Retail Contrarian

The Most Important Thing You Do

I recently asked a group of owners and managers to tell me the most important thing they do in a day.  Owners and manager usually have to do ten things at once and a hundred or more different things to take care of throughout their day, but I was looking for that one thing they consider the most important part of their job

I heard a lot of different answers including:

"Drive sales."
"Develop my staff."
"Protect the store assets."
"Drive traffic into the store."
"Make my customers happy."
"Deliver a great shopping experience."

What do you think is the most important thing you do?

I'll tell you what I think it is.  I think the most important thing you can do as a manager or owner is to create the best place to work.  That's right, I think delivering an employee experience that has people loving their job is the most important thing you do.

Why do I say that?  Because as a specialty retailer what makes your store truly special is your people.  You might have a beautiful store with fabulous products but chances are whatever you sell I can find somewhere else.  It's the people in your store that make the difference. It's the people that keep your customers coming back time and again.  The reverse is true, too.  At some stores the reason the customers don't come back is because of the people.

Making your store a great place to work drives all those other important things listed above. Happy employees create more sales.  Happy employees want to grow and develop and make a greater contribution to the store.  Happy employees are less likely to steal.  Happy employees create loyal customer advocates who keep coming back and tell others about your store.  And last but not least, happy employees deliver great shopping experiences that result in happy customers.  Everyone's happy!

So why don't more owners and managers make this the most important thing they do? For some it's because they don't know they should or don't know how.  For many it's because creating a great place to work takes hard work.  As today's quote says, "The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work."  Then again, in both your store and the dictionary, happy and employees come before profits.

So let me ask, is your store a great place to work?

----------------

Doug Fleener, the author of the book The Profitable Retailer: 56 surprisingly simple and effective lessons to boost your sales and profits, is a veteran retailer with over 25 years of hands-on retail experience including owning his own specialty store. He is president and managing partner for Dynamic Experiences Group LLC, a retail and customer experience training and consulting firm that helps specialty retailers to maximize their in-store performance. Learn more at http://dynamicexperiencesgroup.com or call 781-861-7803.

Skepticism and Lost Opportunities

Have you ever walked into a store and seen something on sale at an unbelievable price?  If you're like most customers your first thought is, "Wow. This is great."  But then it's immediately followed by, "And I wonder what's wrong with it?"  Of course you're skeptical.  You've been told ever since you were a child that if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is. You might be so skeptical that you end up passing on a great deal.

Customers are naturally skeptical. It's a defensive mechanism to keep from being taken advantage of or making a mistake.  It can also keep customers from getting a great deal and doing business with a very good company.

Whether we know it or not, we lose sales to skepticism every day.  One of the biggest challenges for independent retailers is overcoming customer's skepticism of the independent's prices.  Most believe that an independent's prices are much higher than the big box or national chains even though that is not always the case.

Skepticism also impacts our ability to make sales.  When products are marked down customers often think there must be something wrong with them, or at the very least are something nobody else wanted - so why should they?  Customers are also skeptical of brands they've never heard of.  That's always one of the biggest challenges when you bring on a new line in a segment where brand recognition is a key part of the decision-making process. You wouldn't think twice about buying a Canon camera but you can't say the same for a Danon camera.

The key to overcoming a skeptical customer is to proactively give them the necessary information to keep them from being skeptical.  If an independent retailer prominently posts a sign telling shoppers about the price guarantee, the customer knows that this store is competitively priced, which may or may not be the case.

The same approach works with markdowns.  If you're giving the customer a great deal you need to tell them why.  A "50% Off Our Top Sellers" or "50% Off Spring Clearance" will always be more effective than just a "50%" sign by itself. When working one-on-one with a customer you should also explain why something is "such a good deal."

You might even be skeptical of this post, which of course proves my point.  From time to time everyone is skeptical, and you'll sell more products and capture more customers if you're aware of that and take steps to proactively overcome it.

Take Five Exercise*
Brainstorm three reasons a customer could be skeptical while shopping in your store. Determine ways you can proactively overcome it.

* The Take Five Exercise is a new feature to stimulate conversation in your morning Take Five or store meetings and make it easier to put the Retail Contrarian into action.

Assorted Retail Musings: Success, Time, and Credibility

I believe that we're always either moving towards or away from success.  There is no such thing as standing still in business or in our lives. The world around us, including our competition, is in constant change and flux, so to do nothing is to move backwards.

There are times where the forces around us are greater than before, and as a result we need to double and triple our efforts to keep driving towards success. If we're not pushing harder than the forces around us then we're moving away from success. The greatest danger is when we're not even aware of it.

