Marguerite Bell of Retail Doctor chats with Fashion Exposed on how to build a great sales force, establish goals, train a team and develop effective selling techniques.
Here are her top tips:
1. Celebrate success – Tell your team what they’re doing right, not what they’re doing wrong. Reward your staff for high achievement with prizes for sales, average sale, items per sale and conversion rates.
2. Communicate – Make it clear that you have an `open door’ policy and welcome your team to come to you with any problems or concerns.
3. Lead by example – We see truly `fit’ retail CEO’s visiting stores and speaking to customers. How can you expect others to follow your rules, if you don’t follow them yourself?
4. Be positive – The positivity of your team will be felt by your customers and generate results so have fun in store and be positive at all times!
5. Empower them – Staff who are given responsibility will step up to the mark. Keep them trained and informed to empower them to make decisions on the shop floor.
6. Promote continuous improvement – Staff training should be an ongoing process linked to individual and team KPIs and measured by sales results. Coaching your staff is the key to improvement. Help them grow with your business and lift the cycle of continual improvement.