If you’ve been in retail sales at all, you’ve had an experience selling to a difficult customer. It’s like this…

You’re going along in a sale and somehow, somewhere a light bulb goes off and you realize you just aren’t clicking with your customer.

They’re difficult.

Maybe while selling a luxury watch you are emphasizing a feature and your customer finds a flaw in your thinking and challenges your conclusion.

Or…maybe while you’re trying to “close” the sale on a purple plaid outfit, your customer turns away and starts looking around the store, picking up and examining a red low-cut outfit  or a paisley mini.

Or …maybe while you’re trying to build rapport, the customer is interrupting you with short, pointed questions about delivery and availability.

Or maybe you’re selling your customer on the features of a product, and they want to make small talk about your kids or theirs.

Those customers are just so darn difficult…

Or are they?

Maybe it’s you.

Customers buy from sellers who know who they are.

I butted my head against a lot of customers before I figured out my shear force-of-nature personality cost me as many big sales as I won. I had to learn how to sell better…

It wasn’t until I learned that most customers aren’t difficult by nature, but that:

Customers buy from someone who doesn’t expect them to be someone else.

One of the most powerful lessons in how to sell difficult customers I ever learned was that all salespeople and customers are one of four distinct personality styles – either a Driver, an Analytical, an Expressive or an Amiable.

You can take my free personality quiz to find out right now which personality style you are here.

Once I understood my own Driver personality style and how I expected to be treated as a customer, I could call on my other three less-dominant personalities to treat customers who were not like me in a manner they would respond to.

Natural Selling Styles of the Four Personality Styles

When it comes to sales, this is how the four personalities naturally behave in dealing with customers:

The Driver: Wants to separate the wheat from the chaff, determine whether the customer is a “player” or not. Doing this can often lead to higher sales.

The Analytical: Wants the customer to come to them and tell them what they are looking for. This allows them to shine as the product expert.

The Expressive: Wants to meet new people, whether they buy or not. Gives them a chance to socialize and be charming.

The Amiable: Approaches from a vulnerable, truly friendly position. This often endears them to the customer.

Here’s the part you must know about yourself, what each personality style wants from their customers:

The Driver: A quick sale of the most expensive items so they can make their quota and/or bonus.

The Analytical: Appreciation of their knowledge and buyers who don’t waste their time “just looking.”

The Expressive: Engagement with people who want to treat themselves and share their lives.

The Amiable: To find out what they want so the Amiable can help them find it.

When you understand your own style and the style of the customer in front of you, you can easily make more sales.

How To Sell To Difficult Customers: Adapt Your Selling Personality to Your Customer’s Personality Style

So in the opening examples of selling to difficult customers, when the customer finds the flaw in your feature of the luxury watch, you would understand you are dealing with an Analytical personality style frequently found in engineers. Perfection is what they expect. They don’t mean to challenge you and be difficult, it’s just they will spend additional time to narrow all their options down to the “best” one. That means you need to drill down in features and benefits and solicit their knowledge so that together you can answer all their laser-focused objections.

The next example where you were trying to “close” the sale and they turn away and start looking around at unrelated items – you are dealing with an Expressive personality style. They are the personality style rooted in the future; the possibilities of things excite them. It doesn’t mean they don’t want what you are working on, it’s just that something else caught their eye. The smart and therefore patient salesperson will let the Expressive add to that original item without ever having to be “closed.” The Expressive who feels validated spends more freely than any other personality style.

That difficult customer interrupting you with short, pointed questions about delivery and availability? Probably a Driver personality. They consider themselves kings of the world. Time is of the essence. If they are asking those pointed questions, they already see themselves owning it and very well may have decided to purchase, so cut to the chase and answer them quickly and get on with the sale, but don’t forget to add-on. A motivated Driver who trusts you can be the most loyal and price un-conscious customer of them all.

Finally, that difficult customer wanting to make small talk about your kids or theirs is trying to make a friend because Amiables don’t want to do business with people who aren’t friendly. You might be a cut-to-the-chase Driver but if you talk to an Amiable that way they will always “have to think about it.” You must find the attitude within to want to make a friend first and a sale second.

While customers can be difficult due to stress at work, a sick child, harsh words from a friend, or a myriad of reasons, no one sets out to be difficult when shopping.

