What is a Good Retail Salesperson?

by Rich Gordon AKA Retail Rich

Do you have sales-clerks OR Do you have sales-people in your store?

Lets talk first about sales clerks.  In my mind, they are there to do the normal day-to-day work in a retail establishment, which involves cleaning, putting out merchandise, ticketing it and ringing it up.  This is NOT a salesperson.  You most likely need salesclerks, but in this day and age, AND ECONOMY, you need them to be salespeople too!  If you just have employees who are waiting for someone to buy something, then you have order-takers and they should be called order-takers. . .  or maybe sales-clerks, but they ARE NOT salespeople and the real question is which do you have on your payroll? You need to understand just whom you have in your store!

A good salesperson caters to the store’s customers and works to help them in anyway possible.  They don’t ignore the customer or find a reason to avoid them, or keep them waiting while they finish up a phone call to their boyfriend.  They really do understand the importance of SERVING customers.  They don’t consider it demeaning and they don’t considerate it an interruption to their daily tasks, of which taking care of customers is the most important.

A good salesperson does not stumble they’re way through a question that a customer asks about a given product, just because they are ignorant of product knowledge. Have you ever gone into a store and asked about a product, only to have the salesperson read off the product package, as if he’s providing you a valuable service?  A good salesperson needs to know about the things he or she is selling.  Customers are likely to see through the ignorance and walk away. As a result, your store loses their trust, perhaps permanently. As a retailer, product knowledge is important depending on what you are selling.

A good salesperson strives to greet every customer by name whenever possible.  They are friendly and willing to listen.  In fact they enjoy talking to people.

A good salesperson looks professional—like they belong in your store.  They do not look like they are working a garage sale.  A professional appearance is CRITICAL to your store’s image and brand. If you think about it, appearance does matter. Whether it’s the packaging on a product you purchase, or your company’s web site, people notice how things look. Whether you like it or not people care about how things look and make judgments about you and your store based on appearance.  Looking the part, makes it easier for your customers to see who can help them, and it identifies them as the people within the store that they can count on to help.  If you tell me that Walmart doesn’t have professional looking people, you’re right.  They don’t.  But you don’t have the lowest prices in town and you don’t cater to the lowest common denominator of customer’s. . . At least I hope not!

A good salesperson looks at each customer as having a “need” or “want”.  A good salesperson wants to help discover just what that is, and believes if they can do so, the customer has the potential of buying multiple items.

A good salesperson helps the store’s management collect buyer preferences and information on each customer they work with, because they know that the more information the store has about them, the easier it will be to please the customer in the long run.

A good salesperson asks the customer if there is anything else they can help them with, and if the customer has found everything they came in for.

A good salesperson thanks the customer for their visit, and/or purchase.  At Nordstrom’s, a good salesperson will walk around the sales-counter after the transaction has been completed and hands the purchase to the customer while thanking them for their business.

A good salesperson calls customers at times (after the sale) to insure they were happy with their purchase and satisfied with their visit to the store.

Selling is a service. A Salesperson is not there to push something on the customer they don’t want.  A good salesperson is there to build trust and help the customer satisfy a want or a need with the knowledge they have about the products and the store. None of us want to be sold something.  We all do want to be serviced.

If you do NOT have salespeople on your staff, it most likely is not the fault of your employees.  You are the one who needs to make some changes.  You hired them.  If they don’t have the right personality for sales, whose fault is that?  If they have been working for you for a while and you see them doing none of the above very well, they most likely need some training and some explanation of YOUR priorities where customers are concerned. Changes in staff behavior do not occur automatically or overnight, so you will need to be persistent and consistent. As you try to make changes, give your people a sense of why you’re doing the things your doing and some idea of what lies ahead. When employees have a boss who surprises or direction suddenly without warning, they get a bit nervous.  People do like predictability and on what basis they’re being judged. If any of these issues sound like they have you and your store in their sights, I’m sorry, but YOU have some work to do!

©2011 Retail Redefined and retailrichez.com. All rights reserved.

