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Everything Everywhere, Nothing is Special (Except You)

If there is one universal truth in retail it may well be this …

The hottest product on your shelf last year will be on everyone else’s shelf this year.

Every year in my two-and-a-half decades as a buyer I would watch another vendor cross over to the dark side and start selling their goods in the big-box discounters and Toys R Us. Proud brands that had grown and flourished in the independent specialty channel were cashing in with the big boys, who would undercut our prices and ruin a fine brand.

This happened Every. Single. Year. And the reaction was always the same. A lot of crying, complaining and gnashing of teeth on the part of the indies while we scrambled to find suitable replacements.

I never took part in the gnashing. Maybe it was because I had seen it happen enough times to come to expect it. Maybe it was because I grew up in the industry before that delineation between mass and specialty product channels even existed.

Page 1 of the original Business Plan for Toy House, circa 1949

My grandfather had two utility bills at our building on Mechanic Street. He got that second bill so that he would have “proof” of a second address separate from the retail operations. He did that for one reason only—to set up a “distributorship” so that he could buy certain toys he wasn’t able to buy directly from the manufacturer. Back then you could only buy certain lines through distributors, so he became a distributor just to get products. He didn’t care who else was selling the product. If it was a good product, he wanted it in his store.

He knew he could sell it.

In the 80’s and 90’s that mindset changed. Indie retailers shied away from products sold in the mass-markets and created what we called the “specialty” market. Some of that was to protect profit margins. Some of that was because we bought for different reasons than the mass-market.

In my industry the mass-market bought toys for quick turn-around—toys that had name recognition, shelf-appeal, and were backed by advertising. We bought toys for play value—toys that spurred the imagination and creativity in a child.

Once the specialty market built up a brand into a recognizable name with enough money to advertise, the mass-market would swoop in and snatch them away, sending us off again in search of the next great “specialty” line.

Today, however, the lines are once again blurred. In the toy industry especially, with Toys R Us out of the picture this holiday season, all kinds of retailers are popping up with all kinds of toys. There is no differentiation between “specialty” and “mass” in terms of products or distribution. Nor will there be for the foreseeable future.

Everything is now sold everywhere. Nothing is “special” anymore.

The only thing “special” about the specialty stores is You. How you run your store, the people you hire, the relationships you build with your customers, the involvement you have with your community, the events you host, the teaching you do—that is the Special part.

I tell you this to remind you that pop-up stores are about to start popping—not just in toys, but in all categories. Some of them will have products you sell. Don’t fret about that. Here is one other universal truth in retail …

No pop-up store will ever be able to sell products as well as you can. 

Their staff doesn’t have the training. Their leadership doesn’t have the passion. Their business doesn’t have the connections. When you play up the parts that truly make you Special, you cannot be beat. (Hint: it isn’t the product that makes you special anymore.)

The best way to protect yourself from pop-up stores and the loss of specialty brands is to double-down on your training right now. Download the Free Resources on Customer Service. (There are several good ones in there.) Go over this stuff with your team. Role Play the scenarios and look at how you interact with new customers. Talk about how to be better at curating a selection. Learn the benefits of your new products and better ways to close the sale. Practice using new phrases to eliminate the deal killer phrases we all use.

The products come and go. The relationships build your business and make you truly Special.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Some of you are going to have stellar years without any extra training. Don’t get lulled into a false trap. Every boat rises with the tide. Consumer spending is up. The economy is relatively strong.  But if you’re watching the news, you know a lot of shuffling is going on in retail. The stores with the strongest relationships with their customers will find the greatest success in the long run. Consider that another universal truth. Make you store truly Special this holiday season. The gains will last well into next year.

PPS Heck, simply teach your staff to do what my grandfather listed as the number three part of his Sales Plan—“Listen to customer until customer is clearly understood. Do not interrupt.”—and you’ll be doing more than most retailers out there.

The Benefits of Teaching Benefits

He drove from Windsor, Ontario to Jackson, MI on a Friday night. “We have a Graco car seat and were told you are the closest store to have the matching stroller. Do you happen to have it in stock?”