What they set out to do is be greeted and engaged as a unique person.  Just like you. They aren’t difficult, they just want you to talk to them in a way that lets them be them.

Your customers aren’t always like you.  Learn to be like them because when selling at retail, one size doesn’t fit all.

That’s how you sell to difficult customers.

Want to know more about using the four personality styles to make more sales, manage your team better and build rapport with strangers?

The retail world is upside down. And I don’t mean because of Amazon…

Once upon a time merchants purchased the cheapest items to draw people in and then because they held high regard for their retail sales training, upsold what was the best answer for their customers.

In today’s topsy-turvy world, retailers are now showing the cheapest thing as the ANSWER.

How this happened

When sales are down, businesses cut employees.

Next is training.

What this has done

The lack of retail sales training leads employees to sell cheap as the answer… and that’s expensive for your business.

Case in point …

I was working with a sporting goods store once when I asked a young woman, “What’s the best fishing hook you have?” She quickly pointed out the feature and benefit with, “These are cheap so you won’t care when you lose them.”

While that was indeed a feature and a benefit, I asked, “But isn’t the reason you lose them is because they are cheap – they either break or you can’t hook the fish?”

She came to realize that the best hook, the most expensive was because it was twice as strong and much sharper so the fish could be set easier – resulting in more fish caught. That’s what the fisherman wants – right?

More fish, less frustration.

That’s the selling point…

The cheaper hook, in this case, was the most expensive – when you factor in time lost and fish lost – not to mention frustration to the fisherman. Think about all it took for that guy to carve out his time, get all his gear, find his perfect spot and sit there for hours in what he thought would be a fun afternoon… then think about those cheap hooks and the fish he lost.

Why selling the cheap is bad

When you just sell the cheapest item as the answer, you open yourself up for:

• Having to mark down your premium items.
• Dissatisfied customers telling their friends, “It (broke, split, collapsed) after just a few (wearings, uses, tries.)
• Dissatisfied customers telling their friends, “They used to carry good stuff, now it’s all ‘Made in China.’”

Oh yeah and it’s not just sporting goods…

You hear it in the auto parts store; “You could just do this and get the same effect – for less.” You hear it in the apparel ads, “Same fashion – for less.”  You hear it in the garden center, “Save money, get the smaller ones.”

Except that what seems the same isn’t.  A hook is not just a hook.

Which brings me to…

What to do instead

Retail sales training is brain training, not rote training. It is not, “Do this, then this.”

You have to educate the employee first, so they can educate the customer second.

You need to point out why the most expensive item costs more and not assume anyone will see its worth just because it’s priced more.

Customers are settling more and more with their food choices, clothing choices and furniture choices – they don’t realize all they don’t know; they just feel they are being ripped off, which leads to their frustration first with their cheap purchase, and then with the person who took their money for it.

Make sense?

Anyone can vomit features and benefits to a customer, but the true winners in retail are the ones who enjoy the game of selling, who analyze what they say, how they say it to a customer and connect this process to every sale they make. Those winning salespeople were educated on the benefits of the more expensive items and knew that those hidden features would lead the customer to say, “I’ll take it.”

While everyone can see a low price, most customers – and most employees nowadays- don’t see the eventual cost to the customer. Like those fishermen and their cheap hooks, customers who leave with the cheaper items more often than not will find themselves frustrated using the cheaper product.

And remember, you handed that frustration to them.

And now you’ve lost them. That’s what upside-down thinking does to people.

What items have employees down-sold you on?

From the local florist to the hardware store to the funky boutique started by a Project Runway wannabe, retail remains the heart of the American economy.

Anyone is welcome to open a shop if they have the money.

But what keeps so many independent retail business owners unable to pay themselves a decent wage can be traced back to one or more of these crucial issues.