10 Retail Promotional Ideas

By Rich Gordon a.k.a. RetailRich

Use the Power Of A Handful of Merchants You Can Work With

Print up some cards on plastic or heavy paper featuring your store a handful of other merchants.  Call it whatever you want i.e First Timers Card, Thank You Card, Great DealZ.  With the logo of each merchant on the card, offer a special discount for the next purchase at each of the merchants on the card.  Each merchant draws a line through their logo with a special color pen as the offer is acted on.  As a bonus, after the card has been used at all participating merchants, the card can be entered into a drawing for a special prize.  By the way, don’t forget to promote you efforts with a banner and handout in each bag. The idea here is your customers are being introduced to a store they may not have been to yet, or possibly generally haven’t shopped.  And the other store’s, are hopefully sending you customers that haven’t been to your store before. Just remember, someone has to get the bowl rolling and take the initiative!

Offer a Free Class

Offer a free lesson or class on make-up, scrapbooking, sewing, hair styling, gardening, or a home improvement task or even how to get more effective use out of a product or product line you are selling. The options are limited only by your imagination. When customers get to learn how to get the best use out of your products they’re more likely to buy more and also become more connected to your business.

Offer An Ongoing Deal Based on Temperature (train your customers to follow it)

Do it in recordings for calls on hold.  Do it with handouts all summer. Do it on banners and in your window.  Do it on your tweets, facebook and your website.   Do what you ask?

Promote the fact that on any day when the temperature is above _______(you decide) all merchandise will be ____% off.  You can also limit it to a particular type of merchandise such as shorts for apparel stores.  Do this with regularity and people will begin to remember and seek you out on those hot days.  You can do the same thing in the winter too!

Advertising in School Newspapers

Work on creating a few ads over the summer for the next school year designed to go into the school newspapers in your area.  You might even offer a donation to some school fundraiser in return for each sale.  Students are customers of tomorrow and if you have products that appeal to them now, promote you and your store to them today.

Ever Consider Offering Business’s Own Really Sharp Looking T-Shirt?

Have any creative friends or do you know an artist? Maybe you’ll need to go to a local junior college and ask the instructor if anyone would be interested in designing a really sharp t-shirt.  Maybe you can make a competition out of it.

Once you have a great t-shirt, consider making it a free gift with purchase.  You might value the shirt at $20.00-$25.00 and you could offer it with any $50.00 purchase or more.  The customer gets a decent shirt for free , that has real value in their eyes (especially if its really sharp artwork or possibly a funny design or slogan).  If it’s done well, your customers are advertising your store when they wear the shirt and your avoiding lowering your price or losing as much margin as you might have if you offered a $20-$25.00 discount.  It all comes down to a healthy bottom line and a cheaper form of advertising.

Free, After The Sale Service

Consider a FREE offer on after sales service – cleaning or maintenance of the purchased product at your store.  You provide additional value without discounting your product and you introduce your store’s service aspects possibly for the first time.

How About Cross Marketing With a Printer?

What if you had a gourmet chocolate store or a women’s accessory shop and you convinced a printer that he should include a coupon for your store (s) right in the middle of the notepads that he sold. I believe the value and popularity of his notepads would go up over time as would the sales in your store!

Offer a Late Night Sale

If your store is in a heavily trafficked area at night or you or near a location with a lot of workers who get off later in the evening, think about a special event that is late at night.  The idea here is that you may be introducing your store to a whole new group of customers. If you have the budget, try late night radio ads leading up to the event, which are cheaper time slots. Consider a band or a disk jockey for music on the parking lot, with a search-light as well. . a late night on location radio broadcast make be a good idea as well.  It all comes down to the type of store you have and where your store is, but it’s worth considering.

Consider a Mother-in Law or Father-in Law Sale

Print up special gift certificates with a face value worth at least $20-$50 dollars.   Promote the time period the coupons are good via all traditional channels you can think of.  But offer the coupons to your buyers for anywhere from 10%-25% off. The buyer benefits because the recipient won’t know the coupon was purchased at a discount.  The recipient of the Mother-in Law or Father-In Law certificate feels obligated to go into your store and use their certificate. Have a very generous expiration date on the certificate.  Those that never are redeemed for one reason or another are money in your pocket. Those certificates that are used may mean some new customers introduced to your store. Just keep in mind these certificates purchased at a discount are out there floating around when it comes to future sales on merchandise.

WIIFMC

What’s In It For My Customers? WIIFMC should be your motto. You should be asking it as a part of almost everything you do.  If it doesn’t bring the customer back again, it may not be worth your time and attention. If it doesn’t really benefit and bring back the customer, it probably won’t help your bottom line, your banker, your family or your investors (if any).  It really is all bout your customer.