Why the Rooster?
Many people do not know that the sound the rooster makes in the morning (cock-a-doodle-doo) is called his “Report”. The rooster “reports” early; sometimes too early.

Our Morning Report also arrives early. We say, “Send us your numbers at closing time, and you will have your Morning Report BEFORE the rooster crows in the morning.”

The Lion King musical had a great Morning Report tune in the play. You can see and hear it HERE:

Businesses are famous for reporting monthly numbers after it’s too late to do anything about them.
When you get the Morning Report you will be able to see trends in plenty of time to impact them, well before the month ends. CLICK HERE to see examples of how it works.

WIIFM?
Whenever asked to do something, most people filter the request through “WIIFM” which stands for “What’s in it For Me?” Unless there’s good answer to that question it many times will not be done. This is true both in parenting as in managing salespeople.

Do it For the Customer
Too often salespeople that want to sell more are thinking more of themselves than their customers. The customer will benefit more from the sale than anyone else. When a sale is made, there are a lot of people who benefit; the salesperson, the store or company, the vendor, the landlord, plus the state and country. All of these benefits are monetary. What the customer gets out of the deal will last longer than the money will last for any of the others.

“Mine, No Mine!”
One of the worst things that can happen in sales is salespeople arguing over whose sale it is. Whenever I am asked to referee one of those arguments, I ask, “Who did the customer give the money to?” When you get good service in a restaurant you don’t drop your tip on any old table on your way out.

Teamwork Works!
Those that work together get more done. Here’s a good rule to keep in mind; “The commission on any one sale is never more important than your relationship with your co-worker.” If you make this and the “Customer First” a part of your being, you will succeed more than the selfish people who get it turned backwards.

Unless you work at McDonald’s, chances are the answer is, “No.”
The 20% 20% 60% Rule of Retail say’s, “20% of the people who come into your store WILL buy something regardless of what you say or do. 20% will NOT buy anything regardless of what you say or do. 60% WILL buy or NOT buy depending TOTALLY upon what you say and do.” When you reach that 60 you get 80.
Obviously the percentages will vary slightly depending upon your product. The “WILL BUY” percentage will be a higher in a convenience store than in a high end jewelry store, art gallery or furniture store, but the principle is the same.
The person that is face-to-face with the customer plays a bigger role in the buying decision than anyone else in the chain of events leading up to the customer entering the store.
It’s sad to see a great location with great fixtures; fabulous marketing and great merchandise at fair prices fail due to poor service. It happens every day!
Anyone can sell to the first 20%, and no one can sell to the second 20%. To capture more of that 60% be sure that customers are greeted in a sincere manner, given the information that they need to make intelligent buying decisions, and aided in making those decisions.

Tell Me!!!
How important is the price when deciding if to buy or not to buy?
Obviously people need to know the price before deciding, BUT how important is the price compared to other information that effects the buying decision? NOT VERY MUCH!
Retailers that assume that the price is all customers need to know, miss a lot of sales by posting the price and offering nothing else.
Retailers that hide prices assuming that customers will have to ask are wrong; they don’t have to ask. They can guess, decide and walk.
What A dilemma! Should you post prices or shouldn’t you?
While the answer may vary somewhat from business to business, my suggestion is to show the prices (clearly), but be pro-active with other information before or immediately upon the customer looking at the price tag.
Your customers will like you for that, and as we all know, “The customer is always right; right?” RIGHT!

Clerking Isn’t Selling
Clerks “ring up sales”; salespeople “sell”. “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 your behavior, and must be done in a pro-active, yet no-pressure manner. Customers will not always ask you for help or agree to take it if you ask them for it. Give It!

Understanding
There’s always a reason for anything. Take the time to understand the “Why” behind the “What” when asked to do something. There’s a good reason that talking to customers is more important than sweeping the floor or stocking the shelves. Those are things to do when you don’t have a customer. Do you know WHY?

Set It - Hit It!
Setting a goal is the first step towards achieving it. To reach a yearly goal, start by breaking it down into manageable monthly goals, and then track your progress. Easy? Not for everyone. Some of the biggest mistakes take place somewhere in the goal setting/achieving process.
Here are some tips to remember, and pitfalls to avoid when setting goals.

Why a Goal:
A goal to a business, or person is like the rudder on a ship. Imagine a ship without one. People who know where they are going are more likely to get there. Goals tell people what they can do. Goals provide direction and motivation. There are two kinds of people and businesses; those who get what they want, and those who take what they get. Guess which one does the best. Getting what you want begins with identifying it.

