The Retail Doctor Blog
October 16, 2021
Why Retailers Should Display Christmas Merchandise Before Halloween
Why do retailers put out Christmas merchandise before Halloween? Because customers buy it. It's that time of the year .....
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October 15, 2021
How To Increase Retail Sales By Focusing On These 5 Obvious Things
When I was putting myself through college, one of my first jobs was in retail sales at the Broadway Department Store in ...
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October 8, 2021
How and Why a Retail Salesperson Should Create a Personal Brand
What is a personal brand? A brand stands for something. Think Coke, not cola. Q-Tip, not cotton swab. A brand tells you ...
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October 15, 2021
12 Secrets of a Successful 2021 Holiday Season for a Retail Manager
Taking on retail manager responsibilities is a big job any time but especially during the holidays. And, if you're start...
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October 1, 2021
What Is World Class? Customer Service Case Study at Nordstrom NYC
It’s easy to bemoan retail right now and the lack of good customer service. Disney just closed 60 stores as of September...
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September 22, 2021
How To Avoid Going Bankrupt? It Begins With Visiting Your Competitor
One of the first things I do when conducting a business makeover is to get the owner and manager to accompany me on a vi...
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September 27, 2021
When Retailers Mistake Their Most Important Asset As A Cost
For years we’ve heard that employee expenses are driving retail profit margins down; as a result, labor hours were cut. ...
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October 1, 2021
How To Find Self Motivation? Get Leverage On Yourself
Looking for how to find your own self motivation? You first neet to find leverage on yourself. Here's my story about lev...
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September 19, 2021
What To Do When You Don’t Like To Sell
Independent retailers with one location represent 95% of all retailing in the US; yet many don’t like to sell their own ...
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September 5, 2021
5 Pitfalls of DIY Retail Sales Training in Your Store
While I love speaking to retailers and providing retail sales training for how to sell better in their stores, I have an...
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September 15, 2021
Retail Best Practices: 12 Tips for the Creation of Exceptional
Online retailers are jealous. Many retail best practices don't work online. They can't do what brick-and-mortar retailer...
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September 3, 2021
10 Benefits of Online Retail Sales Training
I used to think online retail sales training would be impossible to deliver in a compelling way that would grow sales. B...
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October 15, 2021
How to Greet Customers in Retail Stores
Do your employees know how to greet customers the right way? If not, you could be losing valuable sales and revenue-boos...
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August 24, 2021
Resolve Retail Customer Complaints in 4 Easy Steps
It's never easy dealing with a retail customer service issue. Sometimes it may seem like someone is looking to find trou...
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August 30, 2021
To Compete With Amazon Try Adding On Instead of Discounts
Many stores are having difficulty competing with Amazon unless they use coupons and discounts which punishes their margi...
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August 27, 2021
The Disconnect of Retail Salespeople To Happiness
To succeed in retail, especially luxury retail, employees have to be taught a customer is not just another chance to s...
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October 4, 2021
Best Cross Selling and Upselling in Retail Tips
Cross-selling and upselling in retail are the foundation of raising the average ticket. Cross-selling in retail is the a...
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August 24, 2021
How to Motivate a Retail Employee
How to motivate retail employees … It’s a subject retailers routinely ask about. My answer is always the same: You don’...
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August 3, 2021
Retail Sales Training: How To Sell More In Your Store
"How can I sell more to customers?" is a frequent question from retailers of all sizes. And it's the smart question. Tha...
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September 27, 2021
15 Ways to Increase Retailers’ Profit Margins
Retailers’ profit margins have been more relevant than ever lately ... It all started with curbside pickup, the only way...
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September 1, 2021
9 Tips To Grow Your Seasonal Retail Business
One thing that many retail sales training programs don't cover is the seasonal business and retailers search in vain for...
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September 3, 2021
Greeting A Customer: Should A Smile Be Required?
How your employees should be greeting a customer is a frequent topic among retailers. RetailWire once discussed, What is...
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October 4, 2021
Working Retail Sales: How It Made Me A Better Person
After I posted a job notice on Facebook for a client, I received this comment, “A resume for a retail job?” I could hear...
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September 15, 2021
Retail Sales Tip: Selling Luxury Products Without A Discount
Looking for retail sales tips because you have luxury goods or premium services to sell? I'm not talking about a good or...
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August 9, 2021
6 Ways To Combat Shoplifting, Employee Theft, and 5-Finger Discounts
Shoplifting and employee theft are on the rise; they make up what retailers call "shrink." Loss prevention is a broad ca...
