Teach It!
Teaching “clerks” to become salespeople is the name of the game. Clerks “ring up sales”; salespeople “sell.” There’s a big difference. The best way to “teach” is by example. People will pay more attention to what the manager does than what he or she says. Do what you expect, and then inspect what you expect. You will then get what you expect.

Three Steps
Step #1 – Understanding. Teach your salespeople that customers need help, but won’t always ask for it. Customers have questions, but don’t ask them. Customers will buy more, but don’t without your help. Helping is not asking, “May I help you.?

Step #2 – Priorities. Teach your salespeople that customers come first. Whenever they are doing a task or chore, and a customer comes into the store, the customer goes to the head of the list of “things to be done”. Tasks, duties and chores will wait until you finish with the customer. Customers may not wait until you finish the chore.

Step #3 – Selling. Selling is “Giving the customer sufficient information to make an intelligent buying decision, be it yes or no”. This definition from Retail Selling Made Easy must be at the core of all behavior, and must be done in a pro-active, yet no-pressure manner. When it is, selling and success become easy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Retail Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.