“Yes, we have two different versions in that fabric. Which did you want?”

“Two versions?? Hold on.”

(On phone…) “Honey, they have two different strollers …”

After hanging up, we started taking about the features they wanted in the stroller. Light weight? They both had that. Easy fold? Check and check. Big wheels for walking outside? Yes and yes. Compact fold?

“What are you driving?”

“A Honda Civic, why?”

We took both strollers out to the parking lot, folded them, and then tried putting them into his trunk. They both fit, but one only went in if you had it upside down, put the front wheels in first, turned it 90 degrees, rotated it another 45 degrees and pushed really hard. The other slid in easily.

Feature: It has a compact fold
Benefit: So that you can fit it into your tiny trunk with room to spare for groceries and other stuff.

  • Feature = What it does
  • Benefit = How that helps you

It does this … So that you …

Feature: This blog offers tips, techniques, and ideas for every aspect of running a retail business …
Benefit: So that you have the tools necessary to run a successful business and have fun at your job …

Feature: Subscribing to this blog gets you an email of every new post as it is posted …
Benefit(s):

  • So that you know before your competitors what to do to gain an advantage.
  • So that you get something thought-provoking, inspiring, and helpful sent directly to you, without having to dig to find it.
  • So that you have something in your inbox that you look forward to reading to offset all those emails you dread.
  • So that you have a diversion when you just need to get away from everything else.
  • So that you get reminders of the things you already know but may have forgotten.

The Feature doesn’t sell the product. The Benefit does.

The best game you can play with your staff (new and old) is to grab a random product off the shelf, identify one of its Features, and then list as many Benefits as you can for how that feature can make someone’s life better.

There are lots of ways, places, and times to practice finding the Benefits.

  • Do it when a new product comes in so that everyone knows how to sell that product.
  • Do it during a staff meeting. Make a game out of it.
  • Do it in your daily five-minute huddle.
  • Do it during a slow moment on the sales floor.
  • Do it during training for new staff.
  • Do it randomly and on the spot.

Do it so often that finding the Benefits—how the product makes someone’s life better—becomes second nature with your staff. When it becomes a mindset for them, you’ll see the sales of your more valuable items start to rise.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One other Benefit from playing this Benefits Game is that it helps you become better at identifying the products you’ll be able to sell better (ones with more benefits) and the dogs you need to clear out of your inventory (ones with fewer benefits). 

PPS One other Benefit from playing this Benefits Game is that it helps you be better at selling the lesser-known brands you carry to compete with the mass-market brands customers ask for by name.

Ten Mistakes, One FREE eBook

I actually did job interviews in a Halloween costume once. Okay, more than once. Several times, in fact, because the end of October was when I needed to start the hiring process. I’ve often wondered what an interviewee was thinking, sitting across the desk from a bird watcher, a king, Zeus, or Sorcerer Mickey.

Yes, we celebrated Halloween in costume!

When I was on my game I would have my seasonal help interviewed, background-checked, hired, and on the schedule by Election Day. That gave me two to three weeks of training before the Thanksgiving Weekend ratcheted everything up a notch.

There is one tool I now possess that I wish I had back then. It is a Free eBook I posted back in August called “Ten Mistakes that Sideline the Sale.”

While not the complete list of all the Customer Service issues I had to deal with in training, it is a powerful list of ten things you can easily correct, and that any employee of any experience can easily understand.

It would have been a mandatory part of the training packet I gave each new employee. It would have been a mandatory part of the post-training discussion to make sure they had read and understood everything clearly.

It is impossible to cover every issue, but these ten are so common and so simple to correct, that it would be a crime for any retailer to be losing business by making these mistakes. Before you download the eBook, let me tell you two things …

  • There is nothing in this eBook you don’t already know
  • Your staff are making these mistakes daily

Heck, I would find myself making these mistakes every now and then—especially #6 and #10—cringing every time it happened.