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August 16, 2021
Is Retail Dead in 2021?
Is retail dead? No, but brands must prioritize connection over transaction. In 2017, Ralph Lauren closed its New York C...
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July 30, 2021
3 Ways To Keep Your Store From Being Just A Warehouse
When it comes to customer experience, many businesses have abandoned personal contact making their stores little more th...
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July 27, 2021
5 Cash Flow Tips For Retailers In August
Whether you call it your bankroll, your finances, or how much money you have in your pocket, cash flow is its movement i...
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September 15, 2021
Suggestive Selling: How to Train Your Employees in Add-On Sales
The right add-on sales tactics drive margins and delight customers. But the wrong add-on sales techniques? Well, those c...
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July 19, 2021
How To Get Employee Sales Training To Stick
Customers go online to buy - frequently replacement purchases - but go to stores to discover. That moment of discovery n...
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July 15, 2021
What To Do When Your Retail Customer Service Fails Miserably
It’s been said that a brand is a promise of an emotional payoff of a purchase. I believe customer service is the level o...
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September 2, 2021
What Is a Marketing Plan and Does Your Independent Retail Store Need One?
Whether you are about to open a retail store or have been running one for years, if you don’t have a marketing plan, you...
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July 15, 2021
7 Customer Service Techniques To Increase Sales Right Now
In the retail world, customer service often matters more than the price tag. When people find the perfect fit, they're u...
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September 27, 2021
Retail Customer Service Training: 14 Ideas, Plus Examples
The goal of retail customer service training is to create an exceptional customer experience. So, what do you focus on w...
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August 16, 2021
10 Customer Service Techniques to Help You Grow Sales
Customer service techniques should be at the top of your list when you consider how to increase sales in retail. While g...
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August 9, 2021
Retailers, Take These 9 Actions In Summer For Successful Winter Holiday Sales
Christmas in July...or August. We’ve all heard the phrase but planning for successful holidays is more important. It’s s...
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July 15, 2021
Retail KPIs: 6 Financial Results You Must Track
You won't find key performance indicators (KPIs) in most discussions among retailers. Retail KPIs just aren't sexy like ...
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September 24, 2021
Influence Customers With Retail Merchandising for Higher Sales
There was a time when great merchandising was a valuable tool in a retailer’s arsenal against competitors. Then it becam...
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August 16, 2021
Is Your Garden Center Doomed Because of Rotten Customer Service?
Garden center retail stores should be the best places to find great customer service. Maybe I’m spoiled... This is how g...
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August 16, 2021
5 Critical Skills How To Coach Retail Salespeople
The opportunities for coaching retail employees are huge and exemplified in this brief story... Missing the mark on cust...
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July 6, 2021
Retail Store Operations: A Guide to Running Multiple Locations
Do you have a solid retail store operations strategy? According to McKinsey’s Future of Retail Operations report, “Brick...
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September 1, 2021
Lost a Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer
Greeting a customer is the most important thing you can do right ... or wrong in a brick and mortar retail store. I'll c...
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August 16, 2021
7 Critical Tips for Specialty Retailers in the Amazon Era
Before I share how specialty retailers can survive and thrive, a question... Have you ever played Jenga? It’s a game whe...
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June 24, 2021
Training Retail Employees: What Is Your ROI?
“What if I train my retail employees, and then they leave?” It seems like every time I hear from a manager who’s trying ...
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August 16, 2021
8 Mistakes That Kill Your Retail Sales Training And How To Fix Them
You’ve only got one shot at training new hires in your retail store. One. You can't go back... Whatever skills and attit...
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September 1, 2021
9 Tips For Hiring And Training Seasonal Retail Sales Employees
Let’s be frank when it comes to hiring and training seasonal retail sales associates... All you really care about is tha...
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June 23, 2021
How to Learn Relationship Selling and Close More Sales
I train a lot of retail stores how to sell using a fairly detailed process. You can’t just wing it. If you're wondering ...
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June 23, 2021
Retail Sales Training: Ask This Question To Handle Objections
When looking to handle objections, you have to ask one more question to really get to the heart of the matter. You’ve he...
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October 13, 2021
Online Reputation: How to Monitor and Respond to Customer Reviews
Online reviews expose your small business reputation in a variety of places across social media. While thinking about wr...
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June 23, 2021
Retailers Elephant in the Room - It's all About us
Ever been jilted and blame the other person for being a jerk? We all have. Not until a good friend tells us like it is t...
