Almost without fail, in every sales training session we do, someone (usually more than one) will say something to the effect that they ‘hate being pushy’ or hate selling stuff to people but they don’t mind helping them or offering assistance. As evidence for their position, they usually relate how they feel when an assistant approaches them and tries to ‘sell’ to them.

To all those people I say (repeat after me): Service IS Selling and Selling IS Service.

One more time: Service IS Selling and Selling IS Service.

In fact, we rarely do any ‘customer service’ training in a retail environment. (Only for e.g. staff working on customer service desks.)

Of course this only makes sense if your retail selling philosophy is that you are actually NOT there to sell to customers, but that you are there to HELP THEM BUY.

A retail store is a commercial market place. People buy stuff. People WANT to buy stuff – that is why they entered your store. Helping them to get what they want is what makes the retail world go round.

To view customer service as about ‘being nice’ and ‘solving problems’ is very limiting and in fact detrimental to your business.  Proper retail selling is about solving problems in a nice way – ANYWAY, so there is no need for customer service.

On a mid-week evening somewhere in suburban a mystery shopper enters the restaurant. It is early, just after 6pm, and she is a little self -conscious being the only one in the room.

The owner seats her in a great spot, offers the menu – the usual drill. Upon his return to take the order, she declines a drink and opts for a meal only. He dismisses that option with a genuine and gentle refusal and suggests just a glass of wine.

It is difficult to describe, but the shopper reports that the feeling conveyed was NOT that he wanted to sell an extra drink, but that he had a real empathy for her ‘aloneness’ (not loneliness) and genuinely felt that a glass of wine would be a treat and  help with the overall experience.

As it happens he suggested a Sauvignon Blanc (the preferred white wine) and the wine turned out to be excellent.

The second restaurant (different brief) was an hour later. By the time she arrived, the place was already filling up because a local band was playing.

The owner (again) seated her at a small two-seater, right next to the stage and pulled up a chair that would have her facing towards the restaurant. She declined and opted to have her back to the restaurant. (Can you see why?)

He enquired if she was ‘alone tonight’ and when she answered affirmatively, he responded with a ‘oh, really’. One guy understood the art of hospitality and the other just ran a business.

The differences were subtle.

The impact was vastly different.

The foundations for the overall experience had been laid long before actual food had been served. How does this apply to you?

It reminded me of the (anonymous quote):

If you do what you love, you will never have to work again in your life.

I wonder how many retailers love what they are doing.

Check out this picture outside a newsagent in QLD to see an example of someone who definitely does not love what they are doing.

Our latest newsletter has been published here – subscribe if you like it. (If nothing else, enjoy the joke.)

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This is a test blog from email account to wordpress.

Dennis Price

Ganador Management Solutions

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Readers of this blog are waaaay to sophisticated to need this, but I thouhg I would post it here – just in case

Here is a tip that you can use that will save you a lot of money.

• Go to twitter.com – register for free

(Stop – don’t run away, trust me on this one )

• Go to hootsuite.com – register for free

(Hootsuite is a software application that does a better job than Twitter of managing your tweeting.)
You don’ have to tweet and you don’t have to have followers and you don’t have to follow anyone – just register.

• In the search box of Hootsuite, type the name of your company.  
• When prompted, click on ‘save search as a column’.
• In the search box, type the name of your company as well this hash tag:  #fail
• When prompted, click on ‘save search as a column’.

Make sure you try all variations of your company or even key products so that you cover all basis.
(You can do this for ANY topic, say Ecommerce, and that column will track every mention of the word ecommerce.)

You have now set up an effective media monitoring account and all you have to do is watch it. Each column will pick any mention of the words you selected and you will immediately know if anyone mentioned anything that concerns you. There are more sophisticated ways of doing it, but this is about as effective as you can get.)

If you rate no mentions (the search columns are blank) then you can consider yourself lucky or unlucky, depending on your perspective.

If you want to see how it works, pick a larger, well-known brand (e.g. DELL #fail) and see what happens. I guarantee you DELL is watching. Shouldn’t you be?

Managing store presentation and merchandise display is an ongoing task that occupies floor staff constantly. (Occasionally even causing them to ignore the customer!) The following list is an important list of basic rules that apply to most retail formats:

• Use of signs inside and out.
• High GP items at eye level.
• Have an attractive, uncrowded entrance.
• Design to your traffic flow.
• Utilise end caps/ gondola ends.
• Have a display with add-on items.
• Display impulse items.
• Display ahead of the buying cycle. (Some fashion stores take this too far and are selling next season in the middle of this season.)
• Appeal to as many senses as possible.
• Colourise.
• Give the impression you have a lot of product in stock.

We attended a conference in Melbourne earlier this month which was opened by Shane Jacobsen (Kenny of the eponymous movie). He regaled us with the story behind the Kenny story, and to make a long story short, one of the key messages was that they could make the movie as cheaply as they did because over his life up to that point he was almost fanatical about acquiring new ‘licenses’.

He is licensed to drive almost anything on wheels and most things on water. He is lighting guy and a pyro-technician and much more. All of this happened because his father always stressed the importance of ‘checking your traps’. The expression is something that rural Australia understood all to well: if you don’t want to go to bed hungry then you should set a lot of traps (in the wild) and check back often.

That life lesson stood him in good stead and when they time came, he was prepared for it. In a previous post we also wrote about luck, but this is so important that we want to stress again what our attitude towards ‘luck’ should be.

