“Cutting Edge Sales” is in and of itself a buzz phrase describing a competitive sales advantage that every retail sales associate is looking for, a bit like the fountain of youth. Like the fountain, though, “Cutting Edge Sales” is something that is more inside of oneself than something concrete to be found.

Retail sales persons and consumers have changed a great deal over the years but what makes a retail salesperson extraordinary really has not changed that much. It takes the same dedication to ones craft that has always been the mark of an expert.

Yes, the consumers are better informed. Information is more readily available and the internet has provided an outstanding research tool for all people with a need but people can still be gently persuaded.

The important thing for one to remember is that the things that worked for salespeople hundreds of years ago did just that. They worked. And they still can with the right approach and a little cutting edge retail sales training.

The change in the dynamics of making a sale today compared to yesteryear should be focused more on the retail sales associate’s delivery, not necessarily the content of their pitch. I like to use the analogy that we are delivering the same package, but we are using the newest, brightest and shiniest wrapping paper.

The outline of a sale has looked the same with little variation for eons:

• Approaching the Customer (Greeting)
• Identifying Needs
• Presenting and Demonstrating Options
• Trial Closing
• Handling Objections
• Closing
• Sales Follow-Up

The reason this outline has stayed the same is because it has a proven record of success. How this outline is delivered by retail experts has to change to keep up with the times and that is the evolution of sales. When one understands that they can start to understand more about “Cutting Edge Sales.”

A retail salesperson today, more than ever, has to sell oneself. Consumers in general are a very skeptical lot, especially when they are spending money that is harder to come by. As a result, they purchase from those that they trust and they tend to trust those that they like.

Today, so much more time has to be spent on greeting a prospective client. So many average retail salespersons skip this step entirely, or even worse are rude. That is why they will always remain average salespeople. Even a mandatory and effective greeting like, “Hi and welcome to our store” falls flat if it is not warm, genuine and sincere. Here is where one becomes a human and not just a salesperson, therefore gaining trust and becoming more likeable. Remember the old quote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Further, customers don’t want to be peppered with questions like they are undergoing a police interview. This rapport that you have now established makes for a free and easy qualifying stage and opens up your shopper to share their needs with you as well. Retail sales training consensus has always been, “A sale can not be made until the customers’ needs are met.”

Vocabulary is also a very key part to sales today. The lexicons of today vary greatly from the words of just a few years ago. It is more important than ever for retail sales associates and retail managers to continually build their vocabulary and be a wordsmith. This allows one to state exactly the points that need to be made without over talking and losing the customers attention and interest. Time is of the essence in today’s busy world.

It also helps to be “hip,” yet still formal and know more about the people with whom you are communicating. Thus, one can create the right vibe for comfortable buying which is very cutting edge.

Staying informed on the latest technology is one of the most critical parts of being “Cutting Edge.” Technical improvements over the years are too vast to list, but should all be put to good use for the expert retail sales associate.

Nothing is more important or more valuable today than real time information. Systems can provide very simple real time information and data that gives retail salespersons more tools with which to sell. Knowledge of inventory, sales tracking, delivery zoning and up to date pricing can better prepare retail sales associates to make a sale. This is a very powerful tool especially in this “Now generation” that we live in. Consumers don’t care to wait the extra 30 seconds to download an email joke. They certainly are not going to wait around long for information about a product or for the delivery of that product.

All of the instant information in the world is useless, however; unless one asks for the sale. The instant information is the shiny new wrapping paper, but asking for the sale is as old as the sales process itself.

The use of technology can also give a retail salesperson the ability to practice better customer retention and follow up by generating instant “Thank You” notes via email. Consider the impact of an instant email “Thank You” waiting for your customer when they arrive home from their shopping excursion or having them receive it on their Blackberry in the car on the way home.

It also allows customers to track “Frequent flyer miles” on line for future discounts and creates another outlet for prospecting. Researching the internet to better understand the competitions strengths and weaknesses is also a very effective practice of using current technology for retail sales training by “Cutting Edge” retail sales experts.

