Driving Sales on the Shopfloor

If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a thousand times – “Sales covers all sins.” As much as I don’t like to admit it, I agree with this sentiment. So why, when retail is more competitive than ever before and we still have a few sins in the closet, don’t most retailers have a comprehensive sales strategy, store by store as well as one for the whole organisation? If you think your organisation has a good handle on this, what would your head office team say are your three must win battles to drive sales for the next 12-months? What would your store teams say to the same question? I know all retailers are focusing on this in their own way, but with competing priorities and a concerning trend towards retail managers becoming administrators rather than merchants, it’s time to hold your own retail summit to drive your kick-arse sales strategy.

Here are 10-questions to consider when thinking about your sales strategy on the shopfloor for the next 12-months …

1. Is it time to bite the bullet and measure customer conversion at store level? I know it’s expensive but what better way to know if you have a marketing problem or a selling problem in store? It also allows you to accurately predict staffing levels.
2. What do you do with the Store Managers from under-performing stores? Sometimes a gentle push from the Regional Manager just doesn’t cut it. What about the idea of bringing small groups of Store Managers to head office for a day to look at the store results and develop concrete action plans. I know it sounds like naughty school but it might just be the perfect way to both educate and hold Store Managers accountable?
3. Have you ever worked out how long it takes for a new team member on the shopfloor to reach their maximum sales potential? Is it 3-months? Is it 6-months? Or look it from another perspective. What are the missed sales opportunities by having a poorly designed and executed induction program? For an electrical retailer in Singapore, we were able to accurately predict that a new team member that followed the right induction program in the first 12-weeks would generate $33,000 more in sales than an “average” induction program. Think about the potential!
4. In retail, we focus so heavily on the store KPI’s to drive the sales result. Two KPI’s, items per sale and average sale are critical KPI’s for the store teams to focus on. So, here are the big questions. Is your store management team leading the way on the shopfloor and demonstrating the right behaviours with customers to maximise the sale? Does your store management team know how to coach team members [not just give feedback] on improving these two KPI’s? And finally, can team members on the shopfloor “self-correct” when they need to improve on these two KPI’s. One place to start is to ask your best salespeople to develop a bank of practical ideas to use with customers on the shopfloor to improve these two KPI’s. Chances are, it might help the Store manager as well.
5. We all know the value of a good Store Manager. It’s the difference between whether the store makes budget or not. Have you ever reviewed the way your best Store Managers spend their time compared to other Store Managers? It’s a really good exercise to look at role clarity, in particular, how much time Store Managers spend in areas like coaching, selling, administration, operations, etc. You’re sure to find some hidden gems that all Store Managers can benefit from.
6. Have you got the right incentive program to drive the right behaviours on the shopfloor? It’s amazing how many retailers have overly generous incentive programs for team members, even when the store doesn’t make budget. Equally, in many cases, there’s not enough incentive gap between highly performing team members and those in the middle of the pack. At the end of the day, make it fair, make it simple, make it motivating and make it work for the organisation.
7. Am I the only person on the planet that is bewildered by the lack of collaboration between stores, and in particular, Store Managers? Try this scenario on for size. A retail organisation invests heavily in an annual Store Manager conference. Managers get excited about seeing new product, learn about the direction of the company for the next 12-months and generally get pumped seeing each other again and sharing lessons from the year gone. And then for the rest of the year [well at least until conference comes around again] managers don’t contact other managers to share a great idea that drove sales or worse still, don’t pick up the phone to ask a manager who has clearly nailed the numbers in the last month, what they did to affect the result. It is crazy. It is cultural and it needs to be the focus of both Regional Managers and the whole organisation to improve shared learning and collaboration. If you don’t, you won’t innovate.
8. What percentage of your Store Managers could step up tomorrow, take on the role of the Regional Manager, lead their peers and act like a proper Business Manager? The depth of your leadership pipeline is critical to driving sales. Effectively, how many of your Store Managers think like Business Managers now? A Store Manager that thinks like a Business Manager, among many things, has the skills and knowledge to leverage the available reports to drive sales on the shopfloor. They know what information to look out for, they don’t get caught with analysis for the sake of it and they educate their teams in the same way they were. When the entire store team run the store likes it’s their own business, it’s a no-brainer, the sales simply follow.
9. Are you maximising the sales opportunities from your VIP customers? Do you in fact know your VIP customers, what makes them VIP and how you can find more of them? This is both a strategic and operational opportunity for retailers and starts with a disciplined approach from stores on a weekly and monthly basis to review VIP sales.

And last, but not least, is how the store communicates around product. Do store teams review the week’s best sellers, and ask the team for feedback along the way? Is there a regular review of, say, the product of the month? Do store teams look at slow moving products and discuss ways to sell these to customers? Do store teams invite feedback from customers on product? This should be fundamental retail practice in all stores, but in reality, it’s not, so there’s a huge opportunity to get this right and routine through stores.