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August 10, 2021
Increase Retail Sales with Laughter
A shared laugh in a store makes everyone relax. Laughter while shopping and selling lets us lower our defenses and ope...
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August 10, 2021
How To Boost Retail Sales With Suggestive Selling
You’ve made the big push in upgrading your retail store. You’ve curated a group of brands that make you stand out. You’v...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Pricing Strategies - Six Mistakes To Avoid
A retailer must be extremely aware of their pricing strategy to ensure that their pricing is done accurately and in a ...
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August 16, 2021
Doing the Robot Dance - Why Customers Stop Talking to Retail Employees
Has this ever happened to you? You walk into a store you haven’t been in before because you saw something online, saw a ...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Training - Don’t Make Customers Storm Your Castle, er Counter
Oftentimes retailers hire people less comfortable out on the sales floor and more comfortable behind the wall of the cou...
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August 10, 2021
Are You Desperately Marketing Your Business With Daily Deals Like Groupon? Stop It
I received an email the other day regarding marketing that said, “I've been doing business with Groupon and they've basi...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Management Strategy - The Fallacy of Doing More With Less
I thought about my mom's baking recently as I heard more predictions of retailers needing to do "more with less." In f...
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September 24, 2021
How to Find Strength In Being A Brick and Mortar Retail Store
This is a post for retailers with physical stores competing with online shopping and technology that threatens their sal...
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August 16, 2021
5 Retail Sales Mistakes That Cost You Business
Having written the book on retail sales, I am often asked what are the biggest mistakes retailers and their employees ...
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August 9, 2021
7 Tips To Improve Your Store Sales Via Your Website And Social Media
I remember when a local business group asked me to present for half a day and the focus became social media. It was a ty...
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August 16, 2021
Retail Sales Training - How To Give Feedback To Employees
I received a gift the other day from a friend via Amazon.com. At the bottom of the packing list was a question, "Would y...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Training - How To Effectively Develop The Best Sales Skills
Looking for the easy answer for how to develop the best retail sales skills? Knowing isn’t the problem… Let’s be honest,...
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August 9, 2021
Retail Consultant Tip - Words That Sell To Different Personalities
When I was selling cowboy clothes at South Coast Plaza the (then) world’s highest-grossing mall per square foot, I notic...
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August 10, 2021
Malls and Shoppers Are Back In Droves
Don’t look now, pundits, but those dire predictions of the collapse of malls are crumbling. I visited the Garden State P...
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August 10, 2021
Why Training a Retail Employee Must be a Time Investment
Turning a browsing shopper into a paying buyer is the most important aspect of retailing - yet it’s often entrusted to...
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August 10, 2021
5 Ways How To Develop Top Managers In Your Store
I was talking to a frustrated CEO last week. Their No. 1 store was failing and he felt it was the manager’s fault. I as...
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August 16, 2021
How To Leave Excuses Behind, Dig In, And Grow Retail Sales
As the pandemic ebbs in the USA, a growing number of retailers are finding excuses why they can't move forward with thei...
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August 16, 2021
5 Ways Brick and Mortar Retailers Should Prepare for a Better Future
First the bad news for retailers... I’ve included this quote from McKinsey in several of my previous blog posts: "Brick-...
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August 11, 2021
How To Improve An Underperforming Retail Sales Team
Do you remember what it was like when you started your first retail sales job? The joy of finding out how you could do b...
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August 4, 2021
10 Things To Know To Get And Keep Retail Jobs
Whether they’re looking for a retail sales job for the summer, a second job, or a new career, many people turn to jobs i...
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October 13, 2021
Retail Sales Tip - Discover 5 Keys Of Your Competition
When I do a business makeover, I invite the owner to go with me and visit their competition. It can be a little like try...
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October 15, 2021
9 Secrets To Effective Retail Management of Employees [Infographic]
A survey by LoyaltyOne showed that approximately half of consumers reported experiencing a problem on their last shoppin...
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October 13, 2021
Retailers: Remove "I’m So Busy" From Your Vocabulary
When well-meaning friends ask how you are, do you answer, “I’m so busy,” and then drone on? Have you tweeted how “buried...
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October 13, 2021
How To Interview And Discover Amazing Retail Employees [Hiring]
I made an orange dessert for some friends the other night. When one of my guests took a bite, her face soured; she said ...
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October 13, 2021
One More Reason Customers Don't Return To Retail Stores
Let’s stop kidding each other and be honest…When a customers' experience in your store was crappy, they won’t be back. A...
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August 9, 2021
Sales Training - The 5 Stupidest Questions To Ask Retail Shoppers
People who sell retail have to up their game, or their brick and mortar stores will bleed customers. And don’t blame onl...
