Lost dollars

My students recently made mystery shopper visits to several businesses to evaluate the staff’s selling skills. The results were good for some, but dismal for half of the businesses. The general consensus was that most sales staff do not either know how to sell well, or they lack the motivation to do a good job.

Selling is one of the most overlooked and underutilized skills in most businesses, and it literally cost a company thousands of lost sales dollars each month. I’m not talking about high-pressure techniques designed to wrestle the dollars out of your pocket, but subtle persuasion strategies that help a customer feel good about their decision to make a purchase.

There have been several occasions when we visited a store with the intention to buy something, but we purposefully watched to see if the sales rep would help sell us. Many of those times we walked out of the store with our money still in our pocket because of anemic selling skills.

In reality, people do not want to be sold, they want to buy, but there are certain things that company reps can do to help improve the buying experience. Think about your last few visits at some local businesses and answer these 10 questions with a score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest score.

1. Was the store clean, well lit, and the products displayed in an attractive manner? Before you even interact with a person, you will start to form an opinion about the store and what is sold. If the place is attractive and organized, then you assume the store has its act together; however, if it is disorganized, dirty, and crowded, you may assume the products and services are shoddy.

2. Were you greeted with a friendly smile when you walked into the business? This sets the tone for the encounter and allows the staff to demonstrate that they are responsive and glad that you took time out of their busy schedule to visit your business.

3. Did someone attempt to put you at ease and build a relationship? Hopefully the staff seemed interested in you and asked your name, or at least volunteered their name.

4. Did the rep have good grooming and dress standards? This is an easy one to accomplish, but if the manager doesn’t have high expectations, the staff may take advantage of the situation and have dress or grooming habits that can detract from the sale.

5. Were you asked questions so that the sales rep could understand your wants and needs? From our experience, very few people have attempted the most simple and basic investigation to understand our needs. Sure, some will ask how they can help, but almost none have gone into depth to understand the purpose of our visit and how they can best fulfill that purpose.

6. Did the person helping you translate product features into advantages and benefits? A feature is the physical characteristic of something that lets you know what it does, and a benefit lets you know what that product can do for you. Again, from our observation, this has been a rare occurrence.

7. Did the sales rep use a trial close during the conversation to see if I was ready to buy? There are many ways to ask for the order, but they all basically ask you if you want the product or service. Most in-store salespeople do not ask for the sale because they are afraid to hear the dreaded N-word…“No”.

8. If I gave an objection, did the sales rep try to answer my objection or give me some more information to consider that might help me make a purchase? This is where you separate real salespeople from sales clerks who are just order takers.

9. Did the salesperson react positively when I decided not to buy an item? A good salesperson thinks long term and after doing his or her best to help satisfy a need of a prospect, realizes that there will be another chance to turn the prospect into a customer if the relationship is developed. If you say “no”, but feel good about the interaction, there is a chance that you will want to return, right?

10. Was I thanked and invited to return as I was leaving the store? Not only should the salesperson start off on the right foot, but he or she should also end the interaction in a friendly manner that causes you to want to return.

So how did the businesses you visit score? If you had any that scored a perfect 100, please let us know because we have not yet visited one here. They do exist, but those businesses are as rare as a fruit bat on Saipan.