Veteran retailer April Sabral is back on the podcast, telling us about her new second book, "Incurable Positivity," and talking about her seven-step process, which can be completed in just seven days, and also shares her advice for retailers as they work to bring new people into the business and, importantly, keep their talent engaged and loyal.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host, I believe in the power of storytelling to bring the retail industry to life. I'll bring insights, perspectives and experiences from some of the retail industry's most innovative and influential voices each week. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Veteran retailer April Sabral is back on the podcast to tell us about her new second book, "Incurable Positivity." She talks about her seven-step process, which can be completed in just seven days and then practiced for a lifetime, to generate better physical and emotional health, proven benefits to your physical well-being, attract the people, resources and opportunities you desire, and create more happiness, mindfulness, and contentment. April also shares her advice for retailers as they work to bring new people into the business and, importantly, keep their talent engaged and loyal.
About April
April Sabral served as a senior executive and has worked in retail for over 30 years, leading sales and operations teams on three continents, including the UK, USA, and CANADA working for brands such as; Paul Smith, Apple, Starbucks, Gap, Banana Republic, Holt Renfrew, Laura Canada, Armani Exchange, and DAVIDsTEA. Working her way up after being kicked out of home at 17 from a PT sales job to a Senior Vice President of 300 stores. April put the name on the cup back in 2000 as a Starbucks Manager, she has always created positive change that rippled throughout organizations which she attributes to her success.
In 2018, April decided to take all of her expertise and experience and founded retailu.ca an online on-demand leadership development portal for field leaders. retailu develops leadership competencies through micro-sized learning modules and practical activities that store teams can integrate into their week to develop the necessary skills for leading people. Read reviews HERE.
She then went on to study and achieved multiple coaching certifications, such as John C. Maxwell, The World Association of business coaching, and is now a member of the Forbes coaching council. She was named one of the emerging leaders to look out for in the Marques Who's Who directory in 2019.
Following this April wrote her first book and launched April Sabral leadership, introducing leadership tools such as self-coaching cards and a self-development workbook to accompany her book 'The Positive Effect". April now coaches, speaks and facilitates sessions on leadership, specifically the power of positive leadership. In 2023 April was named one of the top retail influencers by RETHINK retail in 2022 and 2023, a global media organization and is often asked for her perspective on retail stores, trends and the power of leadership.
Aprils current clients include Jimmy Choo, L'Oreal, Victoria Secrets to name a few.April is currently studying her bachelors in Metaphysics with the University of Sedona.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael Leblanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:13
Veteran retailer, April Sabral was back on the podcast to tell us all about her second book Incurable Positivity. She talks about her seven-step process which can be completed in just seven days and then practiced for a lifetime to generate better physical and emotional health proven benefits to your physical well-being. Track the people resources and opportunities you desire and create more happiness, mindfulness and contentment. April also shares her advice for retailers as they work to bring in new people into the business and importantly, keep their talent engaged and loyal. Let's listen in now.
Michael LeBlanc 00:45
April Sabral, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. Welcome back. I should say how are you?
April Sabral 00:51
I'm doing amazing. Thank you for having me, Michael. It's always a pleasure talking to you.
Michael LeBlanc 00:55
Well, it's wonderful to have you back on the pod, fellow retail influencer Canadian now in, coming to me live from Lisbon a city I love and what do you do in there, what do you, let's start there, what do you, what do you doing in Portugal?
April Sabral 01:10
I'm just taking a break. I just launched a new book.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Nice, nice. What brought, what brought you to Europe, what, what were you doing, like you're not taking a break down the, you know,
April Sabral 01:21
No, yeah. I came.
Michael LeBlanc 01:23
You're a world traveler, but you know, taking a break in Lisbon is not the, it's not like taking, you're taking the day off. What do you, what are you doing in Europe?
April Sabral 01:30
So, I came over to Paris with Fashion Innovation, which is a media platform that brings technology and sustainable brands together in the fashion industry and so they were doing a tour. It's called their Paris Mission. They're doing it in different cities now. So, I came along on that, and held a workshop on positive leadership with all the groups that were together. So, some of them were founders and brands. Some of them are for tech companies. So, you know, I was here and I was like, Well, I'm already in Europe, I might as well just go around a bit. So that's what I initially came over here, and it was super fun.
Michael LeBlanc 02:04
Yeah, fantastic. Now I've seen you, I think most often from, from Florida, for example but I don't know if that's a COVID thing, or where are you based now? You and I, of course met here in Toronto, but where do you spend where you hang your hat.