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October 13, 2021
The 5 Best Ways To Drive Customer Conversion Rates In Your Store
Things never stay static in retail and everyone should be looking at how to do better within their own four walls, so he...
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August 16, 2021
5 Ways How to Raise Your Conversion Rate: Training Retail Sales Staff
Brick and mortar retail stores face the daunting challenge of getting their retail associates to convert customers who a...
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October 13, 2021
How To Correct The 5 Biggest Salesperson Turnoffs For Retail Customers
Untrained retail employees often think merchandise sells itself. That if a customer wants something, they’ll tell you. T...
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October 13, 2021
Patric Richardson the Laundry Guy Shares Retailing Success Story
In this podcast I get to talk with Patric Richardson, author of Laundry Love and host of a new series on Discovery+ and ...
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August 9, 2021
How To Make Your Retail Jewelry Store More Profitable: 7 Tips
I’ve spoken to several pawnbrokers and jewelry retailers lately and I’ve also been commenting about luxury sales and h...
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August 5, 2021
How To Increase Retail Sales KPIs: Ditch Being Passive
A quick walk through the mall shows retailers are trying to increase revenues with some fairly dramatic sales. But sales...
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October 13, 2021
How And Why To Sell Low Profit Margin Products
Many retailers are being forced by their vendors to sell high-priced products at low-margin right now for a variety of r...
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October 13, 2021
3 Do's and Don'ts For Empowering Your Retail Employees
How you treat your retail employees can have a huge impact on your company. A quick search of YouTube reveals videos of ...
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October 13, 2021
Retail Customer Experience That Works: Connecting With Shoppers
The day I started to actually wash and condition my face was the day a spa esthetician made it clear that for a guy in m...
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August 11, 2021
How To Use Incentives With Retail Employees The Right Way
There are pros and cons to using incentives to grow your retail sales. You may remember when Wells Fargo fired 5,300 emp...
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October 13, 2021
Closing The Sale Techniques for Luxury Retail
Scarcity is one of the closing techniques rotten salespeople have used for years to try to make customers buy. It goes s...
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July 15, 2021
Why Closing The Sale Techniques Are Dead For Retailers
I was talking to a potential client about her needs for retail sales training. She had read some of my blogs. She had wa...
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August 3, 2021
Are Employees Building up Online Stores and Sabotaging Profit Margins?
Are you losing profit margins lately? A lot of attention is being given to online retail growth during the pandemic. But...
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August 10, 2021
How To Engage Retail Customers Begins With A Wow Moment
For retail customers to let down their guard, share their desires, and get over their fears of purchasing, you must get ...
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October 4, 2021
8 Powerful Ways To Sell With Confidence in Retail
Are you a retail salesperson struggling to make your goals? Or a manager who’s having a hard time training employees to ...
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August 10, 2021
The New Frugality: How to Reach Out to Retail Consumers Who Buy Less
Buying less is a concept that seemed out of style for consumers beginning with the go-go 80’s until a few years ago. D...
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August 11, 2021
4 Ways To Improve Your Retail Customer Experience and Sales
How to improve customer service experience? Concentrate on your employees and engage their hearts, not just their minds....
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August 10, 2021
Retailers: Why you Keep Picking the Wrong Employee Time after Time
As a retail consultant, one of the most valuable pieces of retail advice I'm asked about from an owner or manager is how...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Store Tour - Showing Customers All You Sell
So many retailers assume customers know everything about their luxury brand. But most are missing the easiest way to gro...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Shoppers' 50 Pet Peeves About Retail Employees
In the past few weeks I’ve received two pleas from retailers about to close. They want to know how to attract customer...
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August 10, 2021
7 Incredibly Easy Ways To Attract Customers
Any retail consultant knows that more traffic to your brick and mortar retail store means more sales. But when people as...
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August 16, 2021
4 Retail Sales Training Techniques to Reinvent the Customer Experience
The retail sales team is the public face of your company, the front line of customer relations, and defines the company ...
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September 15, 2021
7 Eye-Openers for How To Hire Good Employees In Retail
Prior to its opening, I was asked to visit a franchise to evaluate the new crew. I discovered the team members were blan...
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August 10, 2021
How Resilience of Retailers Shines Through on The Covid Anniversary
I still remember the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. I was home with my mom and the door-to-door Fuller bru...
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September 2, 2021
How Associates Selling With Their Own Wallets Are Killing Your Retail Sales
Let’s be honest, a lot of people are afraid of retail salespeople. For that matter, they are afraid of anyone who says t...
