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Christmas Quick Tip #5 – Start Closing at Closing Time

Since your time is tight, now through December 21st I’m keeping these blog posts short and simple with tips, tools, and techniques that make a difference.

Here is tip #5

START CLOSING AT CLOSING TIME 

Not before.

Yes, you’re tired. Yes, these are long days and you want to go home. Yes, waiting until closing time to wash the counters, count the change, empty the wastebaskets, etc. will make you have to stay a few minutes later.

Yes, your last customer of the day deserves the same enthusiasm as your first customer of the day.

Make it taboo for anyone on your team to mention how tired they are. This is your moment to make hay. This is what your whole year has been built around. You’re supposed to be tired at the end of the day. Just don’t let it show.

Treat the last customers with the same enthusiasm as the first customers. Don’t go around the store closing things down and making them feel unwelcome. Instead think of them as the icing on your sales cake and give them the red carpet treatment.

Even if you have to fake it.

It not only pays now with bigger sales at the end of the day, it pays down the road as a customer treated well is more likely to come back than a customer treated like a nuisance.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I was guilty of this far too often. It is the one mistake I wish I could go back in time to fix. Yes, they are long days for you. Have you ever considered it has also been a long day for your customer? Treat her with kindness and enthusiasm and not only do you get the sale, you just might make her day.

Christmas Quick Tip #4 – Never Say No

For the rest of the Christmas season I am keeping these blogs short and simple with one tip, tool, or technique you and your team can use to make this season rock!

Here is tip #4 …

NEVER SAY NO

You are going to be asked quite often for products you don’t have. Either you’re out-of-stock or you don’t carry that product (or maybe you’ve never heard of it). 

When the store is busy and you have other customers waiting to be helped, it is easy to simply say No and move on to a customer you can help.

Resist the urge.

Train yourself and your staff to Never Say No. Try out these phrases instead …

  • I have some coming in soon. Can I arrange to have it sent to you as soon as it comes in?
  • Are you looking for that particular item, or can I show you something similar?
  • We prefer this brand instead (be direct)
  • What are you hoping to do with that item? (if you know this isn’t just meant to be a gift)
  • Can you show me what it is? (if you’ve never heard of the item)

All of these phrases are conversation starters. Often a customer is looking for a specific item because she doesn’t know alternatives exist or she has an idea in her head and can only think of one solution. When you start the conversation, sometimes you find better solutions than the one she asked for.

If all you do is say No, they often quit asking.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Here’s another tool I stole from a fellow toy store owner. Create a “No List.” Put it on a clipboard up front. Every time an employee gets asked for a product you don’t have or a service you don’t offer, write it on the No List. If one thing ends up on that No List several times, you should consider selling that item or offering that service. Your customers already think you would.

Christmas Quick Tip #3 – Sign ‘Em Up Before Checkout

You’re busy. I’m busy. Our customers are busy. So in the interest of time, I’m keeping all the posts from now through Christmas short and sweet.

Here is tip #3

SIGN THEM UP BEFORE CHECKOUT

If you have a loyalty program, birthday club, or email list that you normally ask customers to join, you need to get in the habit of doing that long before they get to check out.

By the time the customer gets to checkout, they are in a hurry to leave. Anything you do then to slow down the line is an aggravation and leaves a bad taste in their mouth. They are not in a sharing mood then.

The best time to sign someone up is during the sales process. Not only are they in a friendlier mood, they are in less of a hurry and more willing to say yes.

Once you get them to say yes to your program, you make closing the sale that much easier.

Now is a good time to farm for your lists. Hire a seasonal person to wander your store with a tablet and/or clipboard and sign people up for your loyalty/birthday/email list. You’ll get more takers, close more sales, and keep your registers humming at optimal speed.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you don’t have enough salespeople to have them all doing this job as part of their sales process, hiring a seasonal person for this will more than pay for itself down the road. Plus it gives you one more person on the floor to direct customers where to go and deter shoplifters.

When You Need to Change Things Around

We had two warehouses in our store. We called them “Warehouse #3” and “Warehouse #5” Yeah, I know.

Those names actually made sense based on our phone paging system. The first warehouse was button number 3 on our phone system. The second warehouse – created when the store expanded in 1972 – was button number 5 in the system.

Since the front line staff called those warehouses as often as they visited them, the names made sense.

We also had six numbered doors on the back side of the building. Door #5 was where we sent customers to pick up large, bulky items like Little Tikes and Step2 products or baby furniture. Door #5 was located in Warehouse #5.