See how many you recognize…

25 Ways Independent Retailers Hobble Their Own Success

• Choice of location by price over traffic counts and storefront visibility.
• Choice of location without thought to ingress and egress (how customers get in and out of a center).
• Owners untrained in the basics of financials.
• No knowledge of who your target customer will be.
• No idea how to market.
• A Field of Dreams belief that people will just “show up” once you open.
• Unwillingness to charge enough due to poor self-image.
• Being open when you want to be, not when customers want to shop.
• Owners who spend too much of their time out of their stores persuing other interests.
• Avoidance of the uneasy conversation, “You’re not cutting it, you’re fired.”
• Owners who have no plan when buying merchandise.
• Store shelves are filled with merchandise that didn’t sell.
• Merchandise is visible but not properly displayed.
• Outdated or minimal POS systems cripple your information capabilities.
• Store website is unimaginative, too busy or built on a template.
• Use of social media is either non-existant or poorly executed.
• You don’t take American Express.
• You don’t delegate tasks.
• You identify with your business so much, you don’t objectively see what needs to be changed.
• Displays are poorly lit.
• You have so few employees, customers can easily use your store to browse but then buy from Amazon.
• You don’t train your employees to sell your merchandise.
• Discounts are thought to be the only way to attract new customers.
• You hire people who will work a shift, not who will build the business.
• You pay your employees too little which results in higher turnover.

These are by no means all the ways small business owners shoot themselves in the foot , but they are the most significant reason many decry having a retail shop – especially in this crowded marketplace and lurching economy.

Do you have an example for one of the above? Can you think of one I missed? What do you think is easiest to fix or hardest to overcome? What did you fix which made a difference in your business? Please enter in comments below.

Checkout The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley) to learn the system I use to makeover small businesses around the world.

A lot has been written about all the ways you can get buzz for your business – from putting discounts on your Facebook fan page, to reaching out to mommy bloggers, to offering Groupons.

You don’t get buzz by being Santa Claus with your marketing dollars.

The way you get buzz, buzz that is sustainable and leads to higher profits, is to be a business worthy of buzz.

That means you have to earn it.

When I am asked by consultants what it takes to create a successful practice, I always tell them they need to “hit it out of the park” because that is what happened to me when I worked with one of my first clients, Polly’s Gourmet Coffee.  This is their story.

Background

In the late 90’s it was commonplace to read about the big-boxes putting many small businesses out of business.  From the arrival of the Home Depots that threatened the small hardware stores, to the Staples that were putting office supply businesses under, the business media was salivating for the “going out of business” stories.  (Well, they still do but…)

It was easy to paint a picture where our choices would become limited and where there was no room for the individual customer or business person.

In short, it was hopeless to try…

That’s why, with a stagnant economy, the story about a possible second Starbucks going in about 100 feet from Polly’s Gourmet Coffee, who had been in Long Beach, California, for twenty years, got ink.

Lots of it.

Editorials were written decrying the death of the independent; worried letters to the editor were published about losing the smaller retailers, but the lease for the second Starbucks was signed and their opening date announced.

I had to see what all the buzz was about.

I visited Polly’s on a chilly, January night and found the place a mess.  The trash hadn’t been emptied, the patio was dirty, the creamers were empty, the merchandise was dusty, half the overhead light bulbs were burnt out.  You get the shoddy picture.

While I was waiting for my cappuccino, one of the employees told his co-worker, standing right in front of me, that he had written on an employment application for another employer that he was the Polly’s store manager because, “…like who would check?” The other said that when the second Starbucks opened, “Polly’s is going to be gone.” That’s why he had his resume out too.

When I met owner, Mike Sheldrake, the next week, I asked him,  “What are you going to do when that second Starbucks opens up?” He answered, “I’m going to send them back to Seattle.” I replied, “And how, exactly are you going to do that?” Mike took off his glasses, looked back to the coffee roaster and said, “I haven’t got a clue. Where do I sign?”

Getting To Work

Mike was one of the founding members of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCAA.) People from around the country came to Mike to learn how to roast coffee in their own coffee houses.  Customers from around the country came to swap tales with Mike and share a cup of coffee while gleaning some of his tasting secrets.  Mike was the rock star of the coffee world!

In spite of that, I learned that Polly’s was hemorrhaging cash. We needed to turn the negative buzz about his viability around if he was to stay in business.

And quick. Polly’s had been losing about 10% each month from the previous month since the first Starbucks opened 10 blocks away.

Mike’s sleepy coffeehouse was ready for a reboot to become the preeminent choice of coffee connoisseurs and we’d make those customers our evangelists who would market Polly’s to their friends.