These are all tools that are mostly known to CEO’s and upper Retail Sales Management, but a better understanding of these tools can give a retail sales associate the upper hand needed to consummate a sale. It is another example of using instant information to utilize age old sales strategy and sales training, or an old package with new wrapping paper.

It is vital to commit to leading one’s retail field and staying ahead of the competition. The responsibility to stay atop of one’s profession is that of the retail sales associate alone, so don’t wait for management implementation. The most important concept a retail salesperson needs to embrace is that selling is life. As one evolves, learns and experiences life, they grow and improve, as it is in sales. The person that “Knows it all” can only start to degenerate, but the person who is hungry everyday for more knowledge and growth shall always stay a step ahead of the rest and on the cutting edge of sales.

You can reach Scott with your questions and/or comments at smichelsen@dmsretail.com

In 2009, take an opportunity for your organisation to invest strategically in talent in order to make relative gains against your competition. Here are the top 5 reasons why NOW more than ever is the time to invest in a Talent Management system.

1. Execute corporate strategy quickly in changing market dynamics - the key to affecting change and executing the company’s strategy is to create and track meaningful goals across and up and down the organisation enabling executives to be nimble in responding to adversity or market opportunity.
2. Pay for performance and compensate more strategically – make your payroll go further by paying on individual performance and for critical roles that drive key business objectives.
3. Retain your best performers – research shows top performers are 5 times more productive than the rest. Create a development roadmap for success to ensure they stick around.
4. Cut costs by pruning wisely – identify and eliminate underperformers through more effective assessments and real-time analytics.
5. Backfill key positions - discover potential talent gaps before they happen so you can take measures to develop bench strength for key positions. Having the right people in the right role at the right time creates highly responsive organisations that can thrive during adversity.

Also important:

• Improve linkage between pay and performance
• Develop next generation of leaders in the organisation
• Improve employee/associate retention

1. Believes and practices exemplary Customer Service.
2. Interviews with a purpose, hires for the cause and trains with a passion.
3. Leads by example and presents as an admirable Role Model.
4. Motivates and Coaches all day, every day.
5. Manages his time, plans ahead and gears for success.
6. Communicates well and often.
7. Holds values like Honesty and Integrity as sacred; is above reproach.
8. Is accessible, follows up and follows through with consistency.
9. Manages performance when and where it happens.
10. Mentors and develops people to promote from within.
11. Manages with a praise and reward philosophy.
12. Knows his customers and their needs.
13. Manages Up, Sees the Bigger Picture, Has Influence.
14. Shows Operational excellence.
15. Always promotes growth and is forward thinking.
16. Networks in and out of the workplace.
17. Possesses an unparalleled energy, ambition and enthusiasm for his work.
18. Develops a Flair for Visual Merchandising.
19. Has a game plan for productive store visits.
20. Works hard and gets results.
21. Strives for Quality and Quantity.
22. Excels in all areas of retail, takes action and is not afraid to get his hands dirty.

1. Goal Setting
You maintain your direction by setting a goal. This is how you can see where you are heading. Goals can be long term or short term, and it can be revised but they are there to help you chart your course.

2. Motivation
Without motivation nothing can be accomplished. Keeping your goals firmly in mind, having the motivation to get there is how you can achieve your goals.

3. Time Management
Time will not stop, but you can allocate your time to operate effectively. Without time management, even the greatest plans will not be executed.

When a bunch of university students interviewed me for a project they were doing, I had the opportunity to touch on my ideas for creative thinking in the management process. Creative thinking is not to be confused with creative management, which to me means little or nothing. Creative thinking is a means to breakthrough the barriers to your performance levels, it is how you motivate your people, and it is a tenet of leadership.

Recently, I came across this, written by Edward de Bono, in The Thinking Manager. “Everyone should seek to be creative, even though creativity is full of risks and uncertainties”. Edward de Bono is a leading creative thinker in management today, highly critical of  many management practices.