• Lisa Minnelli (?)is quoted as saying that you should always be preparer to get lucky.
• No lesser luminary than Donald Trump said: Everything in life is luck.
• Of course, Jean Cocteau was a bit more cynical when he said: I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

It is just luck/ bad luck depending on whether you catch something in the trap (unlucky for the animal, lucky for you). But the reality is that without actually going to the trouble of setting the traps (using all your knowledge and skills) then all the luck in the world will be of no use. You have to be prepared to get lucky.

So the question I leave you with is:

What are you doing to prepare yourself?

And I leave with a few tips (not only questions)  too:

• It is never too late to start preparing your self to get lucky.
• Bad luck is not an excuse, it is just an explanation.
• Good luck is never cause for boasting.
• If you look for luck, you will find it where others never even notice.
• If you think you are unlucky, start counting the ways you are better off than
• Luck is a boomerang.

Just imagine that luck is an aeroplane out there and it is looking for a runway to land on in your life. Unless you build the right runway, your luck will never be able to land.

• Lighting not only creates atmosphere, it also assists the retailer with minimising theft in the store. 
• Illuminate merchandise from the angle a customer will see it – usually front-on.
• Use baffles to direct lighting at merchandise – and not the customers.
• Focussed (spot) lights should never be aimed at the floor.  (In stores such as supermarkets, general fluorescent lights will shine on floors as well.)
• Be careful not to create glare – such as on jewellery showcases and deli-counters.
• Conceal source lamps (use alcoves etc.) to make general lighting invisible.
• Be aware of how type of (fluorescent) light influences the colour of merchandise.

I am not going to write much – hoping that the image speaks for itself.

What I am hoping for is your comment and insight to clarify, add, and improve.

Can you help?

Please

Most retailers can use the following merchandising strategies and they need not follow only one.  In fact, many retailers will use many of these strategies simultaneously.

HOMOGENOUS MERCHANDISING

This is a strategy that is used in a retail environment where there is a high degree of product specialisation – that is speciality stores.  It is the opposite of standard, heterogeneous merchandising approach.

THEMED MERCHANDISING

The use of themes (Fathers day/Out of space) as a unifying factor, either on a storewide basis or only a department – or product range basis. 

LIFESTYLE DISPLAYS

This is also a themed display, but it does not tell a story for the sake of a story, but rather to fit and compliment the customer’s lifestyle.  Typical lifestyles are identified in the field of Consumer Behaviour, and could be for instance; 

Yuppies, Greens or Health Nuts – all of which are distinct customer groups that could be targeted by the retailer.

WAREHOUSE DISPLAY

This strategy requires virtually all stock to be on the sales floor – stacked to the ceiling and with industrial-type shelving. (E.g. Bunnings.)

SCRAMBLED MERCHANDISING

This strategy emphasizes the cross merchandising of product ranges that do not – at first glance – belong together.  Most newsagents adopt a strategy of selling confectionery alongside books and magazines.

VERTICAL MERCHANDISING

This is the strategy of emphasizing variety of product ranges by putting all product ranges next to each other and using the depth (vertically) to put back-up stock of the same variety on the shelf. Many retail managers under-estimate the contribution of vertical merchandising, which is the underlying construct of planograms.

MINIMALIST

This merchandising strategy is especially suited for stores that are attempting to portray an exclusive image.  A boutique with shiny marble floors, two statues, a painting and five dresses against the one wall, would be following a minimalist strategy.

STANDARD OR CLASSIC MERCHANDISING

The standard merchandising strategy makes use of the maximum merchandise on the traditional shelving and rails – displayed in the conventional manner.  This strategy is usually applied in larger stores’ bulk-of-stock areas and specialists strategies will be followed for feature displays.

Do you believe that:

1. Suppliers must be screwed for the last cent on every deal?
2. The competition must be beaten?
3. The Government is out to rip you off?

Readers of this blog will know that I was presenting at a conference in Melbourne and it struck me again how many retailers believe suppliers, competitors, the government etc. are all conspiring against them.Time to consider these views rationally:

Conspiracy #1: Suppliers must be screwed for the last cent on every deal
Suppliers were major sponsors of the conference, without whom the conference would not have happened. Suppliers fund shopper marketing and trade promotion initiatives. Suppliers invest heavily in product training for staff development.

I know all these things because I make my living making these things happen. Sure, the supplier gains too, but that is the nature of a win-win relationship. Screwing every cent out of supplier simply means that activities like these above don’t happen, which only has a detrimental impact on sales (lose-lose).

The last thing that a supplier will cut is their margin – just like the retailer. They have shareholders too. They have KPIs too – so that ‘fantastic’ deal that was achieved is more likely to be at the expense of developing the business, promoting the product and developing staff.

Conspiracy #2: The competition must be beaten
This is another furphy. The aim of the game is not to have any competition. That is kinda the point of a having a niche, a competitive edge or a USP.

Every minute spent obsessing about the competition is time that could have been spent improving your own business. Customers will only compare your business to a competitor if they are the same, so make sure it isn’t.

Conspiracy #3: The Government is out to rip you off
The government is definitely not there to rip you off. Actually, maybe, on second thoughts…

(OK – that last one was just a joke.)
But seriously, how many of these thoughts or ‘beliefs’ actually limit our success? I can think of a few more (another blog maybe) but what can you add to the list of popular misconceptions?