Lesson: You may already have buzz others have created for you – as a loser or place to avoid. With social media like Facebook, Yelp and Google Reviews you can get a bead on this fairly easily.

The Challenge

Polly’s had gotten ink before the second Starbucks opened, but it was a story of the little guy losing against the big powers.  It spread organically through word of mouth and the papers.

We were going to drive the story we wanted to tell – a tale of success, not a tale of woe.

We had to get the buzz right with the customers first, then amplify it with limited marketing like paid ads, brochures, direct mail and bumper stickers.

You don’t invite people to a party or a show you know is no good.

I sat in front of the counter one day and acted like I was working on my laptop.  I clearly saw and heard people ordering drinks and baker items. The coffee order was called out but as the cashier placed a bagel or other bakery item in a bag, only the coffee was rung up. Happy customers were putting large tips in the tip jar.  By the end of the shift the tip jar was filled with lots of $5 bills.  These employees were raking it in, and all at Mike’s expense because most of what they were collecting should have been his.

A meeting was held at a local restaurant.  I put up a picture of the Titanic.  When everyone was seated, I subtly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the deck here and it’s not going down on my watch. I know you’re stealing from Mike and that stops right now.” Two girls got up and said I couldn’t talk to them that way – and stormed out the door.  Sensing that I was usurping Mike’s familiar relationships with them, another got up, started to cry and said, “You can’t do this Mike! We’re family!” Mike acknowledged her feeling but said he brought me in and this is what he was going to do, right or wrong.

The next week we saw sales rise 11%.

Lesson: Look to your own crew, facility and customer experience first before you ever try to get buzz in your marketing.

Phase 1

We had to give customers something to talk about because being “in the know” made them more interesting to their friends. When those “in the know” customers brag about an establishment, those friends and family naturally believe. It is the heart of word-of-mouth marketing.

Mike’s ads in the local community paper were small, but because he had purchased them weekly from the outset twenty years prior, he enjoyed premium page-three placement. We tripled his ad size but discontinued the discount coupons that blended into the other clutter. Those discounts had only added to his debts.

We were going to raise prices and make everyone pay their fair share.

Lesson: When you feel discounts are the only way to bring people in, you are often blinded to why you are not attracting people to pay full price for your products.

For another marketing story regarding Polly’s, click here.

Picking the Fight With the Giant

We had to stand out. To pick a fight. To define Starbucks on our terms, not theirs. While Starbucks had brought specialty coffee to the masses, they were not the same as a shop that roasted coffee every morning; who carried more exotic blends and sourced coffees among the best; who had beans so fresh they were still warm when you purchased them.

We had to draw the line. We were extraordinary; Starbucks was well….ordinary. 

The tag line was created, “Down the street from Ordinary.” Unless we changed buzz from “Oh, poor Mike” to “Winner,” we couldn’t drive trial of Mike’s products.

Instead of pitching everyone to try our fresh roasted coffees, which really didn’t translate on the page, we’d take advantage of his relationship with the local paper. We would run a different ad each week.  We’d have “fresh content” that mirrored Polly’s fresh roasting their coffee daily.

We used direct mail extensively five miles around the shop. And it always was based on emotion and having fun, never discounts. The first example was a shot of Mike in front of the coffeehouse with the quote, “Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated. – Mark Twain 1888, Mike Sheldrake 1999.”

Lesson: Crafting your business as the angel to a competitor’s devil can galvanize response from loyal customers and give you a wealth of possibilities to explore. In those days it was Starbucks; today for many businesses, it is Amazon.

Upgrading the business

We purchased new patio furniture to place on the newly enlarged city sidewalks providing more places for our customers. Nothing attracts people like seeing a busy shop.

To build buzz in the neighborhood, we created a contest for an entirely new brand of coffee cups that had the coffee jacket in between the liner and the cup.  This meant you didn’t have to double cup hot coffee and provided a backdrop to custom print our own design.

We wanted local artists to create iconic paper cups that would immediately show the bearer as “in the know” and spread our message. We wanted our customers to become our sales people via the unique coffee cups as they walked around the neighborhood. We wanted the employees to talk up working at Polly’s as a warrior – not a survivor – or worse.  They loved working at “that coffeehouse.”