Creative think can work for us. He goes on to point four points of ignorance holding back the creative effort:

1. Why should anyone seek to be creative? There is the risk of failure. There is the need to persuade others. There is a need for political skills. It is much better to sit quietly and do what you are supposed to do.
2. If things are going well, who needs creativity? If things are going badly, then there is no time for the uncertainties of creativity.
3. If you set out to be creative - and even if you use the powerful tools of lateral thinking - you cannot be sure of a result.
4. There is a further problem. Every valuable creative idea we examine must always be logical in hindsight - otherwise it would have no value. So it is assumed, erroneously, that logic could have reached the idea in the first place. Not so.

Here is how to make creative thinking work. Confidence is a key factor in creative effort. Those who have succeeded in having creative ideas in the past are much more willing to make a creative effort. They know from experience that new ideas are possible. They have experienced the joy and achievement of having a new idea.

The problem is schools does not encourage creative thinking, and workplace does not expect it. Most people do what is expected of them. Creativity then is associated with mavericks, and yet all leading CEOs can be consider mavericks one way or the other. It is how they achieve new breakthroughs and how they continue to deliver performances in the face of adverse economic environment.

To get creativity into an organization you must make it an expectation. The effort to have ideas is key. If new ideas are an expectation, then people will make an effort to have new ideas. Their confidence will grow and eventually there will be a creative organization.

Some retailers have difficulty figuring out reasons why their sales revenue is unsatisfactory. Key Performance Indicators, or KPI as they are most often referred to, are absolutely crucial for any business. Retail is no different.

This is a fact; if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And, going even further, if you don’t know exactly how you are measuring it and how to interpret the result, you are not managing it.

Retail maths is crucial in retail management. Gaining an understanding of retail math lets the Store Manager put everything in perspective. The Store Manager gains new insight into exactly what is going on in their store. The Store Manager who knows some retail math will be able to focus on his store performance and interpret results much more easily. He will see the relationship between his sales performance, sales target, expenses, and how it reflects on his profit and loss. Just knowing all of the components makes it easy to see what needs to be improved upon.

The Store Manager will understand the current situation and the root cause. He will see that all alternative countermeasures were explored, and are deployed - even ones that are unpopular. He will know what to track when the plan is being executed, how to check the results against expectations, and see what additional countermeasures are needed to handle any gaps.

In any business, results come as an outcome of specific actions taken, not blind luck.

For more resources on Retail Maths.

This term is used to describe the process of restocking your shelves and making sure that your retail store is neat and tidy before opening for business. Too often a lack of attention to this process and the result is lost sales. In our retail store, we do refill and recovery an hour before the store opens for business. This ensures that our store is as new and ready for business when our customers come in.

Restock

Some Store Managers will tell you that they don’t need to schedule a specific time for refill and recovery; that it is something that is done on an on-going basis, through out the business day. They are losing sales and they don’t even know it.

Of course, the refill and recovery of the store is an on-going process that has to be continuously kept up by all associates to keep it under control, but that alone will not ensure you keep on top of it because sales associates have other priorities, including replenishment and serving your customers.

Lack of proper attention to the process, will result in loss of productivity, reduced floor coverage, out of stock situation on the selling floor, and disorganization in the warehouse.

Many customers will not bother to ask for the item if it is not on your selling floor. If the customer don’t see it, they will assume that you do not stock it. It’s a fair and reasonable assumption. After all, if you want to sell it, it should be displayed on the sales floor. Imagine the impact this can have on your sale target if that happens just a few times a day. It could make the difference between making your target and missing it.

For more articles, “How Much Is Your Customer Worth?”

In any economic times, organizations should push creativity and new ideas to the fore and concentrate on execution of marketing strategies. In competitive times, new ideas can make the difference and persuade customers to visit your store. In today’s difficult times, creativity is a factor that can make the difference.

Christmas Activities

While most companies focus on enticing the customer to make a purchase, market leaders engages the customer long after the purchase is made. Your marketing message need to be better at engaging the customer, and the front line employees absolutely must be on top of their game, using all of their creativity and pulling out all the stops.

