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Category: Customer Service

Men and Women Do Shop Differently

He stormed out of the store, mumbling how he would never return. Yeah, it was our store, and I was in the department that made him so angry.

I was talking with the baby department staff about the new items I saw at a recent trade show. At some point he slipped into the department unnoticed. The three of us continued our conversation, pausing briefly to greet the customers we saw, offering assistance as needed.

But we never saw him. And he never came over to talk to us. He just left angry that no one bothered to help him with a question he had. He even made a few comments as he left about how my grandfather would never have treated him that way. Ouch.

Frankly, we never saw him enter the department, otherwise we would have greeted him as we did everyone else. Then again, he never came up to us, even though he came in with a question to be answered. Which is the point I want to make.

Men and women shop differently because they communicate differently.

Speaking Vertical
Men speak vertically. Did what I say make you think higher of me or lower of me? For a man to ask a question is to admit that he doesn’t know, which makes you think lower of him. That’s why we guys don’t want to stop and ask for directions. It is also why he entered our department with a question, saw the three of us conversing, and avoided us hoping that we would see him and engage him separately. That way he would have the upper hand in the conversation and wouldn’t have to engage three of us at once.

Speaking Horizontal
Women, however, speak more horizontally. Did what I say draw me in closer or push me further away? Asking questions just draws a woman into the inner circle and makes her feel like she belongs. She wants to ask for directions as much as a man doesn’t want to ask.

A woman with a question in a retail store will usually ask the first person she sees and keep asking until the question is answered.

Signs Sell
One quick way to remedy the male aversion to asking for help is signage. Put answers to the most frequently asked questions on visible signs where someone might pose those questions. Not only will the men thank you, the introverted women will appreciate those signs, too.

Just watch a man in a store. He walks in, stops, looks around to get his bearings. What is he looking for? Signs to tell him where to go next. He finds his sign, heads off and continues his search. If he doesn’t find what he wants, he looks for another sign. Even when someone asks if he needs help, his gut reaction is to say no. He wants to figure it out before having to admit he doesn’t know.

Paco Underhill, author of the fabulous book Why We Buy has highlighted this behavior from countless hidden camera recordings.

Men and Women Do Shop Differently
When you approach men (and today’s example is a reminder that you have to approach them), they want to speak vertically. Make them feel important and smart and you’ll be able to engage them in a way that gets them the help they need without them feeling bad about it.

Women, on the other hand, just want to be part of the inner circle. Invite them in and you’ll be golden in their eyes.

-Phil

Would You Attend This Workshop?

The Jackson Retail Success Academy is now signing up retailers for our 2011 class that starts in January. This 8-week program has been a huge help for new retailers to get the foundation they need to be successful.

Some have asked if we could run this academy in their community so I put together a 2-Day Workshop format.

Would you sign up for this workshop if it was offered in your town?

Retail Success Academy 2-Day Format

Day 1:
8:00am Meet & Greet – goal setting, expectations
8:30am Understanding Your Brand – definition of branding, character diamond workshop

9:30am (break)

10:00am Character Diamonds Revealed
10:45am Traditional Advertising – Creating an ad budget, How Ads Work, Advertising ROI, Ads with Impact

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Marketing on a Shoestring Budget – Word of Mouth, Social Media, Cause Marketing, Networking, Public Relations

2:30pm (break)

3:00pm Understanding Your Financials – Balance Sheets, Income Statements, Ratios & other important numbers
4:00pm Cash Flow Sheet

5:00pm (break for evening)

6:00pm Dinner/Drinks someplace fun in your town

Day 2:
8:00am Resources Breakfast – meet the local Chamber, DDA, Buy Local groups
8:45am Inventory Management – GMROI, Pricing for Profit, Turn Ratios, Open-to-Buy, Cash Flow

10:45am (break)

11:00am Customer Service – The Basics, The Best Practices, The Wow! Service

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Hiring & Training – Identifying the Perfect Employee, interview questions that work, developing a training program

2:15pm (break)

2:30pm Staff Meetings/Training Sessions – hands-on workshop to learn how to plan and run successful meetings & training sessions
4:15pm Final Q&A
4:45pm Evaluations

5:00pm Go be successful!!

Tell me whether you think it would be worth two days to you to attend a business-altering event like this and how much you would expect to pay. (You’ll be surprised when I reveal what it would actually cost.)

-Phil

PS All those links take you to free eBooks I’ve already written on those topics. The eBooks are extremely helpful but not nearly as much fun and motivating as the live presentation.

New Statistics on Market Share

I just got back from presenting at the Michigan Downtown Conference in Bay City, MI. Robert Gibbs offered some new statistics on the breakdown of Retail Market Share worth passing along.