To build more community, we formed a panel of judges made up of the Dean of the Art School from the local university, a variety of  business leaders, as well as our own customers. This was an early example of crowd-sourcing back in 1997.

Since our customers contributed to the success of our outcome, our iconic artwork was going to be chosen by them. If we succeeded, so did they. One of the final designs came from Lomonoco Design which was a coffee colored collage of photos of Mike, the crew and the coffee roaster.  We liked it so much, it was also made into t-shirts fans could purchase.

Lesson: Involving customers and your community in your business builds the web of community in a very real way. Nowadays Facebook can help, but it is still the feeling the customers have when they are in your business that will determine whether they even want to get involved with you.

Merchandising the store to sell

The roaster was repainted navy blue and additional lights were added to draw attention to it. Brochures were created to describe the taste profiles of each roast, blend and strength of coffee.

Dull 25 watt light bulbs in the vintage stained glass lamps were refitted to 150 watt lights to shine brightly. Additional lights were added to shine from inside the store out onto the sidewalks to make the store stand out at night.

The counter areas were moved and display areas were added with various heights. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, a $50 a pound coffee, was packaged into blue foil single-pot servings and featured at the register along with new custom red logo’d mugs.

The most expensive coffee machines from Capresso were displayed complete with beans and signage easily explaining why the $300 model was the best and what to be wary of in cheaper models. (Hint: since the water never gets hot enough to release the best oils on the bean, bitterness is leached into the cup.)

Sales were climbing…

Lesson: Organizing your products and increasing the light levels in your store are what promotes discovery of your products and spotlights your unique features, and your most expensive items.

But having positive buzz where your customers own your success also can be fraught with dangers. What if people came in and didn’t get a wow experience?

Upgrading the Crew

I personally interviewed every one of the applicants.  Since all but one employee had quit or was let go, we were able to start fresh and create an exceptional coffee culture.

A comprehensive sales training program was developed that took Mike’s passion and comprehensive knowledge about our coffee and culminated with a 100-point test to certify all employees knew what they were talking about.

We hired a mystery shopping company to independently judge how well we were delivering an exceptional experience.  Our last questions were the heavily weighted, “Would you drive past a competitor to come back to Polly’s?” and “Would you go out of your way to tell friends and family about Polly’s?”

We started free Coffee 101 events where Mike shared his knowledge about coffee, from how to grind it to how to brew the perfect cup.  The store was packed with novices who wanted to learn from the expert. We added Coffee 102 which covered espresso drinks.

Clearly something was going on at Polly’s.

Lesson: Until you get the crew up to speed so that customers will figuratively crawl over broken glass naked to come back for that experience, your marketing means nothing.

Proof Of Marketing

People had stopped noticing Mike’s ads each week because the coupon rarely changed. Each week I came out with a new ad.  Between weeks 40 and 41, we deliberately skipped a week to see if anyone noticed.  That’s when customers called to ask what happened.  They were reading and noticing.

If no one had called, I’d have been surprised.

By the second year, I’d gone from being referred to as “El Diablo” by customers to the “Category-killer Killer” in stories about the little guy fighting back. We’d had stories written about us; I was featured in the New York Times and was doing business makeovers for the Los Angeles Times.

A business professor at California State University in Long Beach asked if his MBA students could do a marketing project to see if all the rumors and stories about how Polly’s now thriving business were true.

After a student from the group perused our sales figures, she asked me point blank, “How do you know how well your advertising is working without a coupon?” I replied, “Are they still teaching that crap to you?” She answered, “Yes.” I shook my head. Our sales are up 50% over last year, that’s how I know. But don’t believe me, do your own study.”

So they did.

From a sample of over 1000, they found that 80% of respondents knew our tag line and where we were located.

Why was that?

Because we all love a good underdog story.  In fact, that’s how I originally pitched the New York Times reporter, “Would you be interested in an independent coffeehouse going up against two Starbucks yet they still grew their sales?” We were a poster child for their David v. Goliath story.

The press loved the idea of the spunky independent winning against the mass marketer.  Controversy sells!

Lesson: Positive buzz is something you have to work at. You can buy it but it won’t stick. It takes hearing back from other people who had not been your customers and who are now happy brand ambassadors to know your buzz is working.

