You enjoy your job in retail, don’t you? You can’t imagine a career sitting in a cubicle banging on a computer and spending half your life in endless meetings, can you? Retail meets your need to interact with people, offers the variety you like, and pays quite well. How would you like to find a way to improve on that last idea? How would you like to increase your sales and take home a bigger check? Well guess what, half of what you need to do doesn’t even involve the customer. Check out these retail tips and see if they don’t increase your closings.
1. Start selling when you wake up in the morning
Okay, that sounds a little strange, but the attitude you adopt every day when you wake up will make or break sales. If you enjoy what you are doing, it will rub off not only on your clients but also on your colleagues. It may sound funny, but good vibes are contagious and your job in the morning is to get ready to rub it off on everyone you meet that day.
2. Be natural
Too many salespeople affect a different personality when they get to work. They have been conditioned for salespeople to behave in a certain way and try to imitate that behavior instead of being the same person outside of work. If you avoid that, if you are who you really are, you will have more confidence and confidence sells.
3. Be genuine
Avoid at all costs the canned pitches you have memorized from product descriptions. Canned pitches are perceived as fake and leave the customer with the impression that their only function is to sell, not help. Engage the customer in natural conversation the same way you would with a friend. Pro shops are great examples of sales people selling high-end products without appearing to be selling. They engage the customer with their personal opinions, good and bad about a product and it really is more like two golf buddies discussing the merits of a club.
4. Prepare a good introduction
Your first contact is incredibly important. Most retail buyers don’t want to be guided by a salesperson because they fear the salesperson will try to pressure them. If you use the standard “what can I help you with today?” the answer will almost always be “I’m just looking.” But what if you change that to “What can I help you find today?” You are now asking what you can do to help them with the task they really want to do (watch) instead of “helping” them, which the customer perceives as “selling” them. If you come across as confident and genuine, they will likely ask you to help them “look.” In other words, you’re a good guy and you’re not a threat.
5. Know what sells
If you’ve ever been to Amazon.com, then you know how much inventory they spend suggesting products other than the one the visitor originally wanted. “People who bought XYZ also found these products interesting” is displayed for each listing and there is a reason for it. Works. They make more sales with the upsells than with the original product. So know what people buy in your store. If you’re selling music and a customer just bought a Johnny Cash CD, ask him if he likes Loretta Lyn (he probably does) and then show him her CD. Knowing which products are compatible is much more effective than asking “Can I help you with something else today?”
6. Sell benefits, not features
Too many salespeople focus on the features of a product rather than the benefit to the customer. Using the pro shop as an example again, a salesperson might discuss all the technological advances in a driver and point to the titanium face and adjustable weight and high momentum at the point of impact, but what the customer really wants is longer drives , more drives hitting the fairway and finishing his cut. Tell him how the club is going to achieve these three things and now he has tackled what he really wants.
7. Stay in touch
When you close a good sale and the customer is happy, you’ve just created a walking advertisement for yourself and your store. If you are a commission salesperson and have a card, be sure to pass it to the customer and invite them to come back or spread the word. If the store has a website, or if you have a personal blog and your employer allows you to put the address on the card, you have a means of building a valuable customer list.
Retail sales can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding. If you take the approach that your job is to make your customers’ lives better, you’re more likely to associate them with the products they want rather than the products you’re simply trying to sell.