April Sabral 02:19
I am based now in Hoboken, New Jersey, just outside of New York City. I've been there for about a year and a half.
Michael LeBlanc 02:24
You got a new book out and you know, what a great accomplishment. I wanted to get you on the mic and have you tell us all about its racing up the charts but for those who, I don't know, the few who may not know you or know enough about you or heard our earlier conversation, tell us a bit about your background and what you do for a living.
April Sabral 02:43
Yeah, I have been in retail sales and operations running stores for the past three decades, up until about six years ago and I worked my way up, I got a job in a store at 17 got kicked out of home and got a part time sales gig and just stuck with it and became a Senior Vice President of 250 stores for David's Tea in Canada and in between all of that I moved from the UK to the US to Canada and I worked for brands like Apple, Starbucks, Banana Republic, Holt, Renfrew, Laura Canada, a few more and always been in the store side and then decided to build retail you so I founded retail u which is online on demand leadership training platform for retail store managers and district managers.
April Sabral 03:29
And while doing that wrote a book called the Positive Effect and that was my first book and so that, then founded aprilsabral.com, which is leadership coaching because that is my passion. I've been doing that; well, I was building store teams my whole life and now I am actually getting trained to go into store manager conferences. So, I'm building a training team now to train the book, the first book, the Positive Effect. We turned it into a workshop and so this year, we have trained L'Oreal in LA. We are training Victoria's Secret International in April and Jimmy Choo at their managers conference in April too.
April Sabral 04:06
So this is really exciting because to now see, I know I have a new book but I'll get to this, but to see the Positive Effect leadership methodology act, which I have been practicing my whole life and building positive teams, positive cultures, and therefore positive customer experiences and results to now see that go into a workshop and be able to you know, impart that knowledge and see these managers like eat it up and now companies ready for this positive leadership. It's just a dream come true so I'm really excited about this more than anything because you know, it's not just doing it with one organization now it's doing it with many which are actually getting it so I love it.
Michael LeBlanc 04:43
Yeah, fantastic. Now when somebody when you walk into you walk into a coffee shop in Lisbon and somebody says hey, what do you do for a living like what's what's the elevator version of that because you, you're such a, you're a renaissance individual, how do you sum it up, but how do you think of yourself as a, you know, not as a retailer, I guess anymore, but what, how would you describe yourself?
April Sabral 05:02
I would say I'm a leadership coach. I help retailers train and develop their managers to be positive coaches so that they can have positive results through workshops, through on demand courses.
Michael LeBlanc 05:14
Fantastic. Alright. So as we hinted, you released a second book, Incurable Positivity: Seven Steps to Shift from Negative to Positive in Seven Days, and you tell me, it's racing up the charts. I checked it out on Amazon, and for sure it's, it's ranking high. Let's start at the beginning. You've mentioned your first book and the reaction to it. What compelled you to write the second book,
April Sabral 05:37
As I started to train out the first book, to organizations at the beginning of last year, through a workshop through one on one coaching, the second pillar in the first leadership methodology is called 'Create' so the, the method is called 'Act, Accept, Create, Teach' and 'Create' is the second pillar and in that second pillar, I go into very lightly positive thinking and what your positive thinking does to your results, basically, what you think about comes about, and we talk about beliefs, we talk about negative thinking, the impact of that on your business on your people and so every time I would train that out, people would ask me more about that because I'm a very positive person.
April Sabral 06:24
Most people say that they interact with me, and then they just keep asking me about that all the time and so I guess, because we've been through a traumatic collective experience in the last few years, and retail got hit really, really hard, you know, from the people side of the business and we can talk about that later. But people just kept asking me like more about that and when I talk about it, and then like, 'how do you maintain your positivity, because you seem really positive all the time' and so I started to realize very quickly, that positivity is a skill, and it's something that I practice, because actually, I'm not just a naturally positive person, I'm a naturally optimistic person but positivity is like a skill, like communicating, managing conflict. It's something that I practice every day, in my life and so I went through, you know, some emotional stuff personally last year and had to kind of dig deep and bring up those practices of being positive every day even more so and so
Michael LeBlanc 07:25
It's like an affirmation for you. When you, do you start the day, I guess I'm tapping into your wisdom here. Do you start today with something like an affirmation, do you do just when negative thoughts kind of start to creep in, you kind of push them out with, with positive vibes like, talk a little bit about that?
