7 Truths Of Retail Selling

As retailers most of our effort and expense go into creating great stores and getting customers to come to them. Whether it pays off depends on what our sales people do with them when they get there. Profitability is often the difference between good salesmanship and poor salesmanship.

Here are seven truths of good retail selling.

1. Good salesmanship begins before the customer arrives.

Salesmanship is 10% presentation, 90% preparation. Sales people need thorough training and rehearsal before helping customers. Unfortunately those things are hard to come by in retail—sales people too often get their training on the sales floor, searching for information and answers beside their customers and learning their communication skills through their (costly) mistakes. The first step in salesmanship is learning the products and practicing communication.

2. Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

Great salespeople are easy to spot—they listen when their customers speak. They know what the customer says is more important than what they say. When they listen they learn what the customer needs and will buy.

Listening builds trust and lowers customers’ apprehension, defensiveness, and resistance. Customers’ reluctance to talk to salespeople is due mostly to salespeople’s reputation (often deserved) for not being interested in what the customer needs or wants, and simply attempting to sell what they have. Asking and listening attentively is the simple remedy.

But listening requires discipline and self-restraint. When a relevant idea or strong sales point comes to mind, we’re naturally eager to present it. A good salesperson resists that urge until the timing is right.

When a customer speaks, a good salesperson stops what he’s saying—often mid-sentence—no matter how important his thought. He knows a customer who is talking isn’t listening. If his idea is important, it will get better consideration if he holds it for a more receptive moment.

3. An eagerness to help is the solution to the eagerness to sell.

The most effective way to sell is to focus on the customer’s needs. Find out what they are, who the product is for, how it will be used, and what criteria he has in mind for it. That information allows you to suggest products you honestly believe will meet his needs.

When he sees you’re willing to help him and not just attempt to sell him whatever you have, he’ll open up, work with you, and want to buy from you.

4. Nothing sells like a personal relationship.

Customers rationalize their buying decisions on many factors—price, service, product, warranty, etc.—but, despite what they say, the key criterion is often simply a salesperson they have come to know and like.

Good salespeople are aware of this and work to build personal relationships. They get and use customers’ names. They make their own name easy for customers to remember by repeating it, offering a similarity (Chip, like potato chip), wearing a nametag, inserting it in conversation, giving business cards, writing it on sales literature, etc.

They look for commonalities and connections—people, occupations, schools, hobbies, backgrounds, children, etc. They keep a file of customer information and study it often so they recognize and remember their customers when they return and can easily make conversation.

And after a sale they follow-up to insure the customer is happy. A buyer shouldn’t become a previous customer, but a friend, a key influencer, and a future customer.

5. There’s no magic close.

Retail people sometimes talk about “closing” as if what the salesperson says at the end of the conversation makes everything that came before it irrelevant. “He’s getting customers; he just doesn’t know how to close them.”

There is no magic phrase that causes customers to buy indiscriminately. A customer buys when all the pieces are in place: he has a need; the need is correctly identified; the correct products are shown; the customer believes a product is a good match for the need; the customer feels the price is fair; the money is available, etc.

True, once an appropriate product is identified, salespeople should ask if it’s correct and what else needs to be done to facilitate the sale. Many customers need that focus and encouragement.

However if any of the requisite steps weren’t adequately satisfied, there is no (legal) magic phrase that will cause the customer to buy. The problem is not in the “close” but in the steps that came before it.

6. A return policy is a tool, not a rule.

The purpose of a return policy is to encourage sales, not to limit when and how a customer can return something they are unhappy with.

“Take it with you. If you don’t like it, you can bring it back.” Smart retailers don’t reluctantly offer a return policy—they promote and advertise it. Not only does it create more sales, but if a customer is unhappy with something he’s bought, you don’t want him to keep it and be continually reminded of the unsuccessful experience with your store.

Forget about the few who abuse a return policy and focus on the 99.9% who will buy more because of the reassurance. If returned merchandise isn’t damaged, the cost is negligible. And even those who intend to return often don’t get around to it or decide to keep it.

7. Just because they don’t complain doesn’t mean they’re happy.

Customers don’t like to be complainers. Most would rather stew in their dissatisfaction, tell their friends and neighbors about it, and swear off any further business with you than tell you they’re unhappy.

A retailer’s market is his local community. He depends on relationships and his reputation in the community for continuing business. He can’t afford to have unhappy customers in his market.

Smart retailers call their customers and ask if they’re happy. They insure that past customer become repeat customers, enhance their reputation and promote future business.

By: Chip Averwater

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Chip Averwater, Hopeless Seeker of Retail Truths, created a community providing information and insight combined with an irresistible enthusiasm for the world's most engrossing, gratifying, challenging, and sometimes rewarding, profession. Visit his website at retailtruths.com.