In 1955 the Central Business Districts of our cities had 90% of the Retail Market Share. Today the CBD’s have 2%.

The breakdown looks like this:

Power Retail Centers (think Wal-Mart plazas) 37%
Regional Shopping Centers (malls) 31%
Internet 9%
Living Centers (the new outdoor mall type places) 7%
Downtown CBD’s 2%

(I am guessing that the other 14% is in small strip malls and stand-alones that are spread out along the highways, rural areas and non-commercial districts of this fine country.)

That is a major shift in shopping habits. His solution for downtowns to reverse this trend is for downtowns to attract more chain retailers. The chains then become anchors that attract shoppers and raise the tide for all the shops. Unfortunately, that is not a reality for most small cities.

Especially after he told us the 50-50-50 rule for attracting chain stores. You have to have two of these three factors:

  • 50,000 people in the trade area (or more)
  • $50,000 average income (or higher)
  • 50,000 cars driving by daily (or more)

How does your community stack up? I am guessing that 95% of the cities in the US were eliminated immediately.

My solution is far simpler and works whether you’re in a bustling metropolis or quaint little town.

To gain back market share you need to be better than you were in marketing, better than you were in over-the-top incredible customer service, and better than you were in turning your customers into evangelists. Do that and the people will come. You don’t need a national chain store to draw you a crowd. Start your own crowd – a crowd of people who love you.

-Phil

Completing the Sale

Rick Segel’s last post was on how to raise your average ticket by selling more. His suggestion? Suggestions (read his post here).

Of course, rather than tell you what to do, he invites you to attend his webinar to learn how.

With all due respect to Rick, I don’t want you to attend any webinars, so let me tell you how I taught my staff to do suggestive selling. (Hint… it’s not a whole lot different than, “Want fries with that?”, but then again it is completely different.)

Complete the Sale
Every customer that is making a purchase has an expectation of using that item in one way or another. But most often the item is not a stand-alone item. Most often there are accessories either optional or required that make using the item much more productive and/or enjoyable.

A radio-controlled helicopter needs batteries. A model car needs paint & glue. A coloring book needs crayons. A dress shirt needs a tie. A pair of shoes needs socks. A new car needs fuzzy dice.

Yeah, that’s the low hanging fruit. But every product has something that completes it, often many options to complete it.

Teachable Moment
To get my staff to understand this concept we started with our usual show-and-tell. Everyone grabbed one new item from their department to show off to the rest of the staff at one of our meetings.

But then I challenged them. I asked them to go back into the store and find five items that they could suggest to a customer to “complete the sale”. Not surprisingly, they were all able to easily find five items. Some came back with ten.

The point made was that with every item there are plenty of suggestions of complimentary products, some of which they need, some of which they might just want. But unless you are conditioned to think that way, unless your staff is already mentally thinking in those terms, just making random suggestions is as effective as selling french fries.

-Phil

Meeting Your Goals

Had another fun staff meeting this morning. More importantly, we met our Goals for the meeting.

Yes, every single one of my staff meetings has a Goal (or two). And I define that goal by finishing this simple statement…

This meeting will be a success if…

I had two goals for today’s meeting that finished that statement:

  1. The staff understands the importance of asking the customers questions and getting to know the special needs of their children
  2. The staff gains a new tool to make the experience more personal and special for our youngest customers

Across the Spectrum
The task I used to accomplish the first goal was a guest speaker who talked to us about Autism and the special toy needs of autistic children. If you know anything about Autism, you know there is a spectrum. What is good for one child might be completely wrong for another. But after the presentation the staff is now armed with a load of questions to ask a customer to help understand where her child might be on that spectrum.

What was even better, however, is that it helped them also realize that all children are on some sort of spectrum in their levels of play and that by asking the right questions of the parents they can better determine which toys to suggest.

Not Just Any Balloon
To accomplish Goal #2 I brought in an art instructor. This guy can teach any kind of art to any kind of student. The task I gave him was to teach to my staff how to doodle and draw in twenty minutes. He was up to the challenge. In no time at all he convinced my staff that they all had artistic talent, and he showed them simple techniques for doodling animal faces onto helium balloons.

Now my staff is empowered to not only give children free helium balloons, but to customize them with a quick little drawing. The kids don’t just get a balloon, they get a personalized work of art. It only takes a few seconds to draw, but it makes a lifetime of impact.

Best of all, the staff had a blast learning and have spent all morning practicing their doodling skills (wouldn’t you just love a job where the boss encourages you to doodle?). There’s a little friendly competition already begun to see who can draw the most balloons this week. Once again the staff is telling me how much fun they have at our meetings.