This is such a valuable training tool because it covers mistakes we make greeting customers, selling to customers, and ringing them up at the end—all the key things your new staff will be asked to do. It shows you what not to do, why you shouldn’t do it, and what you should do instead, all in four pages.

I shouldn’t be giving this away for FREE.

I should be charging you for this download because of how much it will improve your Customer Service overnight. Download it now before I change my mind. Download it, save it, print it, incorporate it into your training manual, and share it with your fellow retailer friends.

It will be the easiest staff training you do this fall.

Your team will be super heroes for your customers (and you won’t have to wear a costume to do it!)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You won’t even be asked to give your email to download this Free eBook. That’s how much I want you to succeed. (But if you want to subscribe to the blog and didn’t do it with the annoying little pop-up box, you can find the subscribe box here.)

PPS Yes, there is a Live Presentation of these Ten Mistakes. It is full of stories and experiences not in the eBook (including a bonus eleventh mistake you can also easily correct) that will drive home the points in a fun and entertaining way. It’s not too late to book me to teach this to your staff this fall. (I’ll even wear my super hero cape if you ask.)

PPPS Number Three is one of the most aggravating for me personally. Don’t tell me what I missed. Tell me what is going on right now.

Where Are the Employees?

Last year I did something I had never done before. I went shopping on Black Friday. No, not in the early morning hours with all the mobs. I’m not that kind of shopper. I went out in the afternoon to see what the stores looked like after the mobs had left.

It was exactly what I expected. I had to fight the urge to want to straighten and re-merchandise the empty, messy shelves. (I actually did some straightening in Target just to get it out of my system.)

Some of my former employees have reported the same feeling. They find themselves straightening racks and displays constantly. If you’re a merchandising neat-freak like we were, I’m sure you’ve done the same.

This was taken mid-day on a Saturday in September!

Just recently one of my former employees was in Macy’s. She was straightening a rack, as is her habit. Nearby was a group of young men searching for an employee. They were singing, “Oh Macy’s employeeeeeee. Where are yooooouuuu?”

They saw her and asked hopefully, “Do you work here?”

When she said, “No,” they returned to their singing and standing on their tiptoes trying to find help in the cavernous and employee-less department store.

As she told me this story, two thoughts came to mind …

First, if your employees don’t have that urge to straighten and rearrange the displays in other stores, you haven’t trained them well enough.

Second, the lack of well-trained employees on the sales floor will be the downfall of the department stores, not Amazon, not the economy, not their failure to latch onto some shiny new tech, not their website, not their omni-channel efforts, not their advertising.

All the traffic in the world won’t matter if there is no one to take care of that traffic.

Don’t make the mistake that has shuttered the stores of JC Penney’s, Sears, Bon Ton, Younker’s, Elder Beerman, and so many others.

Train your staff well and have enough of them on the floor to make a difference.

That will be the winning formula this holiday season.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I used to have a red polo shirt. I wore it into Target once. Once. Retailing may be one of the lower rungs on the employee food chain, but when you find the right people and train them well, you get a team where retail is in their blood. They will get mistaken for employees in other stores on a regular basis. That should be a goal you strive for your team—to have the kind of people who want to make the shopping experience better no matter where they are.

A Tool You Can (and Should) Use From Time to Time

We offered a layaway program at Toy House. It was one of those services my grandfather thought would be helpful for customers buying toys. It was simple, too. Just pick out the toys you want, take them to the register, put down a 10% deposit, make a payment once a month, and pay it off when you’re ready to pick up the toys.

Some people would pick up their layaway late afternoon Christmas Eve. They only had to hide the toys from prying children’s eyes one night.

On the customer’s end the layaway program was simple. On our end it was a lot of work. (That’s the way any program should be in a customer-centric business.) One reason it was a lot of work on our end was because our biggest fear was losing a customer’s product. In the thirty five years I worked in the store (including my part-time roles while in high school and college) we only lost three items that we didn’t have in stock in the store. That’s not bad considering we did over a quarter of a million dollars in layaway every single year.

