The Retail Doctor's Blog

It's gift season.

Everyone is rushed.

Looking for a shortcut.

The magic promotion.

All of this comes from wanting one thing: a profitable year.

A quick walk through the mall shows retailers are trying to increase revenues with some fairly dramatic sales this summer.  

But sales can hide the cause of death of many stores...passive employees.

Let me explain…

Selling a bunch of merchandise for a loss, even if it generates revenues, often is the result of passive selling.

It takes the active selling of merchandise for it to get full price.

But because your employees weren’t active and didn’t sell the merchandise, the product had to be marked down.

My retail sales training programs - either in-person or online - start from the idea everyone sells - whether they call it that or not.  (You can download the complete buyer's guide to online retail sales training here.) 

There's not a thread of clothing you are wearing, a drop of coffee you are drinking or a piece of furniture you are sitting on that wasn't sold to someone.

Upselling is about challenging customer preconceptions and getting them to see the value behind every product you sell.

Most customers aren’t cheap, they’ve simply adopted a mindset that most products are of comparable quality. A shirt is a shirt. A pair of jeans is a pair of jeans. An umbrella is an umbrella.

That is until those shirt buttons break when being fastened, or the jeans shrink after one wash, or the umbrella falls apart in a heavy downpour.

After customers have had these types of experiences, they turn to more expensive brand name items, not because of the name, but because of the underlying value of the product.

The trouble is many younger salespeople have not had those experiences and feel upselling is just a way to force a customer to buy something more expensive than what they need.

OK, I hope this doesn't come off sexist as that is not my point of these two "selling to men" blog posts.

Men are social animals.

That’s why they make teams, follow teams and jointeams.

They are not all “loners” as has been pontificated by many writers.

Why don’t men enjoy grocery shopping? It’s done alone, with a to-do list.

Who enjoys that?

Most guys are like the Black Labradors at the dog park, ready to join in if everyone else is playing. When you treat them like loners, they can be like the disinterested poodles doing their own thing.

Restaurants Seem To Get It