April Sabral 07:41
Yeah, I do so, negative thinking. I mean, we all have it, we have 6000 thoughts a day, I talked about this in the book, and 80% of them are negative, because we are just programmed that way, self-doubt, whatever it is, and I go into detail in that but there is things that I do, like I said to like practice a skill and so it is literally in the morning, when I wake up, I do a meditation, I do positive programming, which is listening to affirmations and headsets, like positive thoughts that I need to hear and I do writing a journal gratitude, like lots of things that people talk about, like this is not new information, right, like the self-help gurus talk about it.
April Sabral 08:22
But if you're like, it's always like, be more practical, like how so when you're getting enrolled in a negative conversation with somebody, how do you avoid that conversation because you can, and what do you do with it in that moment, and I think I really learned this in retail because retail is a sales’ driven business. When you're running stores, you're only as good as yesterday's sales and so today, when you wake up, and you look at that company and you're like, 'Oh, my God, like it's not good, how do I get everybody motivated and get everybody positive, and like, keep them like "Today's a new day, we can do it" kind of thing'. And everybody that works in sales and operations will relate to that, because so, so literally, this is what I've practiced for a very long time and so I put it all in seven steps to make it very practical.
Michael LeBlanc 09:06
Tell me about the tradecraft of writing the book. So, I've talked, I've talked to a lot of authors, and some authors really kind of envision the whole book and then just race to scribble it down. Some kind of, you know, really have to work hard at it writing words a day, how did you approach writing the book, the tradecraft of being an author, it's your second book, so you're, you're a little familiar, more familiar with at least the process, but talk about your own personal process.
April Sabral 09:31
Yeah, I just, it just became this one, because it's a very short book, it's 100 pages. The other one was like 220. So, if it's a short page, you want to keep it under a certain word count, because I want to make it so you can pick it up, put it in your pocket, take it with you and use it every day, like a practical workbook. I just literally sat down and wrote down the seven steps of like, how do I actually maintain this positivity and this positive thinking and just started to expand it. I have a co- like an editor, publisher, and you who wrote the first book with me, who actually approached me to write a series on the Positive Effects, so that is coming.
April Sabral 10:06
But I said to her, no, before we do that, I have to get this out. Like, I feel compelled. So, you just started writing it and for me, it's just natural, Michael, it's just what's on my heart and when you read the books, everybody says, like, they feel like they're having a conversation with me, because it really is just me, you know, writing down what my thoughts are and sharing them and I've always been a coach and an educator. So, when I write, I write to educate and teach, so I've just got better at writing over the past couple years, but this one, this one just came out in 30, 45 days, I literally wrote it
Michael LeBlanc 10:40
Oh, wow.
April Sabral 10:40
Yes, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 10:42
Like, you're like a rock star, just like the music kitchen. You just had to get it down on paper, right, just the race to get it down on paper. You start the book with a very interesting dedication, tell me about it?
April Sabral 10:55
The dedication, yeah. Well, I've been through a lot in my life and I always look at everything as a lesson learned and I'm really grateful for every experience and so when I look at my life at this point, and I've got a lot more to live, is just to be grateful for every experience I've had, and that has taught me something and, you know, that's taught me to be really positive.
April Sabral 11:18
So, the dedication is dedicated to all of those people. I've had obstacles within my life and have caused some challenges because I think that's, again, me demonstrating positive thinking and when I've had challenges with people, I actually say that, you know, thank you, like, I've learned something from this and I think that in itself, creates more positive things, more positive people towards you, more positivity in your life, you know, instead of getting stuck there in the negative.
Michael LeBlanc 11:46
Walk us through the book. So, you've already given us many, many hints about the length and the focus and I guess the seven steps and seven days gives us an idea of the structure, but to give us a, give us a hint, give the listeners a hint about the book and tell us a bit more.
April Sabral 12:01
Yeah, so the seven chapters, each chapter is very short. It's very brief and at the end of every chapter, there is a self-reflection questions because I'm a coach naturally. So, I'm always going to ask thought provoking questions and so you can journal that out and then there's a call to action. Again, like I want to make this very practical, not theory based. So that,
Michael LeBlanc 12:22
Give me an, give me an example, give listeners an example of one of your thought-provoking questions.
April Sabral 12:26
Yeah. So like, if I look at the 'Be Committed', which is the first chapter, which people that did the pre read, they were like, how can 'Be Committed' be the first chapter of a positive book.
Michael LeBlanc 12:36
You're starting it off in a high place, you're getting right in.
