Retail Makeover

Day #41 - How To Sell Without Being Pushy

Posted by retailmakeover on July 23, 2011 0 Comments

How can my sales staff and I up-sell without coming across as pushy?

It is my professional viewpoint that retailers and their staff aren’t too sure about their roles as sales people. You should have a realistic attitude and approach. Here are a few guidelines for you to follow:

•  Customers have a learned behavior around being sold to, with a varied resistance based on their past experiences. For the record, people do not like pushy salespeople as your question suggests.
• Customers walk in thinking  - “Will this retailer and staff make me feel uncomfortable about being in this store?”
• So if in turn you, as a sales person, feel funny or uncomfortable as well there is no connection, and it all can be very awkward and a negative experience for everyone.
• It’s time for a new view of yourselves and a new understanding of what being an effective salesperson is  - Say this with feeling “ we are not pushy”
• A Key for you - just recently I picked up a copy of the book The Secret – it speaks to being of service in our lives. It is so true; I see this as the pivotal word to share with you, Service.  It should be the focus of what you do in your store. Owning that word and what it means will change how you are as salespeople and how you are with customers. Official Web Site of The Secret and The Power http://thesecret.tv/
• Next, I want you to change to relationship selling. No more just a transaction. Your customer must feel that you are the only store and your staff the only salespeople they want to deal with.
• Every person that comes in the door is open to buy. Believe it, that’s why they came into your store. Ready and open for a suggestive selling approach or in this case showing them an add on.Finally, an easy way to open the topic of an add on sale is to have an item ready to talk about. If you’re just trying add on sales for the first time and or even old hands at it.
• Try this - whether it’s a “Staff Pick of the week” or, put your own name here for example, “Barb’s Pick of the week” – the item should be something that has been decided on by the store as being an item of relevance to customers. Put the item display close to the cash and train your staff to introduce it to customers as they check out. Practice makes perfect. It will become easier and more natural for you and your staff every time you introduce the item. I promise you, this really works. Keep this up, change the item as frequently as you need to keep the add-on offer fresh and new to even frequent shoppers. Please track your sales presentation progress and get feed back from your staff.
• Stop thinking the word pushy.  See yourself, your store and staff as being in service to valued customers by offering products they will love to own and give as gifts.

Barbara