Are your staff meetings this fun?
Would you like them to be? All I do is follow a simple plan that you can follow, too.

Click Here if you want to learn how to plan Staff Meetings That Everyone Wants to Attend.

Or click here to go right to the worksheet to start planning an awesome meeting for your staff.

-Phil

Help Me Choose A Workshop

At many conferences we have breakout sessions – three or four different topics and speakers from which you can choose.

I struggle with these because I usually want to attend more than one, and cloning has not reached the level to allow me that luxury. And trying to decide between one session and another is tough.

I need your feedback here…

I’m going to give you four options for sessions you could attend. For the sake of argument, let’s assume all the speakers are well-qualified to talk on their respective subjects and you can only attend one of those sessions.

Which session will you attend and why?

Session #1 – Marketing & Advertising on a Shoestring Budget
Learn the smartest ways to get the most out of your limited advertising resources. This class will show you how to use Social Media the right way, teach you new ways to market your business without spending a dime, how to get a guaranteed return on the money you do spend on advertising, and why you’re not getting the word-of-mouth you think you deserve (and how to change that). Every attendee will leave with at least four inexpensive ways to increase traffic and sales that they can implement right away.

Session #2 – Everyone has Customer Service, You Need Customer Delight
This session will show you how to train your staff to consistently give your customers far more than they expect. Topics covered include how to meet and greet your customers the right way, understanding the different customer temperaments, how to solve their problems, and how to finish each sale leaving the customer happier than when they came in. Each attendee will get a blueprint for training their staff including role-play examples and key phrases to avoid.

Session #3 – Knowing the Numbers, It’s Your Money After All
You can just hand over your financials to your accountant and hope for the best, or you can learn the numbers yourself and make them work for you. This class is for the financials novices who wish to learn simple ways to understand the financials behind their business. You will learn how to calculate important numbers like Cost of Goods Sold, Gross & Net Profit, and the many different ratios that banks use to determine if your business is growing or dying. When you finish this class, you’ll know exactly where your money is, what it is (or isn’t) doing for you and how to make it better.

Session #4 – Cash Flow Basics – How Smart Buyers Make More Money
When is a deal from your vendor too good to pass up? When is a discount not worth the loss of cash flow? How do you know when you have too much inventory? Too little? These and other questions will be answered in this buyer’s workshop including tools you can use to increase your cash flow and make you more money. You don’t need a point-of-sale system to be a better buyer. You just need to know these simple principles of buying that dramatically change your financial picture.

Which will you choose and why?

-Phil

Who is Your BFF?

Had lunch today with one of my best friends. Good food, good conversation, and more than a few laughs.

Got me thinking about why he’s my friend. We certainly have common interests – go to the same church, hang out with the same people, have boys of a similar age. But there are more than a few people that fit that profile with whom I am not close friends.

Why him over others?

Two reasons come to mind…

  1. Shared experiences
  2. Insider information

Shared Experiences

We’ve done a lot together over the past 15 years – parties, kid events, Red Wings games, travel. Just the proximity of doing things together builds a bond of friendship. Taking our kids to the fireworks, grilling in the backyard, and spending New Year’s Eve together bring us even closer.

Insider Information

You can’t do that much together and not know a little more about a person than the average public knows. Yeah, we share some secrets. More importantly, because we know how each other ticks, we know how to act and react appropriately to keep the friendship humming. Those insights are part of the glue that holds our friendship together.

That’s why we’re BFF’s.

Here’s a question for you…

How do you turn your customers into BFF’s?

I believe it’s the same way – Shared Experiences & Insider Information. When you actively get involved in their visits by getting to know more about them and sharing more about yourself, you will quickly find those customers becoming more loyal and more vocal about you.

There are thousands of people who fit the profile of what your perfect customer should be, but few of them are loyal, vocal customers. Put your focus on getting to know them and sharing experiences in your store with them and that will change. They will soon be your new BFF’s.

-Phil

The Easy Way to Solve a Tough Problem

Finding solutions to tough problems is not as hard as you think, especially when you understand Business Problem Topology.

Roy H. Williams first taught me the concept of Business Problem Topology through his trilogy of “Wizard of Ads” books.

Then he taught it to me again during a visit to Wizard Academy in May 2005.

And when I applied it to a problem I had, it worked!

Business Problem Topology is when you take a problem you are having and look where a problem with similar characteristics may have already been solved. Solomon tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. Therefore, any problem you have is nothing new. Someone once had a problem like it.