April Sabral 12:39
It's kind of like, well, if you're not committed to having a positive mindset, you might as well put the book down now, because I can't help you literally.
Michael LeBlanc 12:46
Be committed, you gotta finish this book, it's, you know, start here, but finish the book.
April Sabral 12:50
We do it because we break commitments to ourselves all the time and then that kills our self-esteem and then we start like being upon ourselves, which is a negative thought process. So, you have to be committed, right, but one of the self-reflection questions is, in the 'Be Committed' chapter is, the first one is what commitments have you made to yourself that you have not followed through on yet, that's a thought provoking question, right, you'd be like, I mean, think about that and then what doubts do you have about your current commitments because a lot of times we over commit to things,
Michael LeBlanc 13:20
Yeah.
April Sabral 13:21
And especially in retail sales and operations?
Michael LeBlanc 13:23
It's hard to say no, sometimes, right, I mean,
April Sabral 13:26
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 13:26
I mean, that's the, I guess that's the wager or the, the, the challenge of being a positive person is you always want to say yes because you always want to be there for people and you're just pausing. Yeah, yeah, I can do that. It's, but that can get you into a bit of trouble, right?
April Sabral 13:40
Well, yeah because what you actually do when you do that is you break agreements with people and a lot of times what I talk about in the book is you keep agreements with other people, but you actually break them to yourself but when you do that, you're actually then living in this internal mental negative place because again, you're killing yourself esteem every time you do that and that's not what people see externally, right, like, people think, 'Oh, you're so positive, you've got all this success to do that', whatever is,
Michael LeBlanc 14:05
Do it at all, you're doing it all, take it all on kind of person,
April Sabral 14:08
Especially if you're an overachiever, which I'm definitely an overachiever in my life, and I know a lot of other leaders that are that way are just people. So, I think you have to kind of really reflect on that because if your commitment is your word, your word is worth a million dollars, what would you actually commit to today and what would you follow through on that you haven't yet.
Michael LeBlanc 14:29
And so, seven chapters that goes through there, and that's a great, a great framework. Now. I can't miss the opportunity to have somebody with your background and, and skills and lifetime and retail on the mic and just start sharing the kind of wisdom for listeners. We've touched on it before retailers are telling me every day that if the supply chain was their biggest problem during the COVID era right now, it's people, people were never easy. I mean, it was never easy to hire the right people and keep the right people but now it's, it's, it's worse than it ever has been, and you know, given the demographics, retirement and all those other things, it's, it's not a short term issue. So, you know, what do you, what are your tips from both your experience in the work you do and what your clients ask you, what are your tips for finding the right people and then importantly, keeping them what's, what are some of the most important things that you've got to do?
April Sabral 15:21
I think it's the same as it has been before. I just think people have less tolerance for accepting poor leadership now. So, I'd say three things, I think you have to look at your people, who is your leadership, because you can count on great leaders will recruit great people, because people want to work for great leaders, great people want to work for great leaders. So that's number one, look at your people look at the way that they are developing look at the way that they're doing their recruitment, their networking, because, you know, I had a contract last year with a retailer Canadian retailer in New York, and we hired 217 People in the height of the COVID spike through Christmas. Right. And that was because why, because was it just me, no, it wasn't me, it was the leaders that were there, and how we got them excited and what we were doing with them to do and to attract talent. So,
Michael LeBlanc 16:09
I mean, retailers are telling me that, you know, they're just people, people aren't even showing up for the interviews they sign up for and then not even showing up for the, for the job. Some of that's beyond your control certainly is, are you, are you hearing the same things and-
April Sabral 16:21
Well, the other two steps I would say is look at your pay scale. I'm a big advocate for paying people, right, like people are not going to come and work for the minimum wage when they get can get a job at Starbucks for more money because there was a survey done in New York, where they surveyed a mass amount of young people saying Where would they want to work if they were going to go and get their first part time job and Starbucks came up as number one because of schooling, because of the pay structure because of the benefits structure. Retail was number four and hospitality, hospitality was right down the line.
April Sabral 16:54
So, I think you have to look at your pay structures now and figure that out, because people want to get paid, right, like people from the side hustles. Now they can make money through other brands, like Poshmark, selling their closet, or Teespring, making their own brands. So if you want to attract people, you've got to compensate them really well and then processes, I think processes and practices in stores. Through the pandemic, everybody had to shift to figure out how to ship from store, right, like, if you were not there already, which some retailers had done that really well, but some had not. So, then they had to figure it out.