Cost cutting strategies, everything from advertising and staff reduction, is very often the wrong strategy overall. Yes, wasteful spending should be eliminated but why was there wasteful spending in the first place? That’s something that needs to be addressed. What is required is creativity and coming up with innovative measures that your competition hasn’t thought of. Otherwise, no matter what you do, you still won’t be ahead of your competition because they are all doing the same things. Creativity can be used to gain a competitive advantage, make your competition react to you initiatives.

Start now by initiating Creative Workout sessions at management level. Don’t allow your Store Managers just want to quietly navigate through tough times. Before morale starts sinking, get people together and ask some serious questions. The quality of your questions usually determines the quality of your answers. Make sure all of your questions are targeted at specific issues and very focused in order to get the most useful answers.

What Are The Issues?

• Sales has to be top priority. Make sure everybody knows that and involved in selling.
• Control your inventory. Partner with your suppliers to manage your inventory effectively.
• Increase your promotional activities. Engage your customers.

Focus on the details
Ask very specific questions around what is happening to your business and what actions you need to take to turn it around. Look positively forward, make the Creative Workout sessions upbeat and exciting. Effective management depends on creative thinking.

For more articles, “Unique Selling Point In Retailing”.

Read also, “More About Unique Selling Point”.

The economic might experience a slow down, but however negative the predictions are, the truth is that people will still need to shop in the malls. They will still need to buy clothes, supplies and grocery, even gifts for family and friends. I agree that they might be spending a bit less than normal. The fact that customers may be controlling their spending, makes it more imperative that retailers compete for their share of the wallet.

Even in bad economic times, there are still sales to made, people still buy. So, what can a retailer do to ensure they have the very best possible chance for success? The answer to getting your share of the customer’s wallet is to be better than the others. Whatever it is you are selling, do it better than the others. Retailers don’t have to beat the economy, they just have to do what they do better than the others in the same business.

Getting Back To Basics

First of all, the merchandising team must make sure the purchase of the merchandise is done at the right price and quantity. Allocation of the merchandise, and delivery of inventory must arrive at the retail location in the right quantity, at the right time.

The retail store management must make the shopping experience pleasant for the customers. Have friendly, smiling, knowledgeable, well trained staff available to serve the customers; and have enough of them. Have customer friendly policies and procedures in place. Maintain a clean and well organized store. Have clear signage. Respect for your customers for shopping at your retail store.

Deliver what you promise to do and do it better than every other retailer out there. Control your expenses, while ensuring you can provide your customers with the service and the pleasant shopping experience that they deserve.

In the final analysis, every component of the retail organization have to execute their game plan during these times. Merchandising, Warehouse, Logistics, Loss Prevention, Marketing, Finance, Customer Service and Retail store must deliver and do it better than the competition if you want to win. The customers deserve better, and with disposable incomes diminishing, retailers must deliver that shopping experience.

For those who have not read this book, you can see a sneak preview in pdf format right here.

Here are some reviewers have to say about this book:
“In a difficult retail environment, this book provides crucial guidance for staying on top of your competition-by taking the customer seriously and leveraging your strengths to provide experiences that increase customer loyalty. Will Ander and Neil Stern elegantly argue that you can’t always be the biggest, fastest, and trendiest place on the block, but it takes only one of these ‘Ests’ to be a category leader. Businesses big and small can benefit from the carefully distilled lessons in this book.”
- Bernd Schmitt, Professor of Marketing, Columbia Business School and author of Customer Experience Management

“Winning at Retail offers the most effective strategies available for retailers. At McDonald’s, the ‘Quick-EST’ model is crucial, because being close and convenient to where our customers live, work, and shop helps us create maximum value. If you want to harness your company’s strengths to become a leader in your category–and stay in tune with what your customers want-this is the book for you.”
- Jim Rand, Senior Vice President of Business Development, McDonald’s Corporation

“Winning at Retail provides a thoughtful approach to retail differentiation. Ander and Stern warn of the ‘treacherous middle’ into which retailers too easily drift. They inspire us to avoid this peril through case studies of retailers who have assumed leadership through courageous choice.”
- Robert L. Price, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Wawa

For more information about the book: Book Store | Page 3