How Lifestyles of Saratoga Grew From One Store to Five and Past $5 Million With SalesRX

The Challenge

When Heidi West brought SalesRX into Lifestyles of Saratoga around 2015, she had one mature store doing just under a million dollars a year, and no system holding the selling together. The customer experience changed depending on who was working that day.

"At the time, we had no formal sales training program," Heidi says. "The customer experience varied dramatically depending on who was working. Even our strongest salespeople didn't have a consistent process for engaging customers or confidently closing a sale. Too much time was spent on busy work, and serving the customer wasn't always the team's primary focus."

It is the position most independent retailers know: a capable team, a solid store, and results that swing with whoever happens to be on the floor.

The Solution

After researching retail sales training programs, Heidi chose SalesRX and made the one decision that changed the outcome. She built it into the culture instead of running it as a one-time event, and she put numbers behind it.

"We began tracking key performance indicators like units per transaction, average sale, and conversion rate, giving the team clear goals and accountability," she says. "As the training became part of our daily operations, we saw the numbers move." — Heidi West, Lifestyles of Saratoga

The training gave the store a repeatable selling process, standard operating procedures, and a way to hold every associate to one standard across more than one location.

The Results

The metrics moved, and they held as the business grew:

• Units per transaction up 20 to 25 percent
• Average sale up 15 to 20 percent
• Conversion rate steadily improved as the team became more intentional with every customer
• Directly higher sales and stronger profitability

"Those improvements translated directly into higher sales and stronger profitability," Heidi says. But she is clear that the deeper change was in how she runs the company.

"Bob Phibbs taught me how to build a scalable retail business," she says. "SalesRX gave us the framework to create standard operating procedures, build consistency across multiple locations, develop leaders, hold teams accountable, and focus on the customer experience first. The sales gains were significant, but the systems and culture we built through SalesRX became the foundation that allowed us to grow from a single store into a multi-store retail company."

One store doing under a million dollars has become five stores across four retail brands, generating more than five million dollars in annual sales.

"What started as one store has expanded into five stores across four retail brands, generating more than five million dollars in annual sales." — Heidi West, Lifestyles of Saratoga

See the proof across many of our clients: Does retail sales training actually increase sales?

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