A long time ago all of our warehouse aisles were also numbered. Because of reconfigurations, only one aisle number remained. You guessed it … Aisle #5.

Aisle #5 was in Warehouse #3. Aisle #5 was the “junk draw” of the Toy House. All the shelving odds and ends ended up in Aisle #5. When something needed to be put back in the warehouse temporarily, it went to Aisle #5.

The New Baby Department May 2006

Confused?

My new staff regularly was.

Every year I would ask my staff for a new name for Aisle #5. I would even have been happy with “junk drawer.” But every year they said don’t change it. It will be too confusing.

There are still people in town who call the mall on the north end of town Paka Plaza even though it changed its name to Jackson Crossing twenty-eight years ago!

We are resistant to change. We don’t like change. We cling to the old even after change happens.

So how do you change the things that need to be changed?

First you need to identify the type of change. Is this a tweak or a wholesale change?

Tweaks are easy. Explain why the change is better/easier/faster/more-customer-friendly and everyone will jump on board fairly quickly.

Wholesale changes need buy-in.

Wholesale changes need key employees leading the charge or being the cheerleaders for the change. You need your managers and assistant managers on board. You need your veterans on board.

If you need to make wholesale changes such as completely revamping a policy, changing your hours and/or days of operation, or adding in a new POS system, you need to identify your key people, not by their role (manager, assistant, etc.) but by their likely position regarding the change. You need to know …

  • Who will be most resistant to the change
  • Who the change will affect the most
  • Who will be the most happy for the change

Unless change is a constant in your particular business, your elder statespeople will most likely be the keepers of the we’ve-always-done-it-this-way flame. You need to sit down with one or two of them and have a conversation before you announce the change. In that conversation, don’t ram the new way down their throats. Instead focus on the problems the old way causes. Get them to buy-in on the old way being “broken”  first and they’ll be much more open to new ideas.

The employees most affected by this change are your next group. You don’t have to meet with them before (although it helps to have a similar conversation like you had with the previous group), but you do need to meet with them after you announce the change. You need to sit down with them and tell them you understand how much more difficult this change will be for them than the others. You need to tell them what you’re planning to do for them to help them through the transition.

The third group is who you want to call on when you announce the change. Get them to give their input right away and their positivity will infect the rest of your group. They will become your head cheerleaders.

Follow this blueprint and you will have much quicker and better buy-in by your team. You’ll still have some trials and tribulations. You might have an employee or two who won’t adapt well to the change. You might even have to fire someone over this.

You will likely also have a dip in productivity while you go through the transition to the new procedure. That’s okay and expected. You’re in business for the long run, remember?

The right changes now will keep you in the game long enough to wonder why people still remember what you did twenty-eight years ago.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS We changed computers and cash registers once on my watch. We changed hours several times including being open Sundays year-round. We changed closing procedures, too. We even closed for three days to totally revamp, renovate, and relocate every product, shelf, computer, and cash register in the store. The more I followed the above blueprint, the better each change happened.

Two Books Every Manager of People Should Read

I had a gal on my staff a few years ago who was a hugger. She hugged me when I hired her. She hugged me when I changed her position from seasonal to permanent. She hugged me when I encouraged her to pursue her dream job. She hugged me when that didn’t work out and she came back to work for me.

I had no problem hugging her back.

In today’s #metoo world that might not be such a safe position. Hugging your staff, especially your female staff if you are a male boss, is probably a no-no.

But I had no problem hugging her back because to her, the hug validated her and made her feel appreciated. (Plus, if I were to need a defense, she did initiate the hug.)

Each person on my team had a different way of feeling appreciated.

Some needed words of encouragement. I would heap praise on them whenever I could. I knew a kind, affirming word here and there would rock their world, and they would, in turn, rock the customers’ worlds.

A couple of my staff members needed a little “token” of appreciation. I’d pass along a freebie or two their way, knowing that it was as equally powerful as the hug was to my hugger in terms of making them feel appreciated.

One person in particular just needed my time. This person needed me to just listen, just be there. My ear was her way of feeling appreciated.

Those of you who are familiar with Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages probably have already recognized what I’m talking about. In this book Chapman claims that there are five different ways we show and receive love:

  • Physical Contact
  • Words of Affirmation
  • Gifts
  • Quality Time
  • Acts of Service

He calls them our Love Languages. Each of us has a primary language we receive love and a primary language we show love (sometimes the same language, but not always). Knowing the language of my staff made it easier for me to show them Appreciation (love) in a way they would best receive it.

