Introduction to Retail Sales
Sales seem to be like a tough job for a number of people, however, cakewalk for a few. But then have you ever imagined or tried to understand as to why it has been simple for those experts or those professionals. How can you sell well and effectively in this competitive market? Is it really easy? Well I do not call it easy if you do not use the right sales tricks to sell your products and services. Trick? Yes it is, sales is a trick that you should get right if you want to really, really sell. And of course selling to individuals is really not easy. So lets us see how and what can help you sell better.
Tips to Improve Retail Sales
The word ‘Retail’ refers to selling goods in small quantity. This word is derived from ‘Old French’ word ‘Tailler’ which means to “divide, to pare, or to cut off” retail was 1st understood as a noun with a meaning that is selling in small quantities. Ok let us make this simple by simply calling ‘Retails Sales’ as selling of goods and products actually even service in small quantities, it is nothing but selling in small quantities.
If Retail sales are in small quantities what are the challenge that you might come across? Let’s just name them,
- Multiple channels
- Employee efficiency and loyalty
- Competition
- Customer loyalty
- Increasing customer profiles
- Customer acquisition
And the list of challenges does not end here as problems and issues never end. What need to do in such situations is look for solutions, as many solutions as possible to increase retail sales.
Retail Sales Tips & Tricks
Following are some tips and tricks:
1. Presenting yourself
The basic and the very 1st rule of sales and service is being presentable. That is when you enter work or when you are going to meet a client make sure you follow your companies dress code or your companies formal dress code. Following your dress code and being formally dressed is telling your customers that you respect them and you value their needs and requirements. Hence it is extremely important to be dressed presentable before you are going to see or visit your customers.
Again for a retail sales representative presentation is very important for he is the very 1st face of the company or the company visiting the customer, to be the face of the company need not be taken lightly as the retail sales representatives presentation is the company’s presentation. And the 1st impression is mostly the last. Hence make sure you are presentable enough before you visit a customer.
2. Talk carefully
When it is about talking to a customer’s you need to choose your words carefully, in fact we have been thought that with the companies ID card on watch what you talk. The only reason is if you talk something irrelevant and ill logical you are talking against your company and yourself. You wouldn’t want to spoil your own image and I am sure even your companies image in front of people and media. So when you talk, talk relevant, talk business and talk ethical. It’s how you talk and what you talk can earn you business. Controlling what to talk, how to talk and when to talk is the trick that needs a lot of practice.
3. Listen attentively
One major trick of sale and also marketing is listening attentively. Yes, there is difference in listening and listening attentively. When you say you are listening, you only listening, you are not listening to address someone’s problems or give resolutions. On the other if you listen attentively you pick up important points from the conversation of the speaker. This give you an idea of what the customer wants and what are his requirements. Getting to know your customer and his needs will help you sell better. Hence listening attentive is a very important trick and even this can be mastered with practice alone.
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4. Be good at service as well
Definitely, you sell and that completes your target. However, does that give you a customer that will come back to you? You sold your customer bought, does that add up to the customer loyalty? Nah.. You need to do more to get more business from the same customer. More business can come either from the same client or his references. How can that work is the question now? To sore customer loyalty and customer references, you also have to treat the customer well and serve him well. No, No that does not make you the customers salve, however, it earns you more business either now or in future.
Good customer service and good and helpful behaviour with the customer he a very good way and a very good rule of getting your customer back and earning his as a loyal customer for your company and yourself.
5. Know the person whom you are selling to
Knowing the customer is not, knowing the customer by his name. It is knowing him by his profession, by his requirements, by his needs and to some extent also his monthly and annual income. By know your customer and his requirements you will be able to sell the right product to your customer. See precisely, pushing your customer for a product is not really the right option, know what he wants and accordingly selling a product to him is what is important. Hence knowing your customer well is an important part of retail sales.
6. Product knowledge
Before you start selling anything to someone you need to know what are you selling and how will the product or the service benefit your customer. Now to know what you need to sell to whom, you first need to know, what your company is selling, know the product, its benefits and downfalls. After you know the product, now you can analyze what customer to target to sell these products to. Knowing your company and its products and services is extremely important as it will help you sell better and also help the customer buy better.