Then again, we agonized over every single one of those losses because it was a failure on our part to service the customer.

I still remember them. One in particular was a Little Tikes Football Toy Chest. I remember it clearly because I was sixteen years old and my dad had me drive to Lansing to Toys R Us to buy one so that we could replace the one that was missing.

Another time I ordered the missing product from a fellow toy store owner out in California. I paid $84 in next-day shipping to have the $14.99 item in my hands Christmas Eve for the customer.

I didn’t bat an eye at the $84 shipping cost because I was looking at the big picture. It wasn’t $84 for a $14.99 item. It was $84 to protect the trust of a lifetime value customer. It was $84 to protect the integrity of the layaway program and the $250,000 in business it affected.

Sometimes it is worth losing a few dollars today to make more money tomorrow.

You probably don’t have a layaway program. But you do have customers in your store today looking for a solution you don’t have in stock nor plan to have in stock in the next day or two. She could have gone to Amazon, but she didn’t. She came to you. If you send her out empty handed, she’s likely going to Amazon now (and she might never come back to you.)

Unless you order it for her.

You could go online and order the item for her. Have it delivered to your store. (Note: you don’t even have to order it from Amazon. You can choose to support someone else.) It is the same for her whether you order it or she does.

The difference is how she feels about you.

You won’t make as much money as if you had it in stock, but you kept a customer happy by solving her problem for her (as she was hoping you would when she walked through your door.) Plus you get her back in the store to pick up the item.

If you know the lifetime value of a customer, quite often this will be worthwhile. If you look at each transaction as simply a transaction, then it will never make sense.

I don’t recommend this as a standard policy. You’re much better off having the right solutions in stock. At the same time, I want you to have the right frame of mind if you do decide to help out a customer this way. It makes sense if:

  • It will Surprise and Delight the customer
  • It will keep her as a loyal customer
  • There is a lifetime value of the customer that will pay off down the road

It isn’t a policy so much as a tool to help you keep a customer happy. Like all tools, it has a specific use. When used right it will make a difference.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I have actually pitched this idea to several manufacturers that happen to also sell directly online. They should have a code for each vendor (such as your account number) where you can order directly online from the vendor, put in your code, get a back-end discount, and make the customer happy. Just think how much better that would be for you, your vendor, and most importantly the customer, than to have the vendor undercutting you or the customer leaving to go to Amazon.

Three Stats to Tell You All You Need to Know

I went to a presentation last night. As you know, I am all about continual learning. Education is one of my Core Values. This presentation was at TechTown Detroit, a small business incubator that helps launch tech and retail businesses. Mary Aviles of Connect 4 Insight put on the presentation. Mary is also the Director of Strategic Development for Tech Town.

The presentation was “Designing the Customer Experience.” (I’m sure you can guess why that piqued my interest.) The goal was to give these start-up and pop-up retailers some ideas to help them be ready for the holidays.

Mary gave out three stats I want to share here. (Note: I was not able to get the source from her on these stats but I know she did her research.)

STAT #1

24% of all Amazon Sales are from customers who went to a brick & mortar store first.

What does this mean? Nearly one-fourth of all of Amazon’s business is from customers who were disappointed by their in-store experience. Nearly one-fourth came from customers who chose to go to a store first but didn’t get their needs or expectations met.

In other words, customers are choosing brick & mortar, but our lack of selection or lack of service or super high price is driving them online.

STAT #2

40% of customers change their minds in the store because of the in-store experience. 

What does this mean? The in-store experience affects a large number of sales both to the good and to the bad (some of those 40% are more inclined to buy, some are less).

In other words, almost half of your customers are going to make their final buying decision based not on the product or the price but on your ability to offer them a quality shopping experience (or not).

STAT #3

80% of customers report that they would be willing to pay up to 25% more for an item because of a quality experience in the store.

What does this mean? Experience actually outweighs price. Four out of five customers say experience combined with the desire to own the item right away can get them to pull the trigger, even if the price is a little higher than online.

In other words, you can win over a lot of customers with your in-store experience, even if your prices are a little higher than the Internet.

