How to Demonstrate Sales Confidence

High-performing decorative plumbing and hardware sales professionals appear confident. Posture, the way you walk, your body language and the spoken word all convey confidence or a lack thereof.  In a recent article in Inc. magazine, Maria Takaba identified several phrases that all sales people should avoid because they "scream lack of confidence and make you appear weak."

The first phrase is "I hate to bother you."  If you are returning a call or having to convey information that can't wait, the discomfort is not that you are bothering your customer or prospect.  Rather, the discomfort comes from the information you have to convey.  It may be that a product delivery has been delayed or an item arrived damaged.  When you say "I hate to bother you," you lose all control of the conversation.  A better option is  to say "When you have a minute, I would like to discuss something with you."

The second phrase is "I'm sorry."  You should certainly not avoid being accountable when a mistake is made or your information was not accurate, but how many people do you know that say "I'm sorry" repeatedly.  Are they really sorry?  If you have bad news to convey, a better alternative is to say, "I need to let you know of some bad news."

Successful sales people rarely tell others that they are worried.  Expressing an opinion of a potential negative outcome eliminates the ability to come up with a solution because you are focusing on the problem.  Instead of saying "I'm worried that the finish won't match," a better alternative would be "I have some concerns that the finish won't match.  An option to avoid this problem is..."

Never use the word "just".  It compromises what you might be thinking or the messages that you want to convey, such as -

• "I just need a minute of your time." 
• "I just thought about a great alternative." 
• "I just had an idea." 

If you preface a thought with the words, "I believe/think/feel that" you are couching your message with an unnecessary qualifier and subsequently diminishing the importance of the thought.  For instance, which statement is more powerful?

• I just feel that you should consider the steam unit for the master bath to create your own in-home spa.
• The steam unit for the master bath will create your own in-home spa.

Finally, avoid asking permission to make a request by prefacing a statement with the words, "If it's OK" or "would you mind."  When you do so, your customer may say or think, "no it's not OK" or "yes I do mind".  A more confident approach is to make a request by saying, "When you have a moment, let me show you this extraordinary shower system."

What We Can Learn From Macy's

Macy's is struggling. The giant retailer that owns Macy's and Bloomingdales plans to shutter 100 underperforming stores, its 2016 sales fell by 4.8% and revenue predictions for 2017 call for more of the same.  On the upside for Macy's is its online sales experienced double digit growth last year, but that's not where Macy's is focusing all of its attention.  In its fourth quarter earnings call, company CEO Terry Lundgren pointed out that 90% of Macy's sales still take place in a brick and mortar store.  The company's future, according to the CEO, is tied to improving in-store customer experience.  Here are several of the changes that Macy's outlined to improve customer experiences.

 

• Macy's will expand its private label and exclusive brand offerings from fashion houses that include Tommy Hilfiger, Rachel Roy, Hugo Boss and Kipling and which currently represent 20% of apparel sales.
• Macy's private label brands such as Bar III represent another 20% of sales.
• The company will separate sale items from full priced items.  Sale priced items will be displayed in a separate clearance section to avoid compromising the margins of regularly priced merchandise. 
• The company wants to move away from excessive discounting that has caused Coach and Michael Kors to pull their handbags out of Macy's.
• Macy's plans to reinvest in higher-quality, more expensive products and reduce its footprint in product categories that are underperforming.
• Macy's plans to reformat stores in high net-worth demographics and partner with top-tier shopping center owners that could result in a hybrid department store that includes entertainment, dining and shopping experiences all within the store.

 

What are the lessons for decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms?  Customers expect more.  They want to feel good about their in-store experience.  If you have sale merchandise, create a separate space in your showroom so it does not compromise full-price offerings.  Less could be more.  Evaluate the performance of each of your lines and product categories.  Determine which ones are most profitable and emphasize those while reducing your footprint with products and categories that are underperforming. 

 

Walk your showroom through your customer's lens.  What do you see?  What changes can you make to the physical environment that would improve the customer experience?

How To Make Your Weekends More Meaningful

Who wouldn't like to get more done in less time?  It seems today that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that we would like to. You may be able to improve your personal productivity by following the examples of highly successful people who leverage their weekends to help them accomplish more in less time.   According to a recent article in Success.com, highly successful people don't sleep in on the weekends.  Instead, they wake up early because they realize that time is precious and it should not be wasted lounging in bed regardless of what day it is.

Reading is fundamental to success.  Reading helps anyone keep their fingers on the pulse of what's going on in their industry and to also discover new things that competitors may not discover.  Weekends are the perfect time to read because they help increase your knowledge and improve your approaches for tackling the challenges of the coming week.

Highly successful people use the weekends to plan for the coming week while also taking time to pursue their interests.  Weekends are the time to decompress, pursue your passions and do whatever it is that you prefer to do in your spare time.