The results

A 52% increase in sales the first complete year of the program with an additional 40% increase in sales on top of that the following year.

Now that we had our buzz, Mike wanted to grow his wholesale business. What better place than the SCAA Expo in Long Beach that April?  Thousands of local coffeehouses and restaurants would be there looking for new suppliers.  But how would we bring our battle cry of “Ordinary Coffee” to a trade show?

Upping the Ante

We purchased a bag of Starbucks Espresso roast and poured some into a coffee tray.  I filled another with a sample of Polly’s Espresso roast. You could see the tips of the beans were burned in the Starbucks beans, but not in ours.  Many of their beans were chipped and broken; not ours.  So I made up signs showcasing the differences and clipped them to the trays.

That day, we took off for the convention center. It was just Mike and I at our less-than-stellar location. We set up our samples, rolled out our banner, put out our coffees and brochures, and waited.  Mike was indeed the rock star, and many people stopped to see him.

A couple Starbucks executives with their minions came over. One of them said, “You can’t display our coffee that way.” We told them we purchased the bag of coffee at the grocery store and could do whatever we wanted with them.  The minions took notes and slowly moved on. They didn’t like us.

What would a publicly-traded, world-class business care about one little coffee house in Long Beach? A lot, I guess, for I was told much later that a regional Starbucks guy had gone to the local paper and asked to see every one of our ads.

We had good buzz, they didn’t.

The US Postal Service had been watching our efforts because they wanted to feature Mike in a special mailer on some of the strategies we used, in particular direct mail.

I have to acknowledge that an awful lot of things happened to make this success beginning with the fact that Mike had a great product and he himself was a great character to market.

Without that basis, all the buzz we were after might have backfired.

“I wouldn’t be in business if it weren’t for Bob.” – Mike Sheldrake

Final lessons for you:

• The media will pick up a sob story if you let them. Are you listening bookstores, toy stores, electronics stores?
• Word of mouth, your positive buzz, has to be created on your terms
• Pick a fight. Your employees, customers and the media love a good underdog story.
• Get the basics right first. Clean out, close out and keep out the junk.
• Make shopping an exceptional experience, with exceptional products that stand out and deserve full price.
• Ask yourself, how high is up?
• You can do this.

Would love to know your comments on this case study below.

About Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor

Companies from some of the very largest, to some of the smallest, from luxury brands to startups, from franchises to regional chains contact me as a retail consultant because they are looking for results. Their successes are all theirs. You can find more case studies here.

While every client and project is different, the ability to enlist me as a retail consultant who has a fresh set of eyes to look at the challenges you are facing has been proven to result in a focused, effective and creative path to profitable sales.

No matter what your size, let’s see how I can help you as a retail consultant that gets results.

Creating Buzz For Your Small Business [Case Study]

The way you get buzz, buzz that is sustainable and leads to higher profits, is to be a business worthy of buzz. That means you have to earn it. This is the transformation story of one of my first clients, Polly’s Gourmet Coffee with lessons on how to grow your business.

Retail Consultant Results: How to Attract Customers to Your Retail Store 

Location a problem? This case study spotlights the results of creatively leveraging your location. So many times the thing that can most attract a customer – or make them drive right on by – is the exterior of your store.

Where To Find Customers For Quickserve Restaurant – Retail Consultant Results

When people ask for success stories of working with me as a retail consultant, I offer case studies. This owner wasted his marketing dollars on people who would never try his food product no matter how low-fat or high-quality it is. And he’d lost sight of their most important selling point: taste.

Retail Consultant Sales Training Results In Double-Digit Increase

This is a case study that featured a custom program developed to incorporate a new store design with custom phone scripts, retail sales training, personal coaching and role playing for owners and their salespeople.

Retail Consultant Success Changing A Regional Chain’s Culture  

This case study spotlights changing a company’s entire culture from one of nurturing to nurturing and selling. From the CEO, “We had become bogged down in survival. And it wasn’t a healthy place to be… Not for me as the leader or my team. I needed someone to help me work on a new direction for my business and help me hear and observe what was going on. I was looking for a shift change in who we were.”