How To Set The Goal:
Setting the right goal can be the right piece in your success plan. The two biggest mistakes people make are setting their goals too high, or too low. Too high demoralizes everyone early on, while too low pacifies everyone at the offset. The proper goal will cause your people to produce more than they would otherwise, and to be better than they might have otherwise been.

Formulas
Many times, companies set goals by simply following a strict formula based purely on last year’s results, like “Last year plus 5%.” Easy; right? Wrong! The problem with this practice is that last year may have included some unexpected windfall or disaster that is not likely to repeat this year. You should “consider” last year’s sales, but also look for any and all extenuating circumstances that might be different this year, and take them into consideration as well.

Get a Grip on the Results
It would be an ideal world if all you had to do was to set the goal, and all of your employees would embrace it, and then attack it with a vengeance. All too often the goal is “handed off” to someone who sets it aside while sweeping the floor, and forgets to pick it up later, or something like that.

Nail it Down
Managers and owners determine the degree of importance that their employees place on achieving the goal. Your employees can tell how serious you are, by how you deliver the goal, and how often you check-up on the progress towards achieving it.

“Yeah, Yeah.”
It’s a bit like getting your kid to complete some project that you have given to him or her. The child may wonder, “Does she really mean it, or is it like that other thing that she asked me to do, and then never mentioned again?” When you are serious about the goal, it will be very obvious. How? Because you are constantly talking about it.

Feedback
Every day you are reminding your salespeople where your store’s sales are as a % to their goal, and whether they are on track to hit it or not. When the store is on track, you are all “high fives”, but the minute it falls behind, your eyebrows furrow, and you start looking for why. You have a reputation for not accepting excuses like, “It’s slow…” or “We are out of this or that.” You took everything into consideration when you set the goal. You cannot have your employees critiquing the goal that you set three weeks ago. You want your employees focused on how to hit today’s portion of that goal, before today gets away, that’s all!

It’s Urgent
One good way to maintain a sense of urgency to hit the goal is to pretend that today was the last day of the month, and then act accordingly. It’s easy. Just take your monthly goal minus the amount already sold this month, then divide that number by the number of days left in the month. That becomes your “Magic Number”. Start with that number at the beginning of the day, and then count it down to zero as you make sales.

Count Down!
Countdown with the attitude that; I’m not going home until I hit it. Do that today, and you will exceed your daily “Magic Number”, do that every day, and your monthly goal becomes a “So What?” You’ll be so far over your goal by the end of the month, that you will enjoy the finish, and go well over your goal. Sound idealistic? It is, but it also works, and It’s Easy!

Click Here to download a copy of our Success Dynamics Countdown Sheet. While in the site, you will find many other tools and suggestions on successful goal setting and achievement.

Incentives:
Everyone filters all requests through WIIFM. (What’s In It For Me?) Once business owners and managers realize that, they tend to think differently when structuring special incentives for a specific task to be completed, like hitting a goal. Incentives do not have to be monetary, although those seem to be ones that work the best.

Get More Than Expected
We find that when businesses offer some % of all sales over the goal to all of those who contribute to hitting the goal, that magic happens. We see a level of teamwork that before was just lip service. When people have a common goal, and work in harmony towards it, they hit it. It’s not Rocket Science. It Works!

Keep Score and Keep Smiling
How exciting would any sporting event be without the goal to attain, and a score sheet of some kind to keep an eye on it? You may wonder why we compare sports to selling. It’s because both can be very challenging, and when you are keeping score the challenge becomes fun rather than work.
Enjoy Success. It’s your right.

Establishing Communication
In Retail Selling Made Easy I suggest to greet the customer quickly and then to ask, “Is this your first time in the store?” I have recently added a question in front of that one that people love. Ask, “Do you live in the area?” This immediately infers that people living in your area shop in your store, thus the trust sale starts right away.
Whenever I enter a store I pay close attention to the all important words used by the salesperson to “get started”. Too many times those words go nowhere. A few that I hear, and don’t recommend are:

“Are you finding everything okay?”
“May I help you?”
“Is there something in particular that you are looking for?
“Let me know if you have any questions.”
“Feel free to look around.”

Keep It Positive!
The words “No problem” represent a double negative. Instead say, “My pleasure” or “You’re welcome.”
“I can’t do that”, or “We don’t carry those” or “I don’t know” are all “no - no’s”.
Instead say, “What I can do is…” or, “What we do have is…” or, “I’ll find out”.

