How to remain enthusiastic when selling
Leonard Zell explains his thinking behind gaining those important holiday sales
In fact it will start as soon as they begin. What I am recommending to you jewellers is to Check Your Enthusiasm as soon as you say hello to everyone when entering your store. Your smile and enthusiasm are the most powerful of all sales motivating tools and are infectious.
Your salespeople will start smiling with their enthusiasm when your store opens and when greeting their first customers. This has a positive effect on a customer’s emotions and they always return the smile. This motivates your salespeople to smile more with the same enthusiasm as if they were greeting a good friend. They suddenly see a different type of customer. One who is smiling, who seldom has a challenging remark and is forgiving of any of their mistakes. Why did this happen? It was because it was their attitude that sells. These were the same type of customers they waited on before, but why did they change? Your salespeople smiled first instead of waiting to see if their customer would smile.
You were successful because you started that smile and they in turn began using it with their first customers. You never raised the issue that your salespeople lacked this attitude. Why bring it up when all it would do is bring your salespeople down? Maintain your new attitude throughout the day and your salespeople will too. If you have a manager then I recommend you show him or her what you did and the positive effect it had on the sales staff. Now it is also your manager’s responsibility to keep this attitude ongoing and your salespeople motivated. Your customers will notice this immediately.
You can see this is the fastest way to increase your holiday sales. In fact, you will see an increase in the percentage of closed sales the day it starts. You are the motivator and when you show your manager how to zip up their attitude you will see a December like never before. Keep it up and next year your sales could reach into the double digits, but remember it starts with you and continues with you.
Remember to give your salespeople the credit for increasing the holiday sales, even though it began with you. Some of you jewellers may think it was mostly due to increased traffic from merchandising, promotions, or other factors. Why give them credit for most of the increases? I have a simple answer. If those factors did increase store traffic those customers would still have to be sold and the percentage of closed sales would be much higher then ever before.
How do I know this? I have seen this in my family store. I remember my father always coming into the store with a big smile, saying hello to everyone and taking a few minutes to chat with all the salespeople including the office staff. The staff told me time and again why they liked my father. It was because he showed he cared. His smile made it a great day and this showed always in increased sales.
I could have not had a better mentor when I opened our mall store. It was a large one with 23 salespeople. I made sure I always tried to have a smile and show enthusiasm regardless of any difficulties. Did it work? It did with the salespeople who had little or no experience that I trained. However, I made the mistake that other store owners do. I hired mostly experienced salespeople who knew the techniques but lacked that enthusiasm and smile. I finally realised I made a mistake. I did not hire by the smile.
I knew I had to make changes and I did. Over a period of about six months I replaced these salespeople with those without any jewellery experience and some with no selling experience. The increase of sales was dramatic. I trained these salespeople teaching them jewellery sales techniques and showing them that it was their outgoing personality that sells. They saw how I used it and it was easy for them to adapt because they always had that smile. After few months they began to outsell the experienced ones.
I learned a good lesson. There is a risk hiring an experienced salesperson. How do I know I am not inheriting the other jeweller’s problem? The truth is, I will never know until it is too late. I found there was no risk when I hired by the smile. I did have an advantage on many of you jewellers. I trained the new salespeople the same way my father trained me. He never demeaned me in any way regardless of my mistakes and instead had me try a different sales technique and avoid making the same mistake twice. He taught me how to create sales out of thin air with add-on sales, jewellery repairs, cleaning rings, appraisals and from challenging remarks.
You may be wondering why I am writing about this in November when it may be too late to hire salespeople with that smile? Inexperienced ones are always available and they are easy to find. I see them all the time. I don’t know how many times my wife and I have gone out to a restaurant and without hesitating, the waitress greeted us with a smile and a cheerful attitude. I noticed she talked to our eyes and not to the menu when describing the specials. She had a natural outgoing personality. After the waitress, left I said to my wife: “If I owned a jewellery store I would have hired her in a minute. I would give her my business card, compliment her on her attitude, then invite her to my store and see me about a career in selling fine jewellery.”
I found there are many more enthusiastic waiters and waitresses then salespeople. I have taken several cruises and trained jewellery salespeople for cruise lines. There almost were no salespeople with a smile or positive attitude. They just stood there waiting for customers to come to them. However, at the buffet the waiter and waitresses were just the opposite. Every one of them had a smile and were enthusiastic to help us in any way.
When I have given speeches at jewellery conventions to as many as 200 jewellers. I always ask them this question: “How many times have you been waited on by a salesperson in any retail store who had a smile with enthusiasm?” I seldom see more then four hands raised. This surprised the other jewellers because they were sure there would be more raised hands. I asked them: “What about your salespeople?” hey saw the light. I am asking you the same question: “What about yours?” Well, it is never too late to change. Now is the best time to get started.
Many of my clients have told me of salespeople they hired by the smile and had a pleasant surprise. After a few months they saw their sales increase. If this happens to you then take a bow, you earned it.
This feature first appeared in the November 2016 issue of Jewellery focus.