The bottom line to all of these stats is this …

The in-store experience you are providing has more of an effect on your sales than pretty much everything else you do.

If it isn’t your number one focus, you might want to change your gaze.

The good news is that you still have time to schedule The Ultimate Selling Workshop for your team prior to this holiday season. Mary has the stats to convince you why you need to improve the customer’s experience. I have the nuts and bolts of exactly how to do that. Call me.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You have four days to lock in the special fall savings offer of only $2,000 for The Ultimate Selling Workshop. At 12:01am October 1st the price goes up to $3,500 (or more depending on time and travel). It is still a steal at the regular price. We already did the math. I’m offering the incentive price to get you to book now so you can have your best holiday season ever.

PPS If you are a retailer in Detroit or considering starting a retail business in Detroit, TechTown has amazing resources and programs, and a dedicated, smart, caring staff. You should check them out.

How Fast Do You Solve Her Problem?

You call a number. You get a recording, a menu of options. You listen to all the options before pressing two. Another menu. This time you press one. Now a recording offers you yet a third menu. You select three and a recorded voice comes on to say, “Please hold while I try that extension.”

Twenty minutes of horrible music and a voice interrupting every so often to say, “Please stay on the line and the next available representative will help you,” you finally get a live person on the other end of the phone. You explain your problem patiently only to hear …

“Hold on while I transfer you to someone who can help you.”

Aaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!

Another fifteen minutes or so later you get someone equally unhelpful. You’re ready to hang up except you now have over forty minutes invested in this call. Your frustration levels are through the roof. Your anxiety is peaking. You’re about to rip someone’s head off if you don’t eventually get satisfaction.

We’ve all had that experience. Many of us have experienced it more times than we care to count.

Then we walk into a retailer with what we believe to be a simple problem, find a clerk to help us, explain our problem, and hear …

“Hold on while I find someone who can help you.”

We immediately go back to the frustrations and anxiety of all the other times this has happened to us.

Sure, you’re not a phone tree with endless menus and unhelpful people. Sure, you solve the problem with the second person she sees. Sure, your customer doesn’t have to wait thirty minutes like she did on the phone with that other company.

None of that matters. You still caused your customer to feel all those negative emotions first.

This is why the best stores empower the first person who greets a customer to be able to solve all of her problems and take care of all of her needs.

The customer walking through your door with a problem is already worked up. She brings with her the baggage of every forty-minute phone tree fiasco. She brings with her all the frustrations and anxieties of all the interactions with untrained, useless “salespeople.” She’s loaded for bear and ready for a fight.

Then you spring the, “Hold on while I find someone,” phrase on her.

When she explodes on you, it isn’t really you. You’re just the straw on the camel’s back. But those feelings she has are now associated with you whether you like it or not.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can empower your front line staff to solve her problem by teaching them this simple three-statement approach:

  1. “I’m so sorry you have this problem …”
  2. “Let me see if I have this straight …” (explain the problem back to her as your heard it and ask for clarification)
  3. “What would you like us to do?”

Always apologize. Notice that the apology doesn’t necessarily imply guilt or fault. The apology simply acknowledges that she has a problem and sets her at ease.

Then repeat back her problem to show that you were listening. Sometimes just being heard is all a customer really needs. It also gives you a chance for clarification to understand the problem better and time to think about how you would want to solve the problem.

The last phrase is the kicker. Great Customer Service is when you meet a customer’s expectations. The best way to know what she expects is to ask. And since an unhappy customer is your worst enemy because of the negative reviews and bad word-of-mouth, it is vital you know exactly what she wants.

Once she tells you what she wants, the best thing to do is give her that … and a little more.

More often than not, when you first put the customer at ease and show her you are listening to her problem, by the time you ask her what she wants she will ask for less than you were likely prepared to give. Even if she does ask for a lot, instruct your staff to give it to her. It is worth it in the long run because of how it makes your customer feel.

