Are your employees having fun?

Do they enjoy coming to work every day? Do they smile, laugh and play? Do they make the tedious jobs seem fun and exciting? Do they brighten up the entire store?

Or do they drag themselves to work at the last possible moment? Do they start each day with a bitch session about last night’s issues with the kids, or yesterday’s customers, or just life in general? Do they roll their eyes when you suggest something to keep them busy?

If you’re a retailer, you have to have a fun place to visit. There are too many options for customers to have to go to someplace they dread. And that fun attitude starts with your staff.

Here are some things you can do to foster fun amongst the staff:

• Hire fun people. Seems obvious, but are you willing to fire the sourpusses and start over?
• Encourage fun on the job. Have games for the staff to play. Get products out for the staff to demo. Help your staff become experts by making them use the products you sell. Do something unusually fun on the sales floor, maybe even out of character for your industry like a TV in a jewelry store.
• Encourage fun in the training. Make meetings and trainings fun by finding fun ways to teach. Have surprises, pleasant surprises, at meetings and trainings such as prizes, guests, food, or just unexpected activities.

Yeah, for me it’s easy. I have a toy store. It’s supposed to be fun. But even in a toy store I have to foster that atmosphere of fun consciously. And the more I foster it, the more fun it becomes.

Make fun a priority in your store and your customers will respond. And that’s the most fun of all!

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Fun can work in any retail situation. What it would be like for the guys if the jewelry store had a TV showing sports channels and all the sales people were having a good time? How about a grocery store with tasting stations and experts on grilling techniques that had serious passion and a light-hearted good nature? Or a hardware store where you could swing a bunch of hammers to see how each one is different while the staff egged you on to hit harder?