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Making the Sale
Creating a team of selling gurus |
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Written by Bernice Klassen
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| Constant training and review of selling techniques will give your staff the confidence to suggest add-ons and higher price points when they are working with customers. |
You can have the most beautiful flowers in the world, but if you don’t have the staff to sell the benefits of your gorgeous bouquets, chances are your skills and talents are going to waste. At the very core of your business, you’re a retail shop and a business that thrives and survives on sales. Any staff member who touches the sales floor should have the skills to entice add-on sales, the knowledge to educate the shopper and the confidence to encourage customers to spend just a little bit more. The key to achieving this is proper training and regular sales meetings. If you follow the steps below you’ll have an army of salespeople empowered to sell more for you.
Four steps to selling success
Reach out to the customer.
Every person who walks in the door must be greeted within the first three seconds. Acknowledgment goes miles in making someone feel welcome in your shop. Remember we are selling feeling first and product second. Begin a relationship with every customer. This is a skill and if your staff don’t have it, they need to be taught. Teach them to look people in the eye, to smile, to be friendly and to leave their personal issues at the door. This isn’t harsh; this is the expectation in most businesses. There is no excuse for every customer not being addressed at least three times while in your shop.
Teach employees selling words and techniques.
Observe words and phrases staff are using, and after the interaction, or at the end of the day, go back to them and ask questions. How could they have handled it better? What words would have been better? How could they have gotten a higher price on that sale? Never correct your employees in front of the customer or even other staff. Let them know that learning is a lifelong process – there are good days and bad, but there are always ways to improve. Encourage them to be the best they can be and coach them to become great sellers.
Set daily, weekly, monthly financial targets.
These do not need to be rewarded. It’s these financial achievements that keep you from the unemployment line. If you are not making your daily targets, there is no cash to pay paycheques. I am all for incentives – in fact, I thrive on them – but unless they are on straight commission, that should be for work over and above daily targets. This requires that you have daily notes for staff to follow before they start work. Either before you go home at night or before staff come in, evaluate what needs to be done, who needs to do it and what your sales target is for the day. Putting staff in charge of these notes helps them think more in business terms. What you will find is that your staff will start to come up with ways to make those targets, to get new customers, to promote your business.
Have regular meetings.
Let them see this is a business and they are strong contributors. Be structured at these meetings, even if there are just two of you working in the shop. Very often, all those little nagging questions that happen during the workday can be eliminated by having regular meetings. Set a time and place. Limit the meeting agenda and the amount of time spent on each area so it doesn’t drag on forever. Use the same format for every meeting so it is structured. It shows you respect your employees’ time and effort and validates you as a business. It also makes planning the meeting so much easier.
Elements of a great sales meeting
Always start with accomplishments and praise. Set the tone for the entire meeting. Give individual praise where due. Provide staff with the opportunity to praise one another. Hand out incentives and prizes. It’s the feel-good kickoff to the meeting and it warms everyone up to be more receptive to anything else that needs addressing. This is your introduction and rewards segment.
Next up is business analysis. Let staff know your objectives for the upcoming month and talk about ideas you have to promote and improve business. This includes classes or talks you will be attending or courses you plan to give. Bring up areas where the company is struggling. If you feel that staff need to step it up a notch because the customer count is down, or shoppers are buying less, then now is the time to talk about it. Don’t ask for feedback at this point or you will never finish your meeting!
Financials should be next. Show your employees where you are today in terms of sales figures, where you want to be and where the issues are. Though many people can get that glazed look over their eyes during this part, insist on it being a part of the meeting. There is no need to share profits and losses necessarily. Your staff are there for the sales end. Tell them what sales were last month, whether they were up or down from last year and by what percentage, what the average sale was this month, what the best-selling items were, and what didn’t sell.
Now it’s time to dive into the individual issues. These will vary from meeting to meeting but I’ve listed the areas that you should consider. First up, look at shop maintenance and talk about what gets neglected when you clean from day to day. Bring up doors that stick, a messy bathroom, front entrance cigarette butts or any other areas that slide under the radar on busy days.
It’s a subject that can’t be avoided – employee performance. Discuss negative habits that are committed by the majority of your staff members and affect the shop as whole. This is no place to come down on one employee in front of others. Leave individual reprimands for private meetings. Bring up the issue and how it affects the rest of the team. Examples might be leaving dirty buckets behind instead of putting them back clean, not turning on alarms or neglecting to put orders in the correct location.
Next up on the agenda is shop procedures. This is where you establish and review clear and concise methods and policies that everyone understands. For instance, this could mean putting credit card payments through before any delivery goes out, wedding deposit procedures or care and handling steps. One great idea you can implement here is to take turns asking staff members to research the correct care and handling of one particular variety or group of flowers and have them present their findings to the group.
Update your employees on what’s happening with customer promotions in the coming weeks. Keeping present customers is as important as getting new customers. What are you doing this month to make it exciting for your customers? Who has ideas and how is it going to work? You can also talk about staff promotions and any incentives you might be using to drive sales and motivate staff.
Last but not least, it’s time to open up the floor. Request that your employees send any comments or issues they have to you prior to the meeting so you have time to prepare a response or allot proper time to this item. You can also open up a discussion if you have time and the topic is one that lends itself to staff feedback.
When it comes to sales meetings, make sure that they are inclusive. Every single staff member that sets foot in your store is a representation of your business and needs to be trained and included in daily activities and objectives. When evening staff arrive, day staff must be required to pass on information from that day. That includes customer issues, product issues and financial objectives. Provide a binder or folder where you can store this information and ask staff to read and sign this before they begin their shift. It’s a great way for part-time staff to get caught up on any days they may have missed. An informed employee is a professional employee and promotes trust to your customer.
In order to become selling gurus, employees need to be excited not only about the product (most of them are there already) but also about your shop, your business and your successes. That comes from you. How you represent your company, your attitude, your passion and your professionalism all drive the success of your business.
M.G. Bernice Klassen is experienced in nearly every aspect of the floral industry, including retail, wholesale and grocery chain. Armed with a business administration degree, with a specialty in marketing and management, Bernice is now offering her services as a floral consultant to the industry. Contact Bernice directly at
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