Beef up your closing rate by getting back to basics
By Gordon Hecht, YSN Contributor
Summer is still hanging on in our little Florida town. It was so hot the other week in La Boca Vista (Phase III) that the Christmas candy was melting at the local Wally World store.
Right next to the dripping chocolates was a display of 16-month calendars. Check your iFruit watch and see that we are heading into the last quarter of 2024. There’s still time to tune up your selling skills to ensure that these final three months get you into black ink.
It’s also been a quarter century since we partied like it’s 1999. I started selling a quarter century before that! Back then we didn’t have formal selling skills training. We had old- school reminders about how to turn shoppers into buyers. The goal was to make the old National cash register ring every time.
I’ve dusted off a few of the oldie but moldy sayings we used. They’re still relevant today. And while you may no longer put pen to paper or ring a bell, the results will put a smile on your face.
ABC is a reminder to Always Be Closing. Sure, there are steps to the sales process that precede asking for the sale. But the goal of every selling presentation is to convert a shopper into a customer. Otherwise, we are just merchandise tour guides.
People love to buy and hate to be sold. The finest sales presentations end with the shopper wanting to buy. You have demonstrated the value of your wares and how they will improve your shopper’s life. The benefits you can deliver far outweigh the money in their pocket.
Give your shopper the power to buy. Hard closing, lowering the price or offering “one-time only” deals take that power away. And then chances are good that you’ll be the one buying the merch back from them.
You can’t sell from an empty cart. About 100 years ago, people bought a lot of goods from push carts, horse-drawn carts and open suitcases on the street. Once the cart was empty, the hawker would go home. Nothing else to sell.
Q4 is the time that shoppers demand immediate gratification. If you don’t have their ideal merchandise in stock, they’ll seek it down the street. Or on that Worldwide Interwebby thing.
Now is the time to lay in some extra inventory. A few backups of your best sellers. Add in some promo goods and you’re set.
Show, show, show until they say “No!” Pareto’s rule states that 80% of activity comes from 20% of the offers. You probably have floor samples in the showroom that nobody sells because no one shows it.
Great selling comes from narrowing shoppers’ choices to the best products for them. If none of those work, go to the next best thing. And then the second next best thing. It might even be that discontinued floor sample that everyone has been walking past since last Valentine’s Day.
“No” means “Tell me more.” The greatest reason that shoppers object to making a purchase is not having enough information. Or at least the information that is important to them.
Each item in your store has dozens of features and benefits. Your shopper lets you know that you haven’t found or explained the F&Bs they need to know.
It’s not what it is, it’s what it does. Product knowledge is important, but setting out a laundry list of features will not result in a sale. Pair each feature with an advantage, benefit and grabber to make it stick. For example:
- Feature: Cooling materials in a mattress
- Advantage: Regulates sleeping temperature
- Benefit: You won’t have to toss off and pull on the covers throughout the night
- Grabber: And that’s important to you, isn’t it?
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sure, it’s an old saw, but it happens in your shop every day. I served a lot of retail time in the desert paradise known as Las Vegas. We learned quickly that people drove up to our store in luxury cars only because they made the last payment. And the plainly dressed couple in the beater pick-’em-up truck may have hit a jackpot on a one-armed bandit last night.
In 2024 your shoppers do more research online and have less free time to browse. That next guest who crosses your threshold is on a mission to buy, and it’s your sale to lose no matter what they drive, how they’re dressed or what kind of accent they have. Treat them like a million bucks and you’ll earn the sale.
Don’t use a six-bit word when a two-bit word will do. Way back, even before 1980, Spanish dollars were designed to be broken into eight sections. Thus the expression “pieces of eight.” Each piece, or bit, was worth 12 ½ cents. Our U.S. quarter was often called “two bits,” and you could get a shave and hair cut for that amount.
You may have the urge to evangelize to your shopper the data they can ingest to address immediate needs. They then can evaluate and prioritize purchasing activity utilizing key product metrics to maximize their CX.
Or, you can use simple words to express rather than impress. You’ll never lose when you keep it understandable.
That means finding out what they need, why they need it and how your offerings are the best options.
Our list of selling sayings and advise will likely never make it into some fancy selling book. You can add it to your daily sales mantra to convert shoppers to buyers and raving fans.
Gordon Hecht is a business growth and development consultant to the retail home furnishings industry and a regular contributor to YSN. You can reach him at Gordon.Hecht@aol.com.