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August 10, 2021
How To Spring Clean Your Retail Store With This Checklist
Most of us put up with a lot of disorganization and unclean stores and records. My first job was as a janitor in a dry...
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August 16, 2021
In Retail Sales Too Many Choices Equals Just Looking
I was intrigued by an article in the Los Angeles Times entitled, "Too Many Choices Can Tax the Brain Research Shows". It...
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August 10, 2021
9 Fresh Ideas In Retail Merchandising
Retail merchandising is how you attract customers away from mindlessly strolling by your store, driving past in their ca...
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June 23, 2021
8 Reasons Why Customers Don’t Buy From You
No matter what you sell, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to figure out why a shopper didn’t buy from you. ...
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October 16, 2021
Are you Blaming the Customer or Selling the Experience?
I love checking out art museums on vacation. I usually meet the docent because I stand too close to the artwork and get ...
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August 16, 2021
7 Questions That Must Get a 'Yes' to Close More Retail Sales
If you work in retail sales, you have to care more about the customer than you care about yourself. Yes, you might be ge...
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August 16, 2021
How To Avoid Hearing A Customer’s “No, I’m Just Looking” Ever Again
Were you ever picked by a teacher to come up in front of class when you weren’t prepared to speak? It felt like hell, I ...
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September 3, 2021
What 10 Creative Retailers Are Doing Now to Attract Customers Back to Stores
Attracting customers is a never-ending process for any business. Retailers in particular are anxious to look for new loc...
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August 10, 2021
James Rhee: Stories of Kindness, Math, Mindset and Trust
James Rhee is an impact entrepreneur, author, investor, lecturer, founder and president of FirePine Group, and former ...
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August 10, 2021
Shaking Off the Retail Apocalypse With Hope and Real Data
This is a lengthy article to lay out the details of the retail apocalypse, a claim of massive store closures, shipageddo...
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January 30, 2021
Are You Guilty of These 10 Shocking Best Practices Blunders?
What is the current state of the retail industry? To no one’s surprise, most retailers see customer service as their mos...
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August 10, 2021
5 Best Management Practices For A Customer First Focus
When I was selling cowboy clothes in the Santa Monica Place mall back in 1982, I received a call. “I’m Kris Kristofferso...
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August 10, 2021
Martin Lindstrom: Branding, Tribes and the Dissolution of Empathy
Martin Lindstrom is the world's leader in branding and marketing. Having started when he was a child presenting a mark...
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August 10, 2021
How to Conquer Your Selling Fears
I was talking to a pool builder who had just put in a new pool. His client lived in a very expensive neighborhood, drove...
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August 16, 2021
3 Steps For How To Motivate Yourself And Increase Retail Sales When It’s Slow
When business slows down, it is easy to become despondent or lazy. Whether you had a great year or not-so-great, it’s ea...
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August 9, 2021
Balancing Inventory: Making Friends With Retail Clearance Sales
What is the difference between clearance and a sale? A sale is often a promotion of a specific brand or even a store-wid...
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August 10, 2021
4 Tips How To Avoid Overbuying Merchandise For Your Retail Store
This post is for retail buyers but here's a question for you: Do you know what makes a Rolls Royce a Rolls Royce? Yes th...
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August 10, 2021
Why and How To Do A Physical Inventory On A Shoestring Budget
Merchandise on the sales floor can look pretty but it is your money sitting there. While you can do an inventory of your...
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August 10, 2021
Retailers - 5 Cash Flow Tips For January
Retailers! January is the time to get your financial house in order to have the most profitable retail sales and stress-...
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October 6, 2021
Retail Fitting Rooms: How to Use Yours to Fight Online Retailers
While the pandemic has made some retail store owners leery of fitting rooms, remember: No sale is made until it is actua...
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October 15, 2021
Retail Consultant Tip: 4 Stages of A Customer's Buying Cycle
As a retail consultant, I've examined how your customer's buying cycle is predictable. As the economy has gotten stronge...
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August 10, 2021
Employee Training Is Broken - You Can Blame Google or You Can Fix It
Employee training has devolved because of the always-on Google or Siri solution to all inquiries. Unless employees are l...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Selling Tip: What If Home Depot Had A Dressing Room?
What if Home Depot had A dressing room? Can you picture it? A guy picks up several chain saws and heads off to a room to...
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August 10, 2021
Why And How to do an Employee Review
Employee reviews are one of the most neglected tools a retailer can use to increase their retail sales.By using regular ...
