Never turn to drugs or alcohol. No, that’s not one our 3 things, but I may as well put it right out there upfront because there are far too many business people who go there for solace. Bad choice. Don’t make that choice.
Yes, retailers of every ilk are finding it more difficult than ever today. Even those of us who have a lifetime of experience in retailing are seeing an economic slide so widespread that it’s often difficult to know what to do.
Even big box operators who have scale and operational efficiencies are suffering double digit declines from a year ago. Keep in mind, last year was also a down year for many retailers. That just means bad news compounds on top of previous bad news. It’s like we’re all living the real life version of Dumb and Dumber. “Just when I didn’t think it could get worse, you go and totally redeem yourself.” Sure enough. We often find we’re reaching new sales lows every day. It’s not funny, but between laughter and crying – well, crying almost always wins.
Retailers all over the world are scrambling for answers. Profits are always under pressure at retail. Even when times are great. But now, we’re all chasing revenues. We need sales. We need dollars. We need cash flow. Without those, we’re dead. Some of us are already on life support. Some of us won’t make it, but still we fight to hang on.
Our collective mood is a reflection of the times. Store after store – retailer after retailer – shows the signs of despair. WARNING: Showing despair will not help. Sharing despair won’t either. But neither will ignoring it. Today, let’s face the reality of our sales woes. Let’s see if we can find just 3 things that we can begin to do today to make a positive difference. Surely we can find 3 things that will help – three things we can start doing to feel good about our efforts – and hopefully, three things that will start increasing our sales.
First of all, let me tell me these are strategies that may not work for you if you do not have a commission-based sales team. Even so, read them carefully. Ponder them. Roll them around in your head and see if you can make a fit for your retail operation. Ready? Take a deep breath. Clear your head. Read carefully. Even slowly. Think about them. Reflect on them. Make notes of the first things you think of for your business.
Let’s do it. It’s Monday and we want to start the week off better than last week!
1. Decide that today, things are going to change. Go viral. Do it now!
If we don’t first fix our biggest asset – that stuff between our ears – then we’re doomed. Panic and despair spread faster than fire. Whether you’re a leader, an executive, a manager, an owner or an employee at any level…you must be a viral force for good in your company.
I’m not suggesting you bring your pom pom’s to work and start cheering before the store opens. I am suggesting that by your speech, your actions and your overall demeanor that you start behaving as though you expect success today. Too many people are expecting failure and when it comes they seem to enjoy being right. Change that. Expect success, because if you don’t – you’ll never get it. I truly believe that more often than not we get what we expect. From ourselves. From others. From our business.
It has to start with how you think. Your choices, actions and behaviors are all determined by how you think.
2. Coach it up. Spend time each day with every salesperson on your floor. Start with your top producers. Partner with them to make something positive happen today.
It’s shocking to me, but I confess that I know too many retailers who think kicking butts is the way to make sure their salespeople are doing good work. I don’t happen to agree. Ever. But I certainly think it’s a terrible mistake in today’s environment. Making people more tense, more insecure, more nervous – that’s not going to help anything.
Here’s what you should do.
- Sit down first with your top producer.
- Thank them for their contributions. Has it been awhile since you said, “Thank you” to them? Apologize and promise to do better. Do it today. Make good on that promise, too.
- Ask them to replay for you their last big win. It can be whatever they decide. You’re looking for them to reenact the big sale. Ask them to make sure it’s one they just completed – or one in the very recent past. You’re not looking for their biggest win ever, one that may have happened years ago. You want one from Saturday! Or Friday!
When they start telling you about it, lead them to keep on by asking them how they helped the shopper. Ask them what they feel make the difference in turning that shopper into a buyer. Ask questions to keep them talking about this success and how they made it reality.
Listen. Carefully. Without thinking about what you are going to say. This is the time where you put them on the stage, turn down the house lights and shine the spotlight directly on them – for a winning performance.
Note: If you have NEVER done this before, you’ll find this exciting. If you have done it before, I’ll wager it’s been awhile. I’ve never known good players who didn’t love recalling their great plays. Too many retailers with commission-based floors do not do this most important thing. They’re too busy kicking butt focused on what went wrong to ever consider what went right. Remember, you get what you reward. And you also get what you call attention to. Remember that. You get what you call attention to. Call attention to success!
- Ask them if they’ve got some deals in the hopper. Do they have some prospective deals they’re working on? As your best producers, I’ll venture they’ll have more than one. If they need to go grab the details of these before you continue your meeting, then ask them to go get the details of these prospective deals right now!
- Review these deals with them NOT by being critical, but by asking them what you can do to help convert those prospective deals into actual purchases. Find out where the hang up’s are. Find out what the objections are. See if there are things you can do to help them close these deals.
Don’t just bomb the pricing. Don’t send the signal that you’re going to lean on the crutch of “lowest price.” Maybe you can upgrade the customer for a small or no increase in pricing. Maybe you can accelerate delivery, installation or some other component of the deal that hinges on time. Maybe you can extend the warranty. Maybe you can add value with additional services. Brain storm with the salesperson and find a way to develop a compelling and irresistible offer so the salesperson can go back to the prospect with confidence.
Review as many of these as the salesperson has. If they’ve got 4 deals in the works, do this with all 4. If it’s 10. Do all 10. Don’t leave a single one out. These are your very best opportunities for immediate sales. Make the most of them. Size doesn’t matter. Each prospective deal represents a buying customer. Send that message clearly to the salesperson. You want every single customer regardless of how much they spend.