7. Do not push your sales
Achieving your sales target is not your customer’s responsibility. It is your and you have to find a way out to get your targets done effectively. To sell your products you cannot sell an irrelevant product to your client. You have to study your clients requirement his needs and sell your products accordingly. So you having a target is not your customers fault you cannot sell something the customer does not require. Well doing that will do you no harm initially however it will take away customer loyalty from you, not fetching you sales in future and neither references from the same customer.
8. Be truthful to your customer
Lying is good for selling initially; however bad for your coming business. When you are selling something to your customer you are giving the customer information that you have about the product. On that bases the customer does trust you, for the customer you are the company because you are representing the company. If you lie to the customer, he will never trust the company or the brand again for the lie of a sales executive, which is not fare. He; that is the customer will not come back to the company for the company’s products or services. You are losing on the customer, his loyalty, this future business and also his references. You are losing out on a lot of future business. So being true to the customer, and selling him the right product is right if you want more business from the client in future.
9. Cross sell
Cross selling is smart selling. There are a number of ways of selling. For example of a customer has entered your store to buy a microwave you have an option of selling products that are relevant to the microwave. Cross selling fulfills the clients requirements and also helps you achieve your sales targets. This is known as smart cross selling. In fact this was just an example. For people in the service industry, a banker can sell a savings account to the client and along with a savings account, the banker can also sell his client a minor account to increase saving or sell his customer a saving option like a mutual fund or an insurance as per the requirement of the client.
10. Take an extra step
To create customer loyalty doing the routine is not enough. You have to go that extra mile, you have to do something extra to grab their attention, to assure them that you are there to guide them, to serve them better than anyone else. Going an extra mile can also be taking politely to your customer, making sure you treat them with, respect, affection and understanding. Along with mere selling if you also give your customers selling you can make sure you will have the customer coming back to you for more business. So what if service is not your department, you can at least guide your customer to the person who can solve their issues or give them service. There is no harm in simply guiding your customer to the right person politely. This will increase your worth and future prospect sales.
11. Understand your customers requirements
To understand your customer’s requirement it is very important to know your customer well. Understand his psychology, his surroundings, his standard of living, his taste and his necessities, or rather what is he looking for. Understand is a process here, every time you will have the client waling in with different requirements and necessities you need to keep understanding each time what he wants exactly and deliver accordingly. If you cannot deliver exactly the same deliver something that is closest to his requirement; however, make sure that your customer leaves the place satisfied and happy.
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12. Learn from your mistakes
No one is perfect your customer, you and neither me. All of us learn from our mistakes. Well making mistakes is never a crime, repeating your mistakes is also not one; however not learning from your mistakes is a crime. Take your mistakes and your errors positively, understand your mistakes only give you an opportunity of learning from your experience. And until you try you will not get the experience you are looking for, until you experience you will not get it just right.
So take your mistakes as you best and you biggest teacher. Learn from your mistakes and your experiences.
13. Attend company trainings
Most companies these days train their employees by conducting sales meet and various online and classroom trainings for their employees in order to motivate their employees to meet their sales targets. These trainings are held by sales heads and experts in order to confirm that sales targets are met by training their teams appropriately. These retail sales trainings must be attended and applied while interacting with your customers because trainings are given on the bases of experience of the industry and individuals.
Conclusion
Sales are tough for some however cakewalk for some, coz some can do it just perfectly. Well selling to retail individual clients includes a number of huddles; however these huddles should not be a reason to stop you from achieving your targets and proving yourself at work. Well use the tricks perfectionist use to get these sales just right. From being presentable to learning from your mistakes and attending trainings, at the end of the day it is all about selling and selling right as you will be questioned for your sales only and only at work. Now to get them right you need to get long term relationships with your clients, to maintain this relationship you need to start it right and keep it right till the end. Remember from all the notes above right till here it has only been about selling and selling right to the right customers. Maintaining customer relationship with the right attitude will help you get your customer back and sell better, be it fresh sales or cross sell.
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This has been a guide to Retail Sales Tips and Tricks. Here we have discussed the basic concept, 13 tips and tricks to improve retail sales respectively. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –
