The Retail Doctor's Blog

You’ve no doubt heard how you should sell the sizzle not the steak when it comes to benefits over features in a sale.

Retail sales training is all about finding new ways to connect to shoppers, new ways to say something so another person can easily understand and so you can close the sale.

I spent a lot of time in the coffee business. One of the drinks we offered was the iced, blended mocha. As we opened up new markets, many times new customers had no idea what that was or tasted like. Since it was one of the best ways to increase average check, we had to get customers to try it without slowing down the line.

While one could say, "It's made from cold-brewed coffee, milk chocolate and ice with whipped cream," customers' eyes would glaze over.

That's why we had to teach the barristas to say,

I can’t tell you how many people have asked me to give a whole seminar filled with tricks on how to close a sale.

I won’t do it.

That’s because the sale goes way off track much earlier; thinking you can just fix it at the end is thinking much too late.  

Unless you want to muscle a customer into a sale, ruin your online reputation, and more often than not, have the item returned or charged back, closing techniques should be avoided.

I’ve written about how a poor greeting sets you up for a low close ratio. I’ve written about too much product information distancing a customer by making them feel stupid.