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Does Your Selling System Work? Do You Even Have One?
By
James Grandillo,
Senior Retail Consultant
The economic experts out there all reluctantly agree: the way things are
right now
is the New Normal. People are shopping less, and those that do take longer to make up their minds. We have
the New Consumer who questions everything about a durable purchase – especially if it is a luxury item.
Do I
really need this? Will my old one last another few years? Is this item the very best one I can get for my home?
Is this the best place to buy, the best price to pay, the best person to help me make this decision? The
pressure is on our stores to help answer these all-important questions – and we have the selling staffs to do that.
But, unfortunately, customers
HATE SALESPEOPLE!
If they could, most consumers today would wave a magic wand and – poof!
– make all salespeople disappear. I mean, who needs ‘em? Salespeople
are described as 1) pushy, 2) indifferent, 3) misinformed, 4) stupid,
5) dishonest – or all of the above. These same folks would replace
salespeople with helpful robots that would speak only when spoken to
and would scoot off and hide as soon as they’d outlived their usefulness.
It is sad
that many salespeople have earned this bad reputation. Since customers
approach our stores expecting to find salespeople of the ilk described
above, it is up to us as sales managers to makes sure that we disappoint
them – by having a selling system that reflects our company’s core values
and salespeople who are responsive to the needs of the 21st century
customer.
This is no easy trick. Most companies do not have a selling system
as such – an expertly-developed and consistently- performed selling
process that all salespeople are required to practice, perfect, and
adhere to. Some mature and forward-thinking companies do, and the
salespeople in these operations produce revenues and positive customer
experiences far in excess of their competitors. But the expense and
effort to develop a selling system is usually beyond the resources of
smaller operations. Nevertheless, what is still needed is a system
developed by experts that takes into consideration the particular kind
of product the store presents and the specific needs of the kinds of
customers it attracts. When a store does not have such a system, each
salesperson does whatever he is most comfortable doing. Some may be
very good, some may not. The result of this idiosyncratic approach is
an inconsistent level of service and attention given to customers. The
shopping experience a customer has depends solely on which salesperson
they chance to encounter – and these experiences can vary from excellent
to very poor indeed. If a company cannot guarantee that every customer
entering one of its stores is going to be treated in the very best
possible way, they will not succeed in this new, frightening, and most
competitive marketplace.
The guidelines
for developing such a process are deceptively simple, yet creating a practical
selling system is a job for experts. First, the company must have a set of
core values against which every activity of the company is judged. Then it
must understand enough about the psychology of persuasion and selling to craft
an effective persona for its selling staff to emulate. Think Starbucks. Think
McDonald’s. Think Ethan Allen. These companies took the time and invested the
money to answer these questions: How do my customers want to be treated? How
can we give them a good reason to buy from us? And then they spent decades
refining what they do – and teaching, training, and managing the professionalism
of the people who meet and greet customers. The success of companies that take
the time to create effective selling processes and train their people to perform
them is measurable and undeniable. If you can’t design one internally, there
are professional companies out there that can do this for you.
The answer to
creating success at retail is the same today as it was 1, 10, or 100 years
ago: treat people the way they want to be treated and they will wait in line
to buy from you.
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