We'll be coming up on personal selling soon -- take a look at this site that talks about a few tactics of personal selling.
Have you ever worked in personal selling? Any tactics that you would add to the list? What makes a good salesperson?
Even if you've never works as a salesperson -- when you go shopping, what good and bad experiences have you had as a shopper?
If you were a manager, what would you tell your employees as far as how to treat customers and represent the store's image?
What stores do it right? Which don't?
Length ~600 words!
Ive worked in retail the last 3 years and I believe that the key to being a good salesmen is recognizing whether a consumer is looking to buy or just looking. Some of the tactics that I use are spinning negatives in a positive way. Ex a fan that does not put off any light. "This fan is perfect for accent and ambiance lighting." It all depends on the customer if they are willing to buy. You can persuade them to different products that meet different needs but if they aren't seriously looking to buy then its hard to make a sale at least at Home Depot when i worked at the mall it was a little easier to sway people to buy things. Being positive and smiling alot, making yourself approachable and not pushy is huge if people sense that you are just trying to make a sale instead of helping they won't buy anything from you. Home depots big thing is putting the customer first no matter what and i do this by giving discounts to loyal customers and selling displays and demos cheap. Our store manager believes in doing stuff like this but our assistant managers usually get obsessesed with the bottom dollar over the customer. If i was a manager i would just tell the employees to go above and beyond to meet the customers needs be creative think of sollutions that keep them in the store. Shake their hand and maintain eye contact be respectfull and combine their ideas with your knowledge of the product. You have to know that you can not please every customer that walks in the store some consumers are looking to rip you off as a salesmen very rarely do i give discounts to customers who have been impatient or grouchy with me they aren't worth my time. I have great shopping experiences at stores such as scheels and bass pro shops and ive had very bad shopping experiences at wal mart and game stop. Scheels has a great manager of the fishing department who has given me discounts, checked out on new products, and just has been a huge help every time im in their. A Bass Pro employee was with me for over half and hour helping me solve a problem with my boat. In wal mart ive never recieved outstanding service and can often not find a knowledgeable associate. At game stop an employee told me he would make me a deal since i purchased a new xbox 360 and give me five extra dollars per game i sold back to them i went the next day and the same associate shorted me on what he said and was prepared to give me regular price about 50 dollars less then i thought and then tried to say he never made a deal with me. If you are knowledeable about a product, treat the customer with respect, and seriously try to meet their needs then you can make a good salesmen. Some people are better than others at selling but it all breaks down to meeting the customers needs if you can not do it they will go to someone else who can in a heartbeat.
ReplyDelete