I had a problem. Mine was hiring good people. In the toy business we hire a large number of temporary workers for the Christmas season. They need to be trained and ready to go in short order.

For years I struggled with this problem – until I applied Business Problem Topology. My problem? Trying to create a finished product that was strong, useful and beautiful – a work of art – in a small window of time. I needed a process that consistently turned out a beautiful, useful finished product. So I asked myself… What art is consistently strong, useful and beautiful?

Pottery.

So I began exploring how to craft pottery. And there lay the answer. The steps a potter takes to create a work of art to last centuries are the same steps a business owner can take to hire and train a staff that is a work of art. (I already showed you the first step here.)

Now I have a book that shows you how to apply all of the steps of a potter to your hiring and training.

The book is titled, “Hiring & the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art”. You can buy it online at my website. (or at Toy House for you local readers)

It is an easy read. The nine steps I outline are told in a story about a young HR person named Mary hired by a start-up company that is experiencing growing pains. As Mary learns, so will you. And if you apply these same techniques in your business, you’ll see a huge change in the quality and skills of the people you hire and train. I know. I use it every day. It’s my dirty little secret for having awesome customer service. And I’m sharing it with you.

-Phil

Stand Up and Be Accounted!

Two nights ago I watched one of the most painful moments in baseball history. Yeah, I’m talking about my beloved Detroit Tigers and their pitcher getting robbed of a historic Perfect Game because of a blown call by the umpire on the final out.

That night, like a whole lot of Tigers fans and players, I was really angry at that ump. But a few hours later something happened that changed my mind.

Jim Joyce, the umpire, stood up and said, “I blew it. I kicked the (bleep) out of that call. I cost that kid a perfect game.” He went into the Tigers’ locker room and apologized to the face of both the pitcher and the manager. He went on radio and TV interviews and admitted his mistake and took his medicine.

Speaking of medicine, there were a lot of people expecting him to get roundly booed out of town when he took his place behind home plate for the following game.

Funny thing happened on the way to field, though… Instead of yelling nasty things at him, the fans shouted encouragement. Instead of booing, they clapped. Even he was shocked at the response which brought a tear to his eyes. Instead of ripping him, the fans embraced him.

All because he stood up and admitted his mistake.

No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. How we handle them, however, is both a testament to our character and show of our beliefs and values. Jim Joyce showed that he was a man of honor and integrity, and instead of being run out of town on a rail, he was praised for his accountability.

The same is true about your business. When you make a mistake, no matter how big or small, take responsibility for it. Stand up and be accountable. You’ll be amazed at how quickly those whom you have wronged will be to forgive you. I know. I saw it happen yesterday in Detroit.

-Phil

PS Kudos to Detroit Pitcher Armando Gallaraga and Manager Jim Leyland for the class they displayed in handling this situation, too. Both showed incredible restraint and dignity throughout the last couple of days.

Amazing what happens when you show a little class and character, isn’t it?

Give ‘Em What They Want

Next week I’m sending out a coupon. $20 off a $100 Purchase. I need to generate some cash flow and get some traffic through the door.

For the past two months we’ve been shut off from the community on two sides by federally funded construction projects (Mr. Obama, I’m not feeling very stimulated). So I’m sending out a coupon – givin’ it away – to generate some sales.

As I’ve said before, sometimes you gotta choose between profits and cash flow. This time I’m choosing cash flow.

The toughest part for my staff (besides ringing up the coupons properly:-) is dealing with the customers who want to skirt the system.

Even though the purpose of the coupon is to stimulate some new business, I’ll have a handful of customers who want to use it on a previous sale they did in the last few weeks.

Some customers will try to use it on sales less than $100 (It’s $95, isn’t that close enough?).

Others might buy $100 worth of stuff and bring $50 back the following week.

So how did I instruct my staff to handle these situations? Simple…

Smile and say, “Okay!” Yep, give it to ’em. Don’t hassle them, don’t belittle them, don’t upset them. Just do it and move on.

You see, the customers who do that are so few and far between – maybe 3% of the totally coupons used – that they aren’t worth the complaints they could generate. And they aren’t worth your energy. At worst, they aren’t profitable customers at all so don’t waste your time. Just give ’em what they want and move on. At best, they might return the kindness you show them later.

It’s not about “playing fair”, it’s about taking care of your customers – all of your customers.

As my good friend and fabulous writer, Becky Blanton said,

“When there are no score cards you’re not tied to a specific game. You’re free then to succeed”

Don’t get sucked into those kinds of games with customers, don’t get caught up in what is fair or not fair. And most certainly don’t keep score.

That’s how you win at customer service.

-Phil