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June 23, 2021
Motivation Beyond Paying Retail Sales Commission: 3 Ways To Get Employees To Sell
Motivating employees. It’s always tough in a retail store. You want to be as successful a retailer as Apple, Nordstrom, ...
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October 15, 2021
Excellent Customer Service Starts With A Positive Attitude
I'd been with my dad at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte for several days. The first day I walked in, I noticed...
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August 10, 2021
7 Ways How To Grow Your Retail Sales The Week After Christmas
After-Christmas retail can be fun - even with a pandemic - as long as you stay focused on making money instead of just g...
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August 9, 2021
How To Successfully Conquer Goal Setting For Your Retail Store
Effective goal setting is the key to driving sales and self-discipline. To set a meaningful goal, you should start with ...
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July 22, 2021
Retail Holiday Sales: How To Sell To Men and Help Them Buy Like A Hero
As a retailer, I loved the day before Christmas Eve. All the planners had purchased and the after-Christmas sales had be...
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August 9, 2021
How Should You Handle Bad Customer Behavior With Bratty Kids In Tow?
Brick and mortar retailers have to put up with a lot of bad customer behavior. But how should you deal with difficult co...
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August 10, 2021
How To Choose The Right Online Sales Training Courses For Your Store
Congratulations for reading this – it means you understand retail sales training is important. But which online sales tr...
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September 3, 2021
Is An Online Retail Sales Training Program For You? It's the Only Sensible Option.
When you started your brick-and-mortar store, you probably did everything yourself. You answered the phone, took orders,...
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August 16, 2021
How To Improve Your Store's Conversion Rate Training
Retailers have tried everything it seems to get employees to sell more. So many try to hire a natural-born salesperson. ...
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August 10, 2021
Greeting a Customer: Do You Say Merry Christmas in Your Retail Store?
Retailers, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Or at least the holiday season should be...so why is there an ongoi...
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September 3, 2021
How Online Retail Sales Training Can Be Available to Remote Employees
Here's how you can deliver retail sales training to remote employees effectively... When you have just one brick and mor...
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October 1, 2021
Retail Cash Flow: 6 Ways to Manage a Small Store
Retail cash flow (maintaining a sufficient amount of available cash) for small shops is one of the least sexy topics I'm...
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August 10, 2021
How to Sell Based On Emotion And Not Logic
So many retailers try to sell on logic when shoppers buy based on emotion. But you can't feel a fact.And yet many retail...
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August 10, 2021
9 Benefits of Using Online Retail Sales Training
The Internet is changing not only the way retailers interact with customers, but also the ways in which they can prepa...
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December 3, 2020
How To Calculate The ROI Of Online Retail Sales Training Programs
Most businesses see a sales training program as a cost when it should be seen as an investment. This post is about ROI c...
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August 16, 2021
Here’s Proof My Online Retail Sales Training Program Works
I‘ve been an in-person retail sales trainer for upscale retail brands and I’ve helped them achieve extraordinary gains o...
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August 10, 2021
How The Best Training Solution Should Be More Than Retail Sales Academy
In-house training solutions are time consuming to create and usually get so diluted by internal bureaucracy and corrup...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Sales Training Will Never Be The Same
While working for some great retailers, I found I was naturally good at selling merchandise and retail sales training. L...
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August 16, 2021
Is SalesRX Online Retail Sales Training Right For My Stores?
If you're at that point when you know something must change in your retail operation and overall strategy... And now you...
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August 10, 2021
Online Retail Sales Training: How to Get Started and What to Expect
Imagine being in an airplane and overhearing a voice from the cockpit saying, “Just keep the nose in the air and if th...
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August 10, 2021
8 Ways To Increase Employee Retention In Your Retail Store
When employees leave – either because you fired them or they quit by choice, their absence leaves a hole. Retailers hate...
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August 10, 2021
Is Amazon Killing In-Person Grocery Shopping to Make Us Buy Online?
Amazon customer service is legendary. Buy something if you're a Prime member and return it for free, immediate credit in...
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August 16, 2021
8 Questions To Be Answered When Considering Retail Sales Training
Whether the retail sales training is delivered in person by a sales trainer like myself, online through a program like m...
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August 10, 2021
7 Holiday Marketing Tips For Higher Retail Sales
The three weeks prior to Christmas are when all hands are on deck preparing for the holiday shopping season in a retai...
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August 16, 2021
What Makes a Good Retail Sales Training Program?
Retailers, especially those who have a large number of employees, often wonder what makes a good retail sales training p...