The purpose of the book is to help couples understand how to show love to each other. If you show love in a different language than your partner, if you don’t learn to speak his or her language, he or she might never feel the love you actually have.

As a boss, however, it also helps you learn how to show Appreciation.

According to Daniel H. Pink in his book Drive, what motivates your staff is Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. But what creates loyalty and happiness and job satisfaction is Appreciation. We all have a basic need to feel loved and appreciated.

If you manage people and haven’t read those two books, I know what Santa needs to get you for Christmas.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Yes, some of my staff received Appreciation through Acts of Service. Fortunately for me, that was how I best showed love, so it was easy to appreciate those members of the team. Knowing that, you now know why I write this blog and give away so much on the Free Resources page. It is my way of showing love.

PPS No, I wouldn’t use The 5 Love Languages for hiring purposes. While it would seem that having a team that all spoke Acts of Service would be a good thing, remember that your customers speak all five of the languages. It is good to have a team fluent in several languages.

Make Change with a Purpose

While I know I should probably avoid the drive-thru restaurants, I don’t. I go even though I don’t particularly like the drive-thrus. It isn’t the food. It is the experience, or more accurately the final moments of the experience.

Two things happen far too often at the end of a drive-thru experience that shouldn’t. One is partially my fault. One is simple training that would make the experience far more pleasurable.

Don’t you just hate when they give you your change?

They always stack the bills on your hand first and then drop a wad of coins on top of those bills. My only hope is that when the coins start sliding off (as they always do), they will slide into my vehicle and not on the ground.

There is a far better way to give back change. I’ve highlighted it here.

The second problem is making sure I got the right stuff. I don’t want to hold up the line so I rarely ever check the bag. Sometimes they are polite enough to tell me what they are handing me. Sometimes they aren’t.

Yesterday, however, I found a third reason to be annoyed.

This picture is the dollar bill I got in change for my meal yesterday. I actually flattened it out some for the picture. It was pretty crumpled. I was afraid to put it into my wallet.

All I could think about as I drove away was why wasn’t this drive-thru cashier instructed to put the nasty, slimy, crumpled, torn, barely readable dollar bills at the bottom of the stack and only give out the good ones as change?

You do that, don’t you?

If there was anything I was OCD about at Toy House, it was clean dollar bills in the drawer. Every morning when I counted out the drawers I held back the nasty ones for the deposit and put the clean ones in the drawers. I used to beg the teller at the bank to give me the clean bills whenever I bought bundles of ones. (She used to hold the better bundles aside just for me—that’s customer service!)

It seems like a silly, minor thing, but it is those little details that set you apart from your competition.

Your customers won’t notice you did it, but sometimes the best customer service is doing something nice they don’t notice rather than having them flame you on Yelp for something not so nice they did notice.

Teach your staff to give back the right kind of change the right way. It quietly makes a difference.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Oh, I would love to go into a fast food joint and whip them into shape. After giving back change, the other thing I would teach them to do is to put the lettuce in the sandwich, not in the outer folds of the wrapper. I would have taken that picture of me becoming a salad yesterday if I wasn’t driving.

PPS I was in a Chick-fil-A restaurant once where the cashier handed me back change the right way. It was so refreshing that I had to thank her. She said it was the way she was taught. See? It can be taught. While that isn’t the only reason why an average Chick-fil-A restaurant does over three times in sales of the average KFC, staff training is definitely a major contributing factor.

Giving Your Staff a Purpose

I’ve told you the story about the Simon Game that happened on Christmas Eve in 1980. I was only fourteen years old and it was a life-changer.

I haven’t told you what happened exactly two years later.

There was a guy, probably late 20’s, in his Carhart overalls staring at an empty place on the shelves. Back in 1982 we were a full-line dealer for this young and growing company called Little Tikes. They were making these amazing rotational molded plastic toys. They had a whole lineup of kitchen appliances including a stove, a refrigerator and a sink. (Yes, they were sold separately back then.)

This guy was staring at the empty hole where we would normally have stocked a sink.

Do you know the look of defeat? With his eyes glazed over, trying to hold back tears, this guy defined that look. I asked him if I could help.

“This hole means you don’t have any sinks left, right?”

In 1982 I didn’t have a computer to look up my stock numbers. I did, however, remember seeing one in a box in the warehouse. I told him to hold on while I checked just to make sure.

The one in back had just recently been canceled from a layaway. You should have seen his face when I brought out the box from the back room. It was magical!

We hugged and cried and I watched this guy literally dance his way out into the parking lot. It wasn’t until years later that I heard the term “happy-dance” but I saw one on Christmas Eve in 1982.