What Retailers Can Learn From A Hotel Makeover [Case Study]

This 3-part study of a culture change shows how the client focused on a remarkable experience for their customers. And the revenues followed.

They generally aren’t doing it to upset you – it just feels that way at times.

The short answer to how to handle a customer on their cellphone is: wait.

That’s not the most helpful so here are a few tips based on answering this fundamental question:

Where are they doing this?

Deliberate

Is it as they are entering? It could be to avoid having to deal with you. You don’t even know if there is a real person on the other end. My response is make eye contact if you can as they walk in/past you and make a welcoming motion like a wave.  Then just wait until they come to you.

Accidental

Are they on the phone and just realized their surroundings? If their attitude is to ask for forgiveness the appropriate response might be, “Don’t apologize, happens all the time,” then ask them your question from the third part of the sale like, “Who gets the gift today?”

Interrupted

Are they answering a phone call in the middle of the sale? As it rings you can say, “I’ll come back when you’re off the phone.” Don’t just stand there listening in but move away to give them privacy, not to blow them off for taking a call that might be from a sick child or co-worker with a problem.

Time Pressed

Are they just “running in to make an order” at your coffeehouse or quick service restaurant and multi-tasking? Hand them a pad of paper and a pen with a smile. You’ll both be happier.

How not to do it? Place rude signs up around your store like these I’ve seen:

• When you’ve completed your call, you may step forward to the counter, until then, wait.
• No cellphone use
• Finish your call before ordering.

We have to begin from the place that most of your shoppers; most are on the phone by accident or were interrupted when they came in.

You must have the grace and patience to wait ingrained for if customers feel you are in huff, you may lose both your temper and the sale; both of which you can control.

What tips have you discovered to handle retail shoppers on their cell phones either in your store or restaurant? Please enter in the comments below.

We all do.

This past week AMG Strategic Advisors released the results from Clorox, one of their clients, highly targeted display. Consumer Goods Technology covered the story in this month’s issue.

What they did holds true no matter what size of business you manage and whether it is a grocery store, apparel store or other brick and mortar retailer.

Do Your Homework

According to the article, “Clorox first identified a gap between consumer beliefs and behaviors about disinfecting surfaces, and calculated that it represented $400 million in potential sales. The marketer next sought to understand shopper behaviors around preventive health products.

They discovered that most shoppers prefer to buy these products together and expect to find them in or near the pharmacy.”

Takeaway: Don’t just make a display but see if the need is there and calculate what it might represent to your bottom line.

Decide the Timing

During cold and flu season Roundy’s supermarkets in Wisconsin, the Twin Cities and the greater Chicago area were looking for a way to increase sales by driving foot traffic to the pharmacy area.

Takeaway: Seasonality can make a big difference.

Select Your Products

AMG Strategic Advisors helped them combine a bunch of preventive health products within the Clorox brand including  Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner with Bleach, and Clorox Bleach. Clorox separated products and services into four categories: On Me, In Me, Around Me, and Help Me.

Takeaway: Find the main components of your display

Come Up With A Great Sign

Clorox knew they wanted a banner of Prevent, Protect & Soothe.  Clorox does not have a lot of products in the In Me category, which focuses on food, and it used other well-known consumer products to fill out that category. With that sign and four areas, Clorox was able to promote additional items from different categories that complimented their own; they included Campbell’s soup, Kellogg’s cereal, Burt’s Bees, Brita water filters and Dial soap.

Without the sign Prevent, Protect & Soothe, a customer could have looked at the display like some type of Highlights puzzle or wondering, “Why the heck is bleach with soup?” (see example at end of this post.) With the sign, it all makes sense.

Takeaway: Signage makes a display register with the casual observer.

Put Your Display In The Right Area

Shoppers had an easy-to-shop destination near the pharmacy area around the themes of preventing illness, protecting the health of family members, and soothing them if they did become sick.

Takeaway: A secondary role of a display is to get people to see things from around your store, not just the closest aisle.

Look For Your Proof

Clorox brands were up 16% during the program, led by Clorox Disinfecting Wipes which were up 154%. Higher sales for the other brands also meant higher sales for Roundy’s.

Takeaway: Great merchandising creates displays that sell more merchandise.

