.

But when your batteries are already running low, it’s often the little things that start to chip away at you.

If you run a butcher’s shop, farm shop or any other independent retail business, I’m sure you know the feeling.

Some weeks are just hard work

Running a business isn’t always exciting plans, great sales figures and everything clicking nicely into place.

Sometimes it’s dealing with a delivery that hasn’t arrived.

Sometimes it’s a staffing problem.

Sometimes it’s having a difficult conversation you’ve been putting off.

And sometimes it feels as though you’ve spent the entire week solving problems you didn’t create in the first place.

When you have a week like that, it’s very easy to get to Friday or Saturday and think:

“Well, that was a rubbish week.”

That’s pretty much how I was feeling.

But then I stopped and looked at what we’d actually achieved.

Progress doesn’t always feel like progress

This week we finished the latest edition of Retail Rhythm, our quarterly magazine for members of the Impact Retail Success Club, and sent it off to print.

And I’m really pleased with this one.

We’ve got an article looking at the Disney Factor and what independent retailers can learn from the way Disney thinks about customer experience.

There’s a member spotlight with Nigel Alderson, sharing some of his story and experiences.

We’ve also got 36 Retail Sparks — 12 practical ideas for each of October, November and December — designed to give members things they can actually try in their businesses.

We’ve introduced a new feature called The Leadership Shelf, where I’ll share books I think are genuinely worth reading rather than books that simply look impressive sitting behind you on a Zoom call.

We’re starting with The Fred Factor, which contains some great lessons not only for business owners and managers, but for sharing with your team too.

And we’ve produced a new practical tool around another subject that every business owner eventually has to tackle:

Having difficult conversations with team members.

So, when I actually stopped and thought about it, perhaps it hadn’t been such a bad week after all.

Don’t confuse a difficult week with an unproductive one

That was the reminder I needed this week.

Don’t judge the quality of your week purely by how the week felt.

The two things aren’t necessarily the same.

Some weeks feel brilliant. Sales are good, the team is firing, customers are happy and things seem to fall into place.

Other weeks feel like you’re wading through treacle in wellies.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not making progress.

You might still have made an important decision.

You might finally have dealt with a staffing issue.

You might have launched something new.

You might have improved a system, helped a member of your team or moved an important project forward.

Progress doesn’t always arrive with a fanfare.

Sometimes it happens quietly in the background while you’re busy dealing with all the other stuff that running a business throws at you.

Take five minutes and look backwards

There’s a useful habit here that I think more of us could practise.

At the end of a difficult week, don’t just ask yourself:

“How did this week feel?”

Ask:

“What did we actually achieve?”

The answers might surprise you.

Running an independent retail business is demanding. There will always be problems to solve, people to manage, margins to watch and unexpected things landing on your desk.

That’s part of the job.

But if we only measure our progress by how easy or enjoyable the week felt, we can miss an awful lot of good work.

This week felt tough.

But Retail Rhythm is at the printers.

There are 36 new ideas heading to our members.

We’ve created new tools that will help them run better businesses.

And that sounds like progress to me.

It’s also a good reminder of why I created the Impact Retail Success Club in the first place.

Running a shop can feel lonely, particularly during weeks when everything seems to land at once. Having other ambitious retailers around you to swap ideas with, solve challenges, learn from and keep you moving forward can make a real difference.

If that sounds useful, we’ve got room for a couple more around the virtual table.

If you’d like to join other growth-minded butchers and farm shop owners inside Impact Club, get in touch and let’s have a chat.