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September 24, 2021
Considering Retail Sales Training Courses? Here Are The Essentials
Had a shocking call with the North American CEO of a luxury brand recently. They had a bad fourth quarter and were havin...
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August 10, 2021
9 Best Practices To Encourage Impulse Buying
The holidays are a great time to entice shoppers with unplanned purchases. The grocery industry has mastered the art of ...
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August 10, 2021
Preparing For Christmas: How To Unclutter Your Retail Store
Merchandise ... like food ... like alcohol ... like a lot of things ... can be good. Until you have too much. Too much ...
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August 10, 2021
How Retail Employees Can Maintain Their Sanity During The Holidays
The first week of December can be the calm before the storm. Your seasoned retail employees know what is in store, your...
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August 10, 2021
How To Convert Holiday Shoppers Into Loyal Year Round Customers
It is so important to convert holiday shoppers into loyal customers because you have so many more bodies walking through...
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August 10, 2021
14 Small Business Saturday Marketing Ideas For Retailers
Looking for ideas to help your small business and community thrive this Small Business Saturday, November 28? When Small...
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October 4, 2021
Listening to Customers: 5 Ways to Start Right Now
I walked into a men’s boutique one day and a young woman lurched out from a four-way rack with a small flier telling me ...
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August 10, 2021
How To Leverage The Weather To Market Your Store And Grow Your Retail Holiday Sales
We know how weather can affect retail sales, but what can we do about it? A long time ago, in a mall far far away, I was...
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August 9, 2021
How To Overcome These 5 Shopper Objections And Get The Sale
As I walked past a Brookstone in an airport one Sunday afternoon several years ago, a guy was clearly teaching his assoc...
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August 10, 2021
Email Marketing To Increase Retail Sales In December
Are you looking for how to use email marketing in December to lure holiday shoppers back to your store again and again? ...
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August 10, 2021
Here's The Employee Scheduling Secret To Building Your Retail Sales
You are probably looking for places to cut costs before the holidays. If you adjust staff to meet sales you could be ram...
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December 4, 2020
10 Tips for Holiday Merchandising in December
Holiday merchandising is always hard. During a pandemic with shorter hours, curbside pickup and threatened shutdowns, it...
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August 10, 2021
How To Deal With The Retail Holiday Headlines Designed To Scare You
Retail is predictable in many ways. The same predictable, negative, retail holiday sales stories pop up about bricks and...
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August 10, 2021
Stand Out Marketing - Find A Way To Reach Your Goal
If you want to get something, you need to go after it; same with marketing your business. The goal of any campaign is to...
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March 11, 2021
If Retail Sucks, Why Do You Work Here?
Recently I received a comment on my blog totally unrelated to that blog.It read, “No offense but your other blog about w...
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August 10, 2021
Why Personality Styles Are Crucial To Making More Retail Sales
Personality styles can make or break your retail sales training... Imagine you were just plopped into a car parked on th...
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August 16, 2021
Selling Skills: How To Close A Retail Sale
It’s probably the most common question retailers ask, “How can I get my salespeople to close a sale?” There are scads of...
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August 10, 2021
Levi’s vs Gap: A Tale of Two Titans' Retail Branding During COVID-19
Branding is so important when it comes to retail. But during this time of Covid-19, what are smart retail brands doing? ...
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August 10, 2021
Do You Have The Personality For Business?
When I was writing my book, The Retail Doctor's Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley & Sons), I wanted to show how ...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Sales Training: Adjusting Your Driver Personality Style
The Driver personality style is all about power and ego. External validation by applause, commission checks, status or...
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August 3, 2021
How To Avoid The 7 Reasons Small Retail Businesses Fail
There are few things sadder than going by one of your favorite boutique retailers and finding an empty store with a sign...
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September 27, 2021
10 Easy Ways to get Customer Reviews that Boost Retail Sales
Customer reviews are very influential and can increase your sales more than marketing with a paid ad but can be hard to ...
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August 10, 2021
Should You Start A New Business Or Retail Store Now?
One of the most asked questions during my appearances on MSNBC's Your Business revolved around timing a new business. ...
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August 10, 2021
Don't Be Guilty Of Selling With Dollar Signs In Your Eyes
Selling can be a complex process but the fatal mistake many never address is the attitude of the salesperson looking at ...
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August 10, 2021
Preparing for the Holidays: 11 Things to do at your Retail Store
Wondering how to prepare your store for the holidays during a pandemic? The National Retail Federation reports for 202...
