5/22/18
Here are a 12 tips some successful retail managers use to create these teams.
Give your sales associates some latitude in how they perform their jobs. This step demonstrates your trust and confidence in their abilities and imparts to them a feeling of ownership for their performance.
Your associates are dealing with customers face-to-face day in and day out. They are a terrific source of customer feedback and can provide insight for tweaks that may be needed to your sales strategies. Increase their confidence by regularly collecting their ideas.
Think carefully about the innate strengths each member of your team brings to the job. Think of ways to provide them as many opportunities as possible to utilize those strengths or improve their latent sales talents.
Whether it is acquiring new sales techniques or detailed product information, this knowledge comes from thorough training and practical exercises. Do your best to provide opportunities to participate in the highest quality education training for your associates.
Augment your associates' training with exercises that apply their expertise to solving practical everyday problems for customers. Encourage pride in their expertise and their confidence and productivity will rapidly increase.
A further boost to associate productivity comes from setting up a friendly level of competition among team members or across teams from other store locations. Design the competition so everyone wins something to head off discouragement.
Managers are extremely busy individuals, but it’s important to always make time for the sharing of information. Encourage open information sharing among associates and with management. This is a great way to build team cohesiveness.
Consistently reward the behaviors you value most in your team. Tangible rewards or sincere verbal praise go a long way. Never forget to say thank you or commend a job well done. Encourage team members to praise one another as well.
Streamlined sales procedures such as mobile POS or devices connected to multimedia product demonstrations are two examples of tools that help your associates answer the toughest questions, close sales, and ensure an exceptional customer experience. Arm you staff with the tools that will help them create the most success.
Sometimes your sales associates must apply some creativity to solve a customer's problem or they may have outside-of-the-norm ideas for improving a campaign. Don’t discourage unique ideas or efforts. Rather track what happens when these ideas are put in play.
There are a lot of team-building, morale-boosting ideas out there such as meditation, visualizations, motivational videos, guest speakers, or increased physical activity. Do not be afraid to step outside the box and keep an eye out for new ways to build team excitement.
As much as possible, inspire positive attitudes in your people to the point that negativity has no place to gain a toehold. You will find their behavior becomes self-reinforcing, builds confidence, and provides a firm foundation for success.
A culture of positivity, fun and creativity works wonders for a sales team's productivity and cohesion. Customers will feel the energy as well, which encourages higher sales, satisfaction, and return visits.
The Intel® Retail Edge Program embodies many of the principles outlined above by providing your team with product knowledge and tips for successful customer interactions while giving them opportunities for rewards through participation and accomplishments. Encouraging their participation is a great way to augment your own training and reward efforts.
This article originally appeared here on LinkedIn*.
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*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
©Intel Corporation 2018. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Retail Edge Program, and Intel Retail Edge Live are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.
