For many sales and commercial professionals, visiting a store is a routine part of the job. But according to Dolapo Otegbayi, Founder and Principal Consultant of DKO Consulting, the real value of a store visit depends on what happens beyond simply showing up.
That thinking is at the heart of *Know Your Store: A Practical Guide to Better Store Visits, a digital eBook* and the first publication in DKO Consulting’s new series, DKO Commercial Pocket Guides.
Launched recently, the guide represents a move by Otegbayi to translate more than 25 years of experience across sales, marketing and commercial leadership into practical resources for business owners, entrepreneurs and commercial teams.
The significance of the guide lies in its focus on turning observation into actionable commercial intelligence. A store visit can provide valuable information about how products are displayed, what customers are responding to, how competitors are positioned and where opportunities or problems exist. However, these insights are useful only when people know what to observe, what questions to ask and how to interpret what they see.
Otegbayi’s approach therefore points to a broader challenge in commercial organisations: the gap between collecting market information and actually using it to improve decisions.
Rather than presenting store visits as mere monitoring exercises, Know Your Store positions them as opportunities for learning and better decision-making. At the heart of the guide is the DKO Store Visit Roadmap – PREPARE, OBSERVE, ENGAGE, DIAGNOSE and ACT – a practical framework designed to help users “see more, ask better questions and get more value from every store visit.”
The launch also signals a new extension of DKO Consulting’s work. Alongside its advisory practice, the firm is beginning to package practical commercial experience and thinking into accessible resources that professionals, business owners and commercial teams can use directly.
*Know Your Store is Guide No. 01 in the DKO Commercial Pocket Guides series*, marking the beginning of a wider body of practical commercial resources designed to make commercial knowledge easier to access, understand and apply.
DKO Consulting’s guiding statement is “Strategy. Execution. Impact.” – a philosophy reflected in the guide’s emphasis on moving beyond observation to action.
