Research & Development Lab

Our products are tested daily in the real world. That's why we're always listening to our customers and making improvements. As a professional you know that quality matters, and quality is why Quick Build is the choice of professionals.

ALAN OAKES oublisher aioakes@aol.com

Making a sales difference at retail

It is surely not like the good old days anymore. I started my retail sales career at 12 and it seemed much simpler back then. Today, retail selling has become an exercise in tolerance, creativity and managing detail. More importantly, it is about creating a relationship with a customer to make them come back over and over again.

We all know what it costs to find new customers; losing them quickly to competition is both painful and expensive. Yet as a customer, I often find shopping painful, and at times really wonder how some stores survive. While I understand the pressure on "sales" to perform, both perhaps as a new customer in some stores and a longtime customer in others, I find the move to bigness has unnecessarily destroyed the one-on-one experience of the past. Today, it is all about technology, rules and policies, and getting a customer out the door as fast as possible to deal with the next pain in the neck.

I have always been fascinated by the question as to how many potential customers walk into our stores and buy, and how many walk out without buying. I understand more than ever what it takes to get someone to enter our store with so much competition, and yet while I understand the attention we give to the sales we make, I would like to give equal attention to the sales we do not make. The cost of "lost opportunity" sales throughout the year is probably quite mind-blowing. With so much consumer choice, when a customer walks in, you have literally seconds to impress them. I will enter a storefront, and literally within a few feet, I will decide whether to continue or walk out.

I recently visited a local home center, and after wandering through several aisles, someone at least asked if they could help me. I told them what I thought I was looking for and, after some hemming and hawing, was directed four aisles down where I could not find what I wanted. I hung around another five minutes looking and waiting, but got nowhere and left empty handed. Not a large sale in this case maybe $20. But $20 lost now, and maybe hundreds or thousands of dollars in future sales, as this store will not be top-of-mind next time. The correct step would have been for the salesperson to walk me to the section and try to suggest what would be the best solution for my problem. In other words, taking ownership of the customer's needs and solving a problem.

A few months earlier, I visited a medium-sized hardware store. I was somewhat efficiently helped, but at no time did the salesperson suggest alternatives or other products I might need to complete the job. A simple inquiry might have solicited two or three additional SKU's I needed. Instead of a $12 sale, it might have been $50+. I can't tell you how many times this has happened, and how many times I find myself returning to the store or, more importantly, going to another store.

There is a national chain of menswear stores that do a great job of value ad sales. You buy a suit or jacket, and before you know it, the salesperson or sales consultant has three shirts out, three ties, socks, and perhaps a pair of shoes, and is showing you how to wear this suit for different events. You may not end up buying everything, but I cannot imagine that the original sale is not enhanced. More importantly, I suspect you know who you will ask for next time round you return to the store. There is no reason our business should not be the same.

And what about returns? I am rarely asked as to whether there is something else I need help with+he only concem seems to be if it is working.

The biggest lost sale might be the customer who walks in looking to build a new deck, but does not see the brand he saw advertised, and walks straight out without any interface with store personnel. I admit I get personally agitated when I am followed around by store personnel, but if someone approaches me correctly by asking the right questions, the chances of them making a sale with me goes higher.

Now if the customer is a large contractor, a wrong decision can cost customers their jobs or even their businesses. As a sales consultant, you are looking to save your customer time, efficiencies and savings. Customers today only care about their side of the equation-what you can do for them.

As our stores get bigger, our SKU's increase to compete with the big boxes and our technology improves, the less personal I find the buying experience. Every owner struggles finding good qualified staff, but so many that I see on the front lines lack passion, product and sales knowledge, enthusiasm and persistence. They should also be able to make the buying experience fun. Good training would be a start.

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