Let me ask, are you moving towards or away from success?

-------------------------------

I often hear owners and managers say they don't have time to do something they know they should do.  I suggest that if they really wanted to do it, they would find the time. When we say we don't have time to do something we need to ask ourselves two questions:

1. Is it important that I do it or can someone else take care of it?

2. What do I need to stop doing so I can do this something else?

We all have things we like to do but sometimes those aren't the things we should be doing.  As owners and managers we need to be focused on high-impact, high-payoff activities and delegate the low-impact and low-payoff activities to members of the staff.

Let me ask, are you spending your time wisely?

-------------------------------

What's the fastest way to lose credibility with your customer? Believe it or not, it's speaking poorly of other companies and people.  Most customers are quite forgiving if you don't know something, but they don't like rude or unsportsmanlike behavior.

Here are five ways to lose credibility with your customers:

1. Speak poorly of your competitors.  I was visiting a retailer once and heard everyone on the staff constantly put down one of their competitors. When I brought it up to the owner she said that they were just passing along what their customers told them.  I reminded her that while that might be true, it sounded like sour grapes.  Now if someone asks about their competitors they just smile and say, "We're happy to say that our customers tell us how much more like they shopping here."

2. Speak poorly of a customer. While shopping recently I heard a store employee get off the phone and then go on and on to a colleague about the "stupid" customer.  As a customer, you can't help but wonder what they say about you after you leave the store. The only stupid person here is the employee who lost all credibility.

3. Speak poorly of another employee. This sometimes happens when a customer has a problem and one employee blames another for making a mistake. You'll hear things like, "He's new and doesn't really know much." While I'm sure the employee is saying that without malice, it doesn't sound good. Instead he might have said, "Since he was new I'm sure he was mistaken."

4. Speak poorly of a product in the store. I think this is a cardinal sin that unfortunately is committed more than we'd like to admit. Employees don't think about the message they're sending about their company when they make comments like, "You don't want to buy that" or "I refuse to sell that."  The customer is left to wonder why the company continues to sell the product if it's such a dog.

5. Speak poorly of a manufacturer or distributor you do business with. The customer can't help but wonder why you're carrying their products if they are as bad as the employee is making them out to be.

Remember the old adage, if you have nothing good to say then say nothing at all. Just as important, if you have something good to say then be sure and say it!

The Art of Greeting: Guest, Friend, and Customer

It's not hard to notice that so many store staffs rarely acknowledge customers until they make a purchase.  It's like you're invisible or unimportant until you decide to spend your money.

There are also store staffs that are clearly following a company policy of greeting every customer are as about as friendly as a dark alley at 3:00 a.m.  There's a quick acknowledgement and the obvious hope that you don't want to talk to them.

What is the right way to greet and engage customers?  Some people say you should do it within the first ten seconds a customer is in the store, others say within a minute, and clearly many retailers seem to think you should let the customer be the one to engage the employees.

First and foremost, it is extremely important to welcome each customer as he/she enters your store.  Not greet, welcome.  When you welcome customers you acknowledge that they are your priority; it is the first step in creating a great experience that will lead to a sale.

You want to engage your customer and treat them like an old (or new) friend. Inevitably, when I bring this up in a seminar or training I hear that "customers want to be left alone" or "they say they're just looking no matter what I say or do."

That's true.  Sometimes customers want to be left alone and sometimes they say they're just looking, but most of the time they do that because the salespeople aren't adding value to their experience. They're following a script, or doing something because they've been told to and not because they want to.  Customers know when a salesperson isn't being authentic.

Don't try to "help" your customer.  Don't get in his face and ask if he has any questions. Treat each and every customer like they're special.  Show them you're happy to see them in your store and that you're going to exceed their expectations.  Be an ambassador for your store.

If you welcome your customers and engage them like an old or new friend, more than 85% will respond in a positive manner (give or take a few percentage points based on where you live). So what if 15% of the people blow you off?  Don't look at it like 15% of your customers didn't let you get to know them, look at it like 85% of the people who came into your store are now your friends!  And friends help friends make purchases.

Once you have welcomed your customer, you can learn more about him/her and how the products you sell can add value to his/her life. The best customer experiences are when customers walk out with purchase they're happy they made.

That's why every single person who comes in your door should be welcomed like a guest, treated like a friend, and shown products so they become YOUR customer. That's what makes a specialty store like yours special.  Forget customer service, it's all about the experience!