Weekends also are the perfect time to give back to the community in which you work and live.  According to Thomas Corley's book, Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals, 70% of successful people are involved in charitable or community related activities at least 5 hours per month.

Giving your smart phone a rest on weekends is a habit that can be extraordinarily effective.  Take the time to get away from it all by putting away your smart phone for several hours and avoid the temptation to constantly check your emails.  This also helps highly successful people to connect with their families, exercise and build momentum.

How to Become a Superstar Sales Professional

Here's just a few thoughts and guidelines on what sales professionals tell us we can do to improve our sales performances:

• Take accountability for your success and performance.

• Raise the bar to exceed your customer's expectations.

• Eliminate approaches that waste customer's time.

• Read books, blogs and articles to improve your knowledge of the industry.

• Embrace change.  Don't believe that you can improve your performance by doing the same things that you always have done.

• Become the master of your destiny. Your success starts with you.

• The most successful sales professionals understand that their success hinges on not selling products or services, but providing solutions to their client's problems and transforming from sales professional to trusted advisor.

Please share your thoughts or your own suggestions on the DPHA Facebook page or with our LinkedIn group.

Training New Showroom Personnel, by Traci D'Antoni (D'Antoni Sales Group)

Business is picking up. Your showroom walk-in traffic is up and Saturdays are busy. Your experienced sales staff is running fast and furious, they are not getting everything done and customers are frustrated. Now it's time to hire some new staff. You've interviewed candidates and hired new sales staff, but they have no plumbing, door hardware, tile and/or lighting experience. What do you do now?

In our industry it is often easy to overwhelm a new hire with the amount of information available. There are lots of great sources of information and training resources. And of course, your existing staff should be your greatest source of training. Look at what strengths each member of your staff have and encourage them to share that information with new personnel. Don't overwhelm your new hire with overly technical information at the start, but give them a general overview of the topic. It is also important to let the information sink in before loading them up with more new information. Develop a training schedule and train one topic at a time. It is better to have a strong, well built foundation than to have lots of tid-bits of information that don't fit well together.

 

Another excellent source of information are the DPHA education manuals. These are written by industry professionals and are full of not only basic, but continuing education for all levels of showroom sales staff. The manuals also have quizzes at the end so there is a quantitative way to measure the progress or comprehension of the new staff member.

 

Your sales representative is also a great source of training after your new staff member has grasped the basic knowledge of the topic they are being trained on. The rep will train them on specific products and this will help your staff member have more specialized knowledge on different price points and types of products. It is also helpful to have experienced sales staff at these trainings so that they can assist the new staff members by using case studies or examples of how to use the training.

Role playing and shadowing are great ways to get your new personnel comfortable in the showroom for dealing with customers and the questions that may arise. Working with an experienced staff member can help the new person learn what questions to ask and how to complete a sale. It also gives the experienced staff members a chance to mentor the new hire and answer any questions they may have.

Training new staff is a commitment and there are lots of great tools available. Using a variety of training tools will get the best results from your new staff. Everyone learns a little differently, so tweaking the training program to each member will certainly help the new staff assimilate and retain information more effectively.

What Motivates People to Perform at Their Best?

Dan Ariely is a renowned behavioral economist who teaches at Duke and writes fascinating books about what truly motivates people. His latest tome, Payoff, finds that most businesses are still locked into the mindset that compensation is the real reason people show up for work and the larger the salary, the better the performance will be and the better the results the company will obtain.

 

Ariely does not dismiss the important role of compensation.  However, when businesses place compensation as the be-all and end-all, they dismiss other factors that can have a dramatic impact on team member performance.  Money alone does not make your team happier, more productive or efficient.  Ariely believes factors such as a sense of meaning, making a contribution, camaraderie and a sense of progress and ownership are strong motivators and in many cases as motivating as the compensation that someone receives. 

 

There's more to compensation than "how much".  The "how" can generate excitement motivation and interest and there are also ways that will achieve the exact opposite results.  There are common approaches that actually demotivate.  Ariely uses No Child Left behind as an example.  Most teachers choose their profession because they wanted to help educate the next generation of Americans.  Not too long ago, being a teacher was an admirable profession. No Child Left Behind sends the message that the only thing we care about is performance that we will measure once a year with a test.  No Child Left Behind, Ariely claims, is not about education.  "It's just about performance on this test."   And if kids do well on the test, the teacher is rewarded with a $400 raise.

 

When you set up a criterion that evaluates compensation based on a single test or criterion, you take away ownership, accountability and motivation. 