I don’t know if I am blessed, lucky, or just happened to have worked too many years in retail, but I actually have several more stories just like this one.

Twenty years later I had the staff together for our final meeting before the Christmas Season kicked into full gear. I called this our Pep Rally meeting. I liked to have a theme I unveiled at this meeting each year, something easy for the staff to remember.

In 2002 the phenomenon sweeping the nation was Harry Potter. The books were huge and the first movie had just been released. So our theme was Believe in the Magic. I told everyone the Simon Story and the story above. I told them a couple other “magical” stories.

We talked about the difference between service and “magical service.” We discussed the differences between selling toys and creating “magical memories.”

Then I handed everyone their own magic wand that said “Believe in the Magic!”

It was a powerful meeting, and it led to a magical season. The key was the theme.

I didn’t teach them anything new that I hadn’t already been teaching. I didn’t give them new information they didn’t already have. I didn’t introduce new concepts, techniques, or skills. It was the same stuff I always teach. The difference was the word “magical.”

By giving the season a theme and linking it to one single word or phrase, I made the meeting more memorable. I made the concepts come alive. I breathed new life into old teachings. I gave them one simple thing to focus on—being magical.

I gave them a Purpose.

As you prepare your team for this upcoming selling season, give them something to believe in. Give them a Purpose that makes it simple for them to remember their training.

One year I used the Super Hero theme. I told them stories about when we had been the hero for our customers and talked about what heroes do. (I even dressed up in a cape. If you’ve seen one of my live presentations, you’ve seen the picture of me in that cape.)

One year the theme was Become an Expert. We talked about how experts build trust through honesty and accuracy. We discussed how experts do research and know their stuff.

If you have read Daniel H. Pink’s book DRIVE, you know the three ingredients needed for motivation are Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Your meetings give them Mastery. Sprinkle in some Purpose, though, and the recipe gets even better.

Create a theme for your Pep Rally meeting. Not only does it give them a purpose, it makes the meeting more fun and it makes it easier for your staff to remember one big thing rather than several little things.

(For more on planning your staff meetings and trainings, download the Free eBook Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Some of you are jealous. You’re thinking how fun it must have been to be a toy store and play all those games and have fun themes like magic or super heroes or Disney Princesses. You can’t do that because you’re an insurance agency, a dentist, or a doctor’s office so you have to be serious all the time. Or you’re a shoe seller or a pharmacy or a grocer, and there’s nothing fun about that. Oh really? We still need heroes and experts in all those fields. We still want magical experiences. Just imagine the difference when one dental office in your town decides to become “magical” or one grocer puts an emphasis on being your “hero.” That’s a game changer.

This “Free” is Really Free!

I was looking at the Free Resources page on my website yesterday. There are nine eBooks on Marketing & Advertising, twelve on Customer Service, and five on Money. You can download any and all of them for free. No strings attached. No limits to how many or how often you can download them. No limits to how far or wide you can share them. I don’t even ask for your email address first, just credit for having written and produced them.

Yeah, pretty stupid to give it all away like that for free.

Free eBook Icon from Phil's ForumYet, if you read yesterday’s post, you would understand why I do it. Of the three questions and the fifteen answers I gave yesterday to why I am doing what I do, the last question about the problems I want to solve and the last five answers were the easiest.

Helping other businesses succeed drives everything. It is the starting and ending point. If these eBooks can make a difference, you should have them.

  • You’re more likely to download them if you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops.
  • You’re more likely to read them if they are short and to the point.
  • You’re more likely to share them if they are smaller files that you could even print if you wanted.

“A man who doesn’t read has no advantage over a man who can’t.” -Mark Twain

My sales staff got a copy of everything I had written about customer service at that time either through a staff training or by printing copies for their handbooks. (That included Generating Word of Mouth which is technically a Customer Service issue even though you’ll find it under Marketing & Advertising.)

My buyers all got copies of the Inventory Management and Pricing for Profit eBooks (the latter of which is the second most downloaded after Understanding Your Brand). 

While the stats counter shows how many times each gets downloaded, it doesn’t tell me how you’ve used them.

Would you do me a favor?

Drop me a comment on this post or an email and tell me which eBooks you’ve used and what, if any, difference they have made for your business. I’d like to know which ones have been most useful and which ones need to be revised, revamped, or removed for better content.