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou

Empower and train all of your staff to handle all of the problems immediately and you will control how your customers feels. Speed does matter. (Plus, if your staff are handling all the problems, you’ll have fewer interruptions throughout the day to get your work done. Win-win!)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Every now and then a customer will make an outrageous request. It is still worth it to meet that request the first time. If she becomes a repeat problem then you have the right to adjust what you do for her. But since these requests will be so few and far between, they won’t cost you nearly as much as you think. Plus, since you’ll be better managing the way customers feel about you, you’ll have more happy customers than ever before. Instead of worrying about the cost, think of it as an “advertising” expense where you are buying positive word-of-mouth (or at the very least buying the lack of bad word-of-mouth), and the fact you just made a customer’s day. Those are two benefits that will help any business.

How to Learn From the Best

Yesterday, I buried this little gem in the post. Let’s take it out and polish it a bit.

“If your store isn’t the store everyone points to in town for having the best customer service, your service isn’t good enough. Yet.”

There is always that one business everyone believes is the best retailer in town. Several years ago, when I did a full-day workshop on Customer Service in Manistee, MI, a sleepy little Lake Michigan town with a year round population of around 6,000 people and summer visitors measured in the hundreds of thousands, I found their best retailer.

I came into town a day early to check out the shops. I braced myself against the sleet and snow on that cold, wet, wintery March day and made the rounds. The shops were open, but mostly empty. It was off-season, and not the best day to be out on the streets. One store, however—Snyder’s Shoes—was hopping. They had several customers in the store when I entered, but the staff still made a point of greeting me. Even in a sleet storm it was obvious who was the king of retail in town.

Snyder’s Shoes, Manistee, MI

The next day, as the attendees were filing in, I got the confirmation as I overheard one person say, “What is Snyder’s doing here? They’re already the best retailer in town.”

At the end of the day, however, when he was asked what strategies he hoped to implement from the day-long training session, Dan, the co-owner of Snyder’s said, “Every single one I possibly can.”

I feel for the other retailers in Manistee. They aren’t being measured against their competitors. They are being measured against Snyder’s.

Customers don’t measure you against your competitors. They measure you against every retail experience they’ve ever had.

So how do you compete against that? How do you raise your bar that high?

You have to do your homework. Ask your staff to name the stores they think offer the best customer service in town, then plan a road trip to visit them. Watch how those stores interact with their customers. Look for the differences between what they do and what you do.

Visit all the stores your staff named. You can do it in groups or pairs. Take notes. Ask these questions …

  • What do they do better than us?
  • What do they do different than us?
  • What do we do better than them?

The first question shows you what you need to tweak or improve. We all have things we need to tweak or improve. Getting a list by comparing to what other stores do is far better than just trying to brainstorm it yourself.

The second question shows you where you are different. Sometimes different is good, sometimes it isn’t. You have to decide, based on your core values, if you want to change things or highlight the difference.

The third question is your calling card. This is the area where you’re winning in the minds of your customers. If there isn’t anything you are doing better, you have serious work to do. If there is something you’re doing better, find out how to do it BEST. Raise the bar so high no one will be able to match it.

Now is a good time to take this road trip. You have time to visit stores before you get too busy. You have time to implement those changes before the holiday season hits. You have time to tweak your advertising message, your promotions, and your marketing to highlight your strengths and differences.

Two more questions you might also want to ask …

  • What do they do that we can’t?
  • What do they do that we won’t?

The first shows your limitations. The second is your biggest differentiating factor. Both answers give you power and show you where you stand not only in the retail landscape, but also in the eyes of your customers.

“Knowledge is power.” -Sir France is Bacon.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Note: If you ask your staff who is best and they don’t immediately say, “We are!” then you know you have some serious work to do. If they say they are the best, ask them who is second best and go visit those stores.

PPS One more thing you still have time to do … Hire me to do The Ultimate Selling Workshop with your team. You’ll transform your team to the point that when they say, “We are!” you and your customers will nod in agreement.

Change Your Viewpoint to See Your Business Better

I was sitting in a conference center in Louisville, Kentucky for a presentation by Rick Segel in May 2009.