- Develop a game plan with the salesperson. Talk about how he’ll present these values to the prospects. Rehearse them if necessary. Above all, give this session with your top producer all the time it deserves. Do not answer phones. Do not allow interruption. If the salesperson doesn’t know this session is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing happening right now, then you’ve failed. This is urgent and important because these are possible customers that you can help him capture by serving them better. Your job priority is to serve the salesperson!
- Cheer the salesperson on before you end the meeting. Thank them again for their top dog performance. Encourage them to go out and make these deals happen. Tell them how confident you are in their ability to land this business.
- Agree to follow up before the closes for the day. This salesperson cannot be allowed to go home until you’ve had time to find out how it went. Don’t keep them late based on your schedule. Just schedule a time before the end of the business day to review how things went. Give it the time it deserves. Course correct based on the results of today’s efforts and strategies.
- Now, do the exact same thing with the next highest performer in your store. Do it until you’ve spent time with every single salesperson regardless of where they are on the performance pecking order chart.
- If you’ve got 4 salespeople and each of them have 2 possible deals “in the works” then you’ve got 8 possible sales. How much is your average sale? $500? $700? $1000? Multiply your average sale by the number of possible deals and you’ve got the total revenue that is possible. Isn’t that worth chasing with all the creativity you can muster? You bet.
3. Play games. People enjoy playing games, especially if they’re games they can win.
Too many retail owners do not give their people games to play. As a result people create their own games to play. Rarely are those games beneficial to the business because we all tend to create games where we win, without regard to whether others benefit or not. Game construction is serious business because you get what you reward. You must be careful that you’re really rewarding the behavior you want.
So, let’s get busy and create a game that is fun – and one that helps all of us. I’ll give you just a few to consider.
a. Pick one SKU. Let’s keep it simple. Complex games tend to rob us of having fun. If we have to launch an Excel spreadsheet just to keep score, it’s a bad game. One SKU. Let’s make it a SKU that we need to move. For whatever reason. Maybe we’re heavy in it. Maybe it’s got high profit. Maybe it’s a close out model. You decide why you’re picking that one SKU, but select just one.
b. Build your game around the sales performance of that one SKU by adding a time element. Games need a starting time and an ending time. Baseball has innings. Football has quarters. Hockey has periods. You select the time component for your game. Is it going to be a daily game? Weekly? Monthly?
Since we’re dealing with one SKU let’s keep it simple and keep it short. Shorter games can be more fun provided the length isn’t so short that it robs of us the chance to win. If it’s a daily game and one player gets a quick lead you’ll find the rest of the team gives up. Game over. Don’t do that. I suggest you make a week for our single SKU example.
c. Make the measurement super easy. For our example, we’re simply going to use sales. Unit sales. If you sell one, then you’re on the scoreboard.
d. What’s the objective of the game? What’s the point? Every game must have one. If you don’t keep score, it’s not a game. And it’s not fun. I don’t care about those idiots who think every kid should get a trophy simply for playing. I think they’re wrong. It’s the wussification of our kids – but that’s another blog post. We’re dealing with adult professional commission-based salespeople so we’re setting up this game for a winner. That means there will be losers in this game. That’s the fun. Competition. Your floor will thrive on this if you properly construct it.
For our example the objective is very simple. The person who sells the most of this SKU in one week’s time, wins! That’s it. Simple. Direct. Easy. Let’s just add one component that’s important for our business – delivered sales. The SKU must be sold and delivered this week before it goes on the scoreboard. Yep, every game has rules and the players don’t have to love every rule, but this game has to benefit everybody. This way, it does!
e. Keep score in some public place where the team can see it, but not the public. Bar graph it on a poster board. Those almost always work nicely.
f. What’s the prize? What are we playing for? A trophy? A ribbon? You decide. Just make sure you tell the players before the game begins. Is it $100 in cash? Is it a gift card to a nearby restaurant?
Suggestion: Don’t have multiple winners. Give one prize only. You’ll destroy the competitive fun if you try to make sure everybody wins something. Don’t do it. Resist. One winner. One prize.
g. Don’t let the game fall out of view. Remind the players of the game. If somebody doesn’t appear to be playing, bring them in, sit them on the “bench” and discuss their poor performance. Show them how their lack of participation is robbing them of any opportunity to win themselves, and it’s also making victory far too easy for whoever may win. Sometimes, players who don’t think they can win can be spurred onto to higher performance merely by realizing they can make winning harder for that top dog. They can serve to push the top dog even higher. Ali needed Frazier. John McEnroe needed Bjorn Borg.
h. Celebrate the winner. Publicly. In front of the entire team.
i. Repeat the process with a new game. Be creative. You can’t just do the same game over and over. People get bored. Imagine a football team that never faced different competition. Week after week it was always the same opponent. Pretty soon, the team would quit. Why keep playing the same exact game week after week? There is no good reason. Give them a new, different game to play. Give them new and different stakes to play for, too.
Conclusion
As you can clearly see, each of these three suggestions involves one key component – PEOPLE.
The first involves YOU, the leader. Get your mind right. But then it goes viral to everybody in your company. From your mind to the minds of your employees. Set the tone for success.
The second two involve you, the leader – and your commission-based salespeople.
You’ll never elevate your revenues without the help of other people. Start serving your salespeople better and they’ll deliver the results you need. Did you notice that none of my suggestions allow you to lean on your despair? Nobody wants to buy from somebody who is desperate, unless we know we’re able to steal something at a ridiculously low price. Don’t go there. It won’t help!
Okay, get busy. Right now.