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August 10, 2021
3 Lessons in Leadership During COVID-19 From Ralph Lauren's CEO
Looking for lessons in leadership style during the pandemic? Look no further than Ralph Lauren's Patrice Louvet. There h...
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August 16, 2021
How To Visually Merchandise Your Holiday Store Windows
New York City brick and mortar retailers like Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue have known the power of visual merchandising ...
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August 10, 2021
Retailers: 5 Reasons Part-Time Employees Could Undermine Your Store
I read a disturbing article in The New York Times about the trend of retailers and restaurants to limit hours of their p...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Sales Countdown: Five Tips To Get Ready for the Holidays
Getting ready for the holidays in retail means knowing your countdown to Christmas. Here are Five Tips To Get Your Retai...
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August 16, 2021
How To Prepare Your Store For Black Friday And Get Strong Holiday Retail Sales
There will be four Saturdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. While many small retailers maintain Black Fri...
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September 15, 2021
Do You Have A Bitter Betty Employee Killing Your Retail Sales?
You’ve met her …or him before as a customer …the employee who knows everything. Who condescends to help you if they a...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Jobs: How To Get Promoted From Part-Time To Full-Time
I received a note from a reader wanting retail advice, "I was given a part-time job at a high-end department store in th...
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October 15, 2021
How To Decorate Your Retail Store For The Holidays [Pics]
Decorating a store goes to the heart of what makes great retailing. During these times, it will be the deciding factor t...
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August 10, 2021
Neiman Marcus Is Shuttering Its Hudson Yards Store - 3 Leadership Lessons Retailers Can Learn From Their Failure
Imagine a prominent retailer telling employees they must reimburse their company for health insurance premiums paid duri...
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October 6, 2021
How to Increase Foot Traffic In A Retail Store: 7 Proven, Timely Tips
Even before the pandemic, retailers often asked me how to increase foot traffic in a retail store. In my last book, The ...
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August 10, 2021
Holiday Retail Sales Training: 15 Things To Teach Seasonal Employees
Your full retail sales training is most likely more thorough and involved than for your holiday seasonal employees. But ...
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August 10, 2021
5 Retail Strategies Retailers must Commit to Master
This is a retail strategy post with many items for smaller retailers as well as some for larger retailers... I had just ...
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August 10, 2021
How to Increase Retail Sales – Three Tips
Looking to increase retail sales during a pandemic? The key is to realize in many ways, brick and mortar retailers have ...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Sales Training To Sell More: Features and Benefits
Looking to understand and learn how to sell more in your retail store? You need to know that features are not benefits a...
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October 16, 2021
50 Things Retail Employees Can Do When They're Not Busy
What to do when your retail employees are standing around and your store is not busy... You probably don’t mind them tak...
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July 15, 2021
4 Tips To Train How To Use Suggestive Selling For Add-Ons
The final stage of a sale is used to suggestively sell an add-on to the customer's main purchase. After the customer has...
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August 16, 2021
How To Close More Sales With Team Selling
Team selling in retail is something rarely used but sales teams should recognize it for the opportunity it brings - espe...
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October 16, 2021
How To Attract Customers To Your Retail Store In 9 Easy Steps
As retailers across the country navigate coronavirus, masks, and lockdowns, it is still important to focus on how to att...
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October 6, 2021
7 Ways You’re Missing Getting Retail Customers In the Door
Graham, a friend of mine went to a local electronics store to buy a microphone. The young sales associate took him to th...
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August 16, 2021
11 Retail Sales Tips To Boost Your Store's Sales
Selling and how to sell is the most important skill every retailer should focus on. What are retail selling techniques? ...
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October 1, 2021
Visual Merchandising: 12 Insights How To Merchandise Your Store
Retail merchandising is such an important topic! Most of the time, smart retailers call it visual merchandising and are ...
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August 10, 2021
The Impact of Store Appearance During Covid-19
How to drag shoppers away from their phones and make them walk into your store? Bump up your curb appeal to make a big i...
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August 10, 2021
A Learning Manager is Key to Running Your Online Retail Sales Training
Have you ever gone to a store and purchased paint, only to discover when you got home that you had no paintbrush? That’s...
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September 16, 2021
5 Ways How to Cultivate Your Brick and Mortar Store Culture
While online retail numbers rose during the pandemic, many of those DTC retailers are now opening brick and mortar store...
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August 10, 2021
Retail Consultant Case Study: How to Attract A Customer to Your Store
Retail case studies are great ways to learn how to grow your sales. As a retail consultant, I get a wide variety of chal...
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