It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid

Are you blaming all of your business woes on the economy? Well, to paraphrase James Carville, "It's not just the economy, stupid!" Many retailers around the country are doing business, so if your business is struggling, take a look in the mirror.

Are you executing on the basics 100% of the time? In times like these, you need to go back to the basics. Train your staff, making sure they are doing the daily routines to service your customers and bring more of them through the door. Are they greeting customers in a timely manner? Do they really engage the customers? Is the store and merchandise neat and clean? Keep you sales staff in motion!

How many different customer contacts are your salespeople making on a daily basis? They should be responsible for 10 contacts per day, which include:

1. Thank you cards
2. Follow up call to see how they like their purchase
3. Follow up on repairs
4. Invitation to special events
5. A kind note that may speak to a personal interest of your customer

The more customer contacts you make, the more positive energy you have in the store. This kind of positive energy will generate activity that will result in sales.

So stop worrying about the economy, and start working on things that you can control. Work on the basics and put your staff in motion.

The Curse of Knowldge

Sometimes we become so familiar with things, that we lose sight of what is happening right before our eyes. In their book "Made to Stick" Chip & Dan Heath refer to the "Curse of Knowledge", which states "Once we know something, we find it hard to imgine what it was like not to know it".

The Curse of Knowledge is why jewelry salespeople, once they have gained some experience, talk about diamond clarity, color and carat weight, instead of talking about the beauty of the jewelry or the occasion the buyer is celebrating.

I recently did some consulting for a luxury goods firm that has a wonderful legacy. Their story is so great and so powerful, it is a marketers dream. There are literally dozens of different ways to capitalize on their story. Unfortunately, they were so familiar with it, they assumed everyone knew it. The result was an average shopping experience that could have been happening anywhere.

The Curse of Knowledge perhaps explains why consulting can be so easy. When an outsider comes in to look at your organization, they see things that are obvious and easy to fix. When you are working day in and day out in the same space, you start to take everything for granted.

Here is a link to a test that may help you to look at your business in a new way:
http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

Try to look at your business with new eyes; try to get inside your customers skin and see what they see when they walk into your stores. Your customers see what is obvious; do you?