Don’t Do This

Contrast the AMG Strategic Advisors / Clorox example of a targeted display based on a lot of research, to this one at a supermarket that offers no rhyme or reason why Lucky Charms, Langer Juice and Reese’s would be together except for a “2 fer $5″ sale on the juice.

Geez…

Discover more tips how to merchandise your store with The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley.) Download a free chapter here.

He was in a high-end retail shop and spotted a white shirt to try it on. He came out of the dressing room and the salesperson said, “Wow, that shirt looks great on you.” Randy took notice, felt good at being complimented on his choice, picked up another and returned to the dressing room.

He came out, stood in front of the mirror and the salesman again said, “Wow, you look great in that shirt.” At first he thought, wow, two in a row.

Then he saw a woman come out of the dressing room next to his and the salesman said… wait for it… “Wow you look great in that.”

Randy returned to the dressing room, removed the shirt and left with nothing.

My Take
You can see from one aspect that the salesman was doing a great job of complimenting the customer. He aced his training and if there were no one else in the store, he might – might – have gotten away with it.

But the fact is, he didn’t. Why?

One of three reasons:

• Because he was either trained to say the exact same thing or
• He had become lazy or
• He never was educated how to mix it up his sales process.

That’s a shame because the concept was right, just the implementation.

As you know, I train the Five Parts to a Successful Sale in my speeches, on my DVDs and in my book.

One of the parts I like to be the same is “Good morning, good afternoon or good evening.” I think it sets the stage that it is different than the rest of stores who are silent or can only say, “Can I help you?” It could be changed up I suppose but then I might just get, “How’s it hangin’ dude?” or “How are you today?”

Both of which are unacceptable.

The reason so many people struggle with retail sales training is that much of it is created like we were writing computer code, “If this… then do this.” The reality is you can’t script every interaction perfectly. That’s why you also need to hire people who can be trained to a higher level of education.

As you train someone, you have to educate them on the why you want it done a certain way.

Not because “I told you so,” but that it makes a better experience for the customer. Once they understand your goal is to honestly help customers choose from your merchandise, you’ll never hear the same thing when the customer comes out of the dressing room because every customer is different.

Training is only the first step, high sales come from educating.

What say you? Have you experienced what Randy experienced and if so, are you more skeptical towards getting help from a person in-store?

Learn more about how to improve your business.

Yes they are a totally custom built car. And yes, very expensive. But what makes each car so costly are the redundant systems.

For example, there’s not one set of brakes but three.  For a Rolls Royce those backup systems make an incredibly safe ride. That’s why they get a premium price.

For a retailer, redundancy is costly – that’s your money sitting there!

How many redundant products do you have on your shelf?

When I do business makeovers, owners are often shocked when I point out multiple products in a slow category.  For example, a toy store that has six different child’s play tea sets.  They gasp, “How did so many of THOSE get there?”

Like some evil gremlin came in and stocked their shelves with excess product.

I mean really, how many redundant items do you really need?

Is there a new trend you’re riding and you continually sell out? Did Oprah mention it in her magazine? Then maybe. Maybe its OK.

But usually, it’s just sloppy buying habits. Not gremlins.

The danger with multiple products is that they are not “different enough” so you’ll overwhelm your Feeler customers. They’ll shut down.

Because they can’t see any real differences they’ll either decide by price – what’s on sale or the cheapest – or leave. Neither of which builds your personal fortunes.

Four Tips How To Avoid Overbuying:

1. Know your stock. Keep your best-sellers in stock by monitoring your POS category reports.  Check sales within each category every week, and balance to outstanding orders.
2. Cull your stock. Cut those that continue in the bottom 20%- even if you really “love it.”
3. Plan your stock. Before buying anything, make sure you know what it will replace. Impulse is for customers, not store buyers.
4. Build to your stock level. Come up with an optimal level of merchandise based on your POS reports, your merchandise turn and profitability; then create your open to buy and buy to fill.  If for example you found you had 48 child’s tea sets in stock (8 of six styles) but you only sold 1 a month, that would take nearly four years to get your money back. Notice if you just replaced the one style that is selling, you’ll continue to dig yourself in the hole.

Learn more about proper buying, merchandising and selling with a free chapter from my book available here.