Grant Cardone talks about the 10 commandments of retail sales 10 Commandments of Retail Retailers could be in for a hard time this holiday season, Morgan Stanley recently suggested. The American consumer is showing signs of being spent out and fatigued with uncertainty. Regardless of the holiday season predictions retailers have to be on the top of their game. All retailers are experiencing intense competition for the consumer, shrinking margins and a shorter holiday season. And consumers will not tolerate sloppy sales approaches and a poor customer experience. If retailers want to be effective this holiday season you must put attention on the customer. Here are some tips about the consumer. 1. Thou shall not believe "just looking." If the customer was just browsing and looking at products they could have done that from home. Your sales team must go out of its way to treat every buyer like a buyer and not a looker. 2. Thou shall never ignore the customer. They come to buy and when they need help they should not have to hunt for a sales associate. It is better to pester a customer with offers of help than it is to ignore. 3. Thou shall aggressively sell. In today's competitive markets you must do more than just open your doors you must aggressively seek to maximize every customer opportunity. I work with companies and individuals that are have no interest in hitting their sales objectives but are interested in exceeding them. 4. Thou shall never have the customer wait. When customers wait they become agitated, restless and uncertain. It used to be the longer the customer spent with you the better your chances of selling them. This is inversely true today whereby the longer they spend with you the less you will make and the fewer customers you can handle. 5. Thou shall treat every buyer like they came to spend money. When the customer takes the time to visit your company or store they are telegraphing to the world their agreement to spend money. Don't qualify the customer's ability just treat they all as they have money to spend. Engage with them and offer them your help and disregard any notions the customer has about "just looking" or "just shopping." 6. Thou shall greet every customer at the front door. I once went to a major retailer and it took over 17 minutes before one employee even acknowledged me. 7. Management shall engage with every customer. The sale doesn't start or end with the sales person. One way to increase sales penetration and increase both the customer experience and customer loyalty is make sure management engages with every customer opportunity. 8. Thou Shall provide the best Solution not just the lowest price. Retailers must train their sales associates to find out why the customer is shopping your company at this time. People buys things to solve problems not just to have things. Questions like, "why did you come here today","what are you looking for here that you didn't find online", "if their were one problem we could help you resolve what would it be?" 9. Thou Shall Attempt a Second Sale. The customer is more likely to make a second purchase to support and validate the first purchase. Companies like Apple and Starbucks are champions of making second sales easy for the customer to take advantage. 10. Thou shall help the customer extend beyond their budget. Too many sales people quit selling because of the customer or company that complains about their budget. Sell beyond the customer's budget and never believe a customer when they say they can't afford something. Great retailers must look for ways to go above and beyond for customers in order to provide a truly great customer experience that is fun and easy and that causes them to want to be loyal and refer. Your people should treat every customer like a millionaire, and treat them like a buyer today. When yo do this it will not be hard to exceed the customer's expectations after years of being ignored, not followed up and overall dissatisfied by the retail experience the customer is not expecting much from your staff. Be GREAT at the retail experience because lets face it, nothing else pays in retail. For full write up go to www.CardoneSuccess.com GrantCardone.com http://www.grantcardone.com Twitter http://www.twitter.com/grantcardone Facebook http://www.facebook.com/cardonesuccess Instagram - @grantcardone http://www.instagram.com/grantcardone

• published: 07 Nov 2013
• views: 824