Thanks.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The five newest eBooks are:

Those first four make up the basis of the new half-day workshop The Ultimate Selling Workshop. (They also stand alone as great Breakout Sessions!) Yes, the live event for any of these eBooks is a far cry better than the eBook, itself. You get more stories and examples. You get the whole presentation tailored to your specific industry or region. If it is a session with owners and managers, you also get tips and techniques for teaching it to your staff. If it is a session with the staff at your business, you get hands-on activities to really drive home the points. While I encourage you to hire me for a live event, please keep sharing and using this information. Together we can tilt the playing field back in your direction.

What Value are You Selling?

Sell “Play Value”

That’s the first line of the business plan my grandfather wrote back in 1949 when he founded Toy House. I found his spiral notebook with the plan while looking for something else in the archives of the store. Page two outlined the possible names for the store including Toy House and House of Toys.

Having written a few business plans over the years, what fascinates me is the simplicity of what he started out to do. He didn’t say he was going to open a retail shop. He didn’t even say he was going to sell toys. He was going to sell something of value—“Play Value.”

In an interview I did with my grandfather a couple years before he passed away I asked him what he thought was the reason for the long success of Toy House. We were about to celebrate our 60th year in business. He said, “I think its because we didn’t set out to be just a toy store. We wanted it to be a store of value. I’ve always sold on the value.”

In a 2005 survey I sanctioned about toy shopping in Jackson, the survey respondents were asked to name the first store that popped into mind when certain words were read. We were mentioned most for words like Friendly and Helpful. Walmart owned Affordable and Cheap. Kmart owned Dark and Dirty. Toys R Us owned Cluttered and Confusing.

The most surprising result from that survey was that we also owned the word Value.

While my competitors were advertising low price, I was talking about Play Value. While my competitors were offering discounts, I was teaching customers how to calculate the True Cost of a Toy (Cost per Hour of Play).

Value.

Products come and go. Nothing is exclusive anymore. You’ll never make it in retail if your only calling card is exclusivity of product. You need to be clear on what you are really selling.

Your competitors are going to advertise the heck out of brands and discounts. If you want to stand in stark contrast to them, advertise the Value your customers are buying.

For instance …

  • A shoe store customer is really buying health, comfort, or safety
  • A clothing store customer is really buying self-esteem, success, or comfort
  • A jewelry store customer is really buying love, romance, or gratitude
  • A candy store customer is really buying happiness, comfort, or indulgence
  • A gift shop customer is really buying nostalgia, relationships, or contentment
  • A sporting goods store customer is really buying health, happiness, or even time

What Value are your customers buying?

Does your staff know this? Do you talk about it daily, weekly, monthly? Do you do things to reinforce this ideal?

Do your customers know this? Are you making sure your social media posts, email newsletters, and other advertisements all portray this message?

Here are some radio ads I ran back in 2016 …

Happy Dance
Last year, a professor said the toys that are most open-ended and creative are the toys kids play with the longest. My grandfather was saying that back in the 50’s. Another professor last year said that a toy should be 10% toy and 90% child. My grandfather was saying that back in the 50’s, too. When the professors confirm something you’ve already known, there is only one thing to do… A happy dance. Toy House and Baby Too in downtown Jackson. Come join us in our happy dance.

Real Play Value
Remember that toy your child saw on TV that he begged and pleaded and wore you down until you bought it? Only to find he never played with it again? Quit making that mistake. Anyone can make a toy look good for 30-seconds. Do your child a favor, don’t cave. Get toys with real play value. Your kids will be playing, laughing, and growing. They won’t even turn on the TV. Go to Toy House in downtown Jackson, the largest selection of toys in America. We’ll make you smile, while your kids play

Play is Important
Everyone is talking about education and how to fix it. The answer is easy – Play. Google Play. You’ll get thousands of studies why kids who play more do better in school. Don’t wait for the politicians to figure this out. They don’t win votes stumping for recess. For the greater good of this country and your child, you need interactive, open-ended, creative play. The same kind we’ve been advocating for sixty-seven years. Toy House in downtown Jackson, because Play is actually quite important.

While Target was trying to cram as many brand logos into one TV spot as possible, we were talking about making a difference. Value.

When you make it clear what Value you are selling, you’ll find plenty of customers who want to buy those Values.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Does selling Value really work? When we closed shop in 2016, our Market Share was at 16%—far larger than the typical indie toy store, the largest in our market, and the same it had been for several years even as Amazon was growing. It was only the shrinking local market that helped us decide to hang it up.

PPS This “value” is only slightly different than your Core Values. I know the terms can be confusing because of similarity. Think of your Core Values as being the driver behind what you do. Think of the Value you Sell as being the Benefit your customers buy.

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.