 

How you present compensation also has an impact on motivation. In research experiments, people were given a job offer and asked how much they would place in short-term savings and how much they would contribute to their 401K plans.  One group was told they would make $35 an hour and another group was told they would make $70,000 a year.  The amounts are actually the same.  Those who were presented the annual wage saved more.  The reason is that people looked at a year as a long-term commitment and the hourly compensation as a short-term commitment.  You get better results when you frame performance with a long-term perspective. If you have hourly workers on your team and want to keep them, next time you conduct a performance review, present their new compensation as an annual salary.

Avoid Fighting With Your Spouse When You Come Home

Many DPHA members have stressful jobs.  We worry about business, providing meaningful opportunities for our team members and keeping our clients satisfied.  We often leave our offices with hundreds of thoughts on our mind and too often nagging problems that have not been resolved.  So what happens when you walk into your home? It's difficult to leave the stresses of the day at the threshold. That's why one of the toughest challenges most days is the attitude adjustment when we get home.  What happens if you had a rotten day but your spouse had a fantastic one and the only thing they want to talk about is all the good things that happened?  If your day was horrible, how receptive would you be to the good news your partner wants to relate? 

 

Researchers have discovered that couples will not usually be in sync when the arrive at home.  Each partner will have different needs and recovery times when they greet each other at the end of the workday.  What can you do?  Let your partner know how long you need to clear your head before engaging in a meaningful dialog.  Additionally, "Be aware that a degree of emotion management and self-monitoring can be particularly useful.  We tend to approach our spouses and partners with the expectation we can just be 'ourselves' without worrying about how we'll be perceived or our impact on them," writes Stanford instructor Ed Batista.  Batista points out that the interpersonal skills we use at our showrooms to make ourselves successful work equally well when you get home.

Improve Your Sales Presentations

"What problems are you trying to solve" is a great way to frame a sale presentation to a potential new client.  Too often, decorative plumbing and hardware sales professionals dive head first into recommending solutions without fully understanding the actual problem.  If your prospective client is a custom builder, what goals do they want to achieve in the bathrooms?  Why are your recommendations relevant?  Why should they or their customers care?  When you answer those questions, you capture someone's attention and make getting to "yes" a lot easier.

 

Once you determine the problem, the next step is to put it into context.  Why is the builder considering your showroom?  How immediately does your client need a solution?  Understanding a sense of urgency not only helps determine relevance but time frame.  What's the cost of not specifying product from you and your showroom?

 

In any high stakes presentation, it is important to highlight evidence of your competence, but do so with humility.  Most customers don't really care how long you have been in business or that you may have been the first company to market with decorative products in your region.  What they do care about is what you can do for them that will make their lives easier and their experience more enjoyable.  The message that you want to convey is the basis for your recommendation.  For example, we specified this faucet suite for the Ritz Carlton residences based on the quality of the product, the innovative nature of the design and the ability of the manufacturer to meet tight deadlines.  Several examples and anecdotes will provide a comfort zone for your prospective customer that will inspire confidence in your ability and recommendations.

 

Finally, any presentation must include a call to action.  A simple call is to ask the question, "Where do we go from here?" 

What's Popping Up on the Retail Landscape

Traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores continue to be challenged.  Macy's decided to close 100 stores.  The Limited is closing all brick-and-mortar retail operations at more than 250 stores.  Sears produced its worst financial results ever.  On the other end of the retail spectrum, however, traditional etailers Warby Parker, Amazon and Bonobos announced plans to open more brick-and-mortar locations as part of their omni-channel strategy.

 

Then there is Nordstrom, who is trying to reinvent itself and reach out to consumers to deliver better in-store experiences.  It is accomplishing this goal by partnering with cult brands such as New Classics, Gentle Monstor, Madewell, Topshop, Warby Parker and Bow & Drape to create pop-up stores within Nordstrom locations, not only to create a different shopping experience, but also to cater to the Millennial generation. 

 

Nordstrom is not alone in its efforts to create new compelling customer experiences through creative partnerships.  Nieman Marcus plans to create Rent-the-Runway stores in its traditional department store format. JC Penny has also announced plans to open nearly 600 Sephora and Nike stores-within-stores.

 

Strategic partnerships with other retail brand names makes sense for department stores because it allows them to test new brands and merchandise without having to make a major investment in their inventory or a build-out. If the partnership works, the relationship continues on a more traditional retail paradigm.  Pop-up stores also provide opportunities to quickly respond to trends while introducing new merchandise. 

 

What does this mean for decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms?  Are there potential opportunities for you to partner with related products and provide a more compelling customer experience through a pop-up store within your showroom?  Would it make sense to partner with a soft goods line that offers towels, robes, etc., or companies that sell bathroom organizing accessories, lighting or other products?  Please share you thoughts on the DPHA Facebook page or with our LinkedIn group.  We'd like to know if you believe a pop-up store would work in a showroom environment.