Using or Abusing the Telephone
I hope that your store has a “live” person answering the telephone, but if not, be sure that the message does not put the customer into “electronic prison” asking him or her to jump through hoops to get a question answered or to reach someone. Automated answering systems are rapidly finding thier way to the top of many people’s top 10 irritation lists. Never answer with, “Hold on please.” If at some point you need to put a customer on hold, ask for permission to do so, and say how long it will be.
Little things (words) make a BIG difference when selling.

Read It All
Carsten Pedersen runs a multi-million dollar international company. He once told me about something he does as a result of a meeting he had with me in Miami a few years ago. He said that he hands out copies of Retail Selling Made Easy to his employees, and when he asks people if they read it, he always gets a “Yes” reply.

The Real Test
Following our Miami meeting, Carsten made a change. Now, before handing out the book he opens it to a random page about 1/2 way through the book, and writes on one of the pages, “As soon as you read this, come see me and pick up $50.” It’s been shocking to him that he hasn’t paid out the $50 even once, although they have all told him that they read the book.
I asked him if he shows the note to them later, and he said, “No, I keep hoping that someday they will come across it.” I suggested that he start putting a “deadline date” on his note so that he could then call their attention to it at a later date, and hopefully impart the intended lesson.
He liked that idea a lot. He said, “The more lessons we learn today, the fewer mistakes we make in the future, and it is our responsibility as managers to impart as many lessons as we possibly can to our employees.”

So Much to Learn
Mahalo Carsten for all of the lessons you have taught me. I look forward to your every visit to Hawaii. One of these times I’ll even go to the beach with you so that I look more “local” when we go out to dinner.

It’s Sooner Than You Think
There was a day when it was considered sacrilegious to even mention Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Well, like it or not, those days are over. Malls are decorated for Christmas long before the Thanksgiving feast begins.
Retailers that wait until Thanksgiving miss the opportunity to help their customers get a good jump on their shopping “chore”. No, it shouldn’t be seen as a “chore”, but the longer it is put off, the more of a chore it becomes.

Help Your Customers Get a Head Start
Last minute shoppers face these challenges:
-The malls are crowded.
-The weather is bad.
-The merchandise is picked over.
-The prices are inflated.
People on the average have 25 people to shop for. The sooner they get started the more enjoyable it will be. Here are some things that you can do NOW to get the customers to start their Christmas shopping in your store TODAY.

Make a Countdown Sign
Start Now, Say, “There are ONLY 50 Shopping Days left before Christmas.” Update it EVERY DAY. There are many ways to make one; be creative.

Other Things You Can Do…
-Provide a wrapping station with paper, ribbons and cards.
-Start decorating now; small at first, and then go all out after Thanksgiving.
-Provide a printed shopping list to help people remember who they are going to be shopping for.
-Start the Christmas music playing right after Thanksgiving.

If you are in Hawaii remind customers that a gift from Hawaii will be the most unique gift under the tree.
Remember what they say about the early bird.

Ten Selling Success Traits
There are certain “superstars” that outsell everyone else day after day, month after month and year after year. These superstars possess certain traits that can be applied by all salespeople. The following 10 Super Salespersonship Traits are embodied by all of them.

The Superstar Sellers are all:

Enthusiastic
Enthusiasm sells and you will sell more by being more enthusiastic about your product or service.

Honest
The best salespeople do not lie or exaggerate the truth. Honesty pays big dividends.

Focused
The “great ones” always remember why they are where they are. They keep mind and body “tuned in” to the purpose of their presence.

Positive
Successful salespeople expect success and they get it.

Goal-Oriented
Exceptional salespeople set hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. They know where they are going and they get there.

Disciplined
Outstanding salespeople don’t take short cuts. They follow the system. They are on time, every time, all of the time.

Reliable
Those that outsell the rest never miss a selling shift. They can be counted on to always attend sales meetings and sales classes. They keep getting better and better.

Clean
The best always look their best.

Healthy
Healthy people sell more because they feel better, look better, have more energy and miss fewer, if any, selling shifts.

Knowledgeable
Gaining knowledge requires time and study. Super salespeople invest that time and continue to study, even after they “know it all”.

For further details on how exactly how to integrate these Super Salesmanship Traits into your life, read chapter 13 of RETAIL SELLING MADE EASY.

It’s Easy!