Rick asked the crowd, “Raise your hand if your product selection sucks, if you just don’t have the goods people want.” No hands went up.

Rick then said, “Raise your hand if your store has lousy customer service, if you’re treating customers poorly.” Again, no hands went up.

One more time Rick said, “Raise your hands if you are gouging the heck out of your customers with your prices.”

Since two surveys I had done showed customers already believed that about us, I raised my hand. “Ooh, me! I do!” Rick tossed me a free copy of one of his books and said thanks for being honest.

The point Rick was trying to make was …

Every business thinks they have Great Selection, Great Service, and Great Prices.

Most of us are wrong. We have either wrongly convinced ourselves of our greatness or justified away our flaws. We think, “If only more people would come through the door they would see how great we are.”

The truth is …

If you were truly Great, more people would come through your door.

Our problem is one of perception. We see the business through our own perception, from inside the bottle. Our customers have a completely different frame of reference. We compare ourselves to our mass market competitors and say, “See? We are soooo much better than them.”

Our customers compare us to every store they’ve ever visited and say with a sigh, “I wish [your store] was more like [my favorite store].”

If you want to find your blind spots, you have to look at things differently. You have to look at your business from your customers’ perspectives.

PRODUCT SELECTION

To improve your product selection, create a “No List”. This is a list of all the items customers come in asking for that you have to say, “No, I’m sorry we don’t. Can I show you an alternative?” (By the way, that or “Can I suggest a store that would have that item.” are the only two acceptable answers when you don’t have a certain product.)

If a customer walks through your doors or calls you on the phone asking for a certain product it is because the customer perceives you to be the kind of store that would carry that product. If you’re constantly saying no and not showing the alternatives you would rather carry, you’re flying directly in the face of customer perception. If there are one or two products on that No List every week, you need to look into either carrying those products or the next best alternative to those products. Otherwise your product selection will not be considered “Great” in your customers’ eyes.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

What percentage of your business is repeat business? Make an educated guess. Your repeat business is a direct reflection of your Customer Service. If your Customer Service is Great, meaning you’ve met her every expectation, she will be back.

What percentage of your business is referral business, people who have never been in your store but came in because a friend told them (or better yet, dragged them in)? This is a direct reflection of how often you did more than a customer expected.

“Surprise is the foundation of delight. If you expected something to happen and it happened, there is no delight.” -Roy H. Williams

If all you do is meet expectations (Great Customer Service), you’ll get some repeat business. To get referral business, however, you have to raise the bar even higher. If you aren’t getting a lot of repeat and referral business, then you don’t have Great Customer Service in your customers’ eyes.

One last thing to consider … If your store isn’t the store everyone points to in town for having the best customer service, your service isn’t good enough, yet. (And if it is, then the bullseye is on your back so you better be doing something to keep raising the bar.)

PRICE

This is one area where you’ll have a hard time changing perception. When we did our surveys we were regularly considered “Over-Priced” and “Expensive” compared to Walmart, Toys R Us, Meijer, and Target. All four of those stores talk about low prices and saving money in every ad they run. There is a built-in perceptual bias that all indie stores are more expensive than their mass competitors. The interesting part of the survey for me was that we also owned the word “Value.” That’s when I knew my prices were okay. Yes we were Expensive because we carried more expensive items. But the customers saw the Value in those items.

Remember, too, that not everyone shops on Price. Make your prices competitive and sharp, but more importantly, hone up on the Product Selection and Customer Service elements, and people will see the value you offer.

Every store thinks they have Great Selection, Great Service, and Great Prices. Most stores are wrong. You can’t measure whether you have Great Selection, Great Service or Great Prices from any of your spreadsheets. You can’t see it from behind your cashwrap. You have to look at it from the customers’ eyes. That’s the only point of view that counts.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You can win over some of the perceptual bias on Pricing. The blueprint is in the Free eBook Pricing for Profit. Most stores who have followed this pricing have reported back how customers perceive their pricing to be much more competitive. All of the stores who have followed this pricing have reported back increases in profit margin because of it. What do you have to lose?

