Brian Barfield's Modern Day Selling series offers a unique perspective in teaching sales associates how to reconnect with their customers and achieve greater success in their sales career. Following his piece on identifying today's customer, the series continues with a look at how salespeople should handle the initial connection …
In the beginning, your sale has unlimited potential. It has the potential to be quick, easy and effortless. It also carries the potential to be a long-winded, drawn-out marathon. The final outcome is going to be based solely on whether you truly connected with your customer or not.
From the moment your customer walks through your door, your actions set the course of the current sales process, as well as the future sales process – if they choose to shop with you again.
In the last article, I outlined the four basic customer types, with an ultimate goal in mind – by taking care of your customers’ individual needs, you have the potential to turn every customer into an open-minded customer. Once the bond of trust is established and the customer knows that you have their best interests at heart, sales become easy and almost effortless. This is the way to build your customer base and create an environment that makes selling fun.
Now you have a clear vision of what true and lasting success might look like. However, achieving such success takes a lot of hard work and effort.
In this article, we will start by focusing on the customer who is shopping at your store for the very first time. Every new customer who enters through your door is walking into a world of the unknown. Some may be guarded, wondering if they will be pounced on or cheated. Others may appear confident, while fear and insecurity are bringing out the worst in them. The bottom line is that the modern-day customer has been trained by negative experiences not to trust you.
The first priority in assisting your customer is to overcome their fear and establish a connection to open the lines of communication. You do this by offering a service that benefits the customer. Offer a free drink while they browse – this allows them the necessary time to adjust to the store and begin to relax. This simple action assures the customer that you are there to serve them, and it sets the tone for the sales process.
“The common theme is letting the customer know that you are there to serve them”
However, this needs to be done correctly. I like my customers to see me working for them with no pressure or gimmicks. This makes the customer feel obliged to shop with you, even if they are not purchasing that day.
Another way I offer service is to find a customer’s need and address that need. It could be having a sofa delivered in time for the holidays, or being able to offer a mattress that addresses a particular health problem. All you have to do is stop and think.
Another way to establish a connection with your customer is to make them laugh or smile. When a couple walks in together and I introduce myself, I always follow it up with the following line: “I am here to make this process as painless as possible for you.” Instant smile every time! It is little things like this that relax your customer and begins to establish a bond of trust. Sometimes I actually tell the customer: “You’re the boss. I work for you.”
As you can see, the common theme is letting the customer know that you are there to serve them. If you learn to do these little things, that ‘just-looking’ customer will open up to you like never before.
There is a way to fix the problem that we as an industry created. In order to do so, you must first understand the problem and see it with clarity. Many years ago we created a concept called the sales tactic, which was intended to be good. Over time, these sales tactics became fuelled by greed, which disconnected us from our customers. Instead of focusing on our customers, we began to focus more on the price and commissions.
Those tactics worked well for a season, until the customer woke up and decided they no longer wanted to be treated like that. This has led to years of the sales associate versus the customer, and the sales floor has become a grind of relentless stress and pressure. Those who have worked in the industry for a long time can testify to this.
In closing I will leave you with the final ingredient to help you connect with your customer. It’s the benefit of using passion and energy when connecting with them for the first time. When your customer enters your store, do they hear the excitement in your voice? Do they feel the energy and enthusiasm that you give in your hustle to work for them? Can they see the desire that you have to take care of them?
Unfortunately, in today’s world many of us are weary and run down by the demands of business life. We are lacking the proper passion and energy to impact our customers’ lives in a meaningful way. Take a look at some of the old articles on my website – Maintaining your Levels of Passion and Energy, and Understanding Life’s Defining Moments – to discover ways to remedy this.
Brian Barfield is a two-time published author who specialises in retail sales training. His Modern Day Selling series offers a unique perspective in teaching sales associates how to reconnect with their customers and achieve greater success in their sales career.