April Sabral 17:31
And if they put all of that operational practices on the store teams very manually, well, now you've just added a whole load of workload and complexity, and people are tired and so your processes and your practices really matter, which means get the right technology, like make sure that you're shipping from store is speaking to the other systems, and you're not having people you know, print something out, you know, on a hand, handmade like document and then taping it up and then, no, get them the right printers with the right stickers that can you know, make it seamless. So, I think those three things’ people pay in processes and I think they've always been that Michael, but I feel like within those three buckets, there is things that are shifted and changed and that's what needs to be looked at.
Michael LeBlanc 18:19
Yeah, I hear, I hear those, those are great foundational elements, I hear things like the benefits, the mix of benefits, but also hear consistency, because that's always been a knock or not always been a knock but can be a knock from the retail employees that like, the pay is great, but I'm not getting the hours I need and as you know, the operator sometimes say listen, I got it down, up, down or sideways, the workload or the workforce in the store to make the budget, how do you are you experiencing that or is, is that a big advantage, these consistency in the employees lives?
April Sabral 18:53
100%, but where does that consistency come from, It comes from having a great leader and a great manager of that store. I mean, running stores for as long as I did and as many stores as I did. I can tell you when I walked into a store, if the manager was operationally sound, well trained, a good leader, knew how to communicate knew how to write a schedule, knew how to delegate, you know, all of those things that go into being a positive leader, and a positive coach, and not like bringing their stress and their anxiety on to their team. I mean, they're human people. So, they are going to do that.
April Sabral 19:26
But that's another reason why this book is so important because this teaches you how to manage your own negativity, your own challenges and to be more positive because when you do, do that, you will create more of that in the team that you lead and you will, then, they will feel it and your customers will feel it and people will stay because people always leave because of their boss.
April Sabral 19:49
Yeah, always like, I have conversations with people all day. 'I'm resigning. I can't take it anymore. I'm gonna go get another job'. 'Why?', 'Because my boss just doesn't listen to me. They're not developing me. They're not giving me the resources. Some tools do my job well’, that's it. So, you know, training your leaders, your store managers now, I think is non-negotiable and don't take it for granted that they know how to do it. There's a lot of new leaders now there was a lot of people that exited but there are a lot of people that got promoted like literally keyholders assistant managers that became store managers overnight, just because they had to.
Michael LeBlanc 20:22
Sure,
April Sabral 20:22
Though, what have we done to support them, right, that's where 'RetailU' is really important as well, the online on demand training, because it really supports them to develop those skills.
Michael LeBlanc 20:29
The book is Incurable Positivity: Seven Steps to Shift from Negative to Positive in Seven Days. April, where can folks buy your book?
April Sabral 20:37
They can buy it on Amazon and download it on Kindle and it will be in audio next week.
Michael LeBlanc 20:45
Oh, that's exciting. Now, where can people get in touch, if they want to get in touch with you, are you a LinkedIn person, go to your website. Tell us about that.
Michael LeBlanc 20:52
Yeah, go to my website, actually. There's a schedule time with me, it's a free 15-minute call. If you want to talk more about, you're looking for help, you can schedule a time it goes right into my calendar, or you can just email me at April@RetailU.ca which is Retail U for University dot ca. And then well.
Michael LeBlanc 21:09
And that's the website as well retailu.ca.
April Sabral 21:12
There's two so there's retailu.ca, which is the online but if you want to get in touch with me, it's better to go to aprilsabral.com.
Michael LeBlanc 21:19
Well, very good April. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your, your break in, in wonderful Lisbon to chit and chat, congratulations on your second book, I wish you nothing but, but tremendous success, which you're already achieving right out the gate. So congratulations on that and, and thanks again, for joining me. I look forward to running into you in the next retail event and until then travel and be safe and like I said, thanks for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast.
April Sabral 21:45
Thank you so much, Michael. It's such a pleasure.
Michael LeBlanc 21:47
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and follow on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week and be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties Remarkable Retail Podcast with Steve Dennis and the Global E-Commerce Leaders Podcast.
Michael LeBlanc 22:03
Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbeque show, Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, consumer growth consultant, president of ME Leblanc and Company Inc, Maven Media, and keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Michael LeBlanc 22:25
Safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, book, retail, positive, store, writing, managers, retailers, leaders, april, brands, leadership, podcast, positivity, committed, practice, coach, negative, hear, literally