PPS Even if you think your Customer Service is Great, ask yourself …

  • What would happen if your staff was better at building relationships with your customers?
  • What would happen if your staff was able to close more sales?
  • What would happen if your staff was able to increase the average sale?
  • What would happen if your staff learned to work together better as a team?

How would that change things for you?

One downside is that you would be busier. You’d have to write more orders (increasing your turn ratio and your cashflow). You’d have to look into hiring more people to handle the increased traffic. You might even have to consider a new location to expand your business. If you’re okay with those hassles, contact me to run The Ultimate Selling Workshop with your team.

The Fallacy of Foot Traffic

I was at Great Lakes Crossing Outlet Mall in Auburn Hills, MI the other day. It is one of the few malls I truly enjoy, partly because it has an aquarium (I have an oceanography degree), a LEGOLand (I used to sell toys for a living), and a Bass Pro Shop (I used to lead wilderness trips and still love to go camping). With Haggar, Levi, and Bose stores, and tons of seating in the walkways in front of the ladies clothing stores it is definitely a man-friendly mall.

The place was hopping. Whoever said malls are dead hasn’t been to this mall. The main aisles were jammed with people on a lazy Sunday afternoon in late August. It wasn’t a back-to-school crowd. It was just people out shopping and having a good time.

The food court was especially crowded. The line at Starbucks snaked all the way around their kiosk. Almost every restaurant in that food court had a line four or five people deep.

The key phrase there is “almost.”

Two restaurants in particular had no lines at all. As I sat eating my pizza, I watched both restaurants with interest. Three young girls approached one restaurant, stared at the menu, and walked away. A mom with a kid in a stroller stopped at the other restaurant and ordered her meal. In the time it took me to eat my pizza, that was the only paying customer at either of those two restaurants.

All the other restaurants had lines of people.

It wasn’t like these restaurants were serving fried crickets on a stick or something else not on the American palate. In a busy mall they weren’t getting the benefit of any of that foot traffic. Somehow, either through previous reputation, the signage in their restaurants, their pricing, their selection, or their attitude, they were idle—even with plenty of customers all around them.

All the foot traffic in the world won’t help you if there is a flaw somewhere in the business. It might hide the flaw for a little bit, but until you find and fix that flaw, you’ll never grow.

The reverse is also true. If you have a fabulous business, your location may hold you back a little, but not nearly as much as you think.

Schlenker’s Sandwich Shop
1104 E. Ganson St.
Jackson, MI 49201

One of my favorite burger joints has been in the same location since 1927. The road was a dirt road back then and the location is still well off the beaten path. The only foot traffic they get is the traffic they generate themselves. The restaurant is just a counter with limited seating. Yet the business is still going and growing after 91 years.

Just last week new owners took over. Yes it was a viable enough business to sell (something very few restaurants can say). The big change the new owners are planning? They are thinking about adding a drive-thru to handle all the takeout traffic.

My point is that too often we think, “If only I had a better location with more traffic …” or “If only I could find that silver bullet in my advertising that would draw more traffic …”

Neither of those thoughts is the true path to success. I predict those restaurants at Great Lakes Crossing will be replaced by next summer. They had all the traffic they could stand but weren’t able to convert it into customers.

I also predict that when Schlenker’s builds their drive-thru it will be filled with cars every day without them having to spend a dime on advertising.

If you have ever heard yourself saying, “If only we had more foot traffic …” the better question to ask is …

“What do I need to do to make my business better so that people want to come here?”

You are a destination store. When you act like one, you’ll draw all the traffic you need without any silver bullets or malls to do it for you.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Even with a steady, solid, faithful customer base and a burger that was rated the seventh best in the entire state of Michigan, the other change the new owners of Schlenker’s are making is to switch suppliers to a higher grade and quality of the ground sirloin that makes their burgers so good. They have all the traffic they can handle, yet even they are answering that one question above. Are you?