Product Passion - A disaster when it’s lacking

Retail ReThink

Retailing is about people, if you lack the people skills you shouldn’t be in retailing. This is the first priority in retailing …. or is it?

My daughter was recently employed by a cosmetic jewellery store. She was recruited to save the business. The company could not afford to pay the rent and was putting it down to the economy, fuel prices and other reasons outside of their control.

After the first week on the job, she came home disgruntled.  “What’s the problem I asked?”, the response was, “These guys don’t deserve to be in business, they are not passionate or have any respect for their product, so how are they going to make this business work”!

This made my ears prick up. Retailing surely is about people not products, what was my daughter saying.

She went on to explain that the management of the business treated and talked about the product, albeit when customers were not around, as if it was trash. They did not respect their product or have a passion for their product. She went on to say that without any respect for the product, how could they sell it with integrity to the consumer. An interesting perspective on retailing I thought.

So lets take a closer look at this idea of product passion.

Retail ReThink

Retailing is about people, if you lack the people skills you shouldn’t be in retailing. This is the first priority in retailing …. or is it?

My daughter was recently employed by a cosmetic jewellery store. She was recruited to save the business. The company could not afford to pay the rent and was putting it down to the economy, fuel prices and other reasons outside of their control.

After the first week on the job, she came home disgruntled.  “What’s the problem I asked?”, the response was, “These guys don’t deserve to be in business, they are not passionate or have any respect for their product, so how are they going to make this business work”!

This made my ears prick up. Retailing surely is about people not products, what was my daughter saying.

She went on to explain that the management of the business treated and talked about the product, albeit when customers were not around, as if it was trash. They did not respect their product or have a passion for their product. She went on to say that without any respect for the product, how could they sell it with integrity to the consumer. An interesting perspective on retailing I thought.

So lets take a closer look at this idea of product passion.

What happens without passion?

We’ve all come across retailers whose team lacks passion.  The result is fewer consumers are converted into customers and when they are, the average sales is lower than should be expected.  The company goes into a downhill spiral and many often don’t come out of it.  They blame the economy, the competition, the weather and anything else they can think of, but rarely analyse what is really happening.

A passionate business can weather any storm

Businesses with passion seem to do well whatever is happening in the marketplace.  Consumers will continue to purchase products and naturally gravitate towards passionate people.  Why?  They enjoy the experience, the passion spreads to the consumer and they in turn start talking to other people and ‘viral’ marketing prospers.  Plus, passionate people enjoy their job, the whole experience becomes fun for all the stakeholders.

Passion about the product must come first

When retailing gets tougher, you need to re-look at what you’re doing. Are you ensuring your team are passionate about your product?

Consider how you approach your product training. How often have you heard small retail owners say that the benefit to the consumer of going to a small retailer versus a box store is that you get better service. I’m not sure what benchmark they are using for this comparison, but compare your training with the program B & Q, the UK hardware chain, have introduced into China. According to an article in the South China Morning Post (Sat July 5, 2008 by Wilson Lau) the trainee is inducted as follows:
It starts with an induction session on B&Q’s core values and what the company’s expectations are of that salesperson when dealing with other team members (not customers). Recruits are then exposed to the 12 hardware categories, but do more intensive product knowledge training in one of the categories for a period of six months. By the end of such training the company hopes that the team member is knowledgeable and passionate about the product.

Build passion for the customer

Now let’s go one step further.  My suggestion to my clients is that they provide team members with the minimum customer care standard they expect when a consumer enters the store. I believe it is essential that the team know what the average sale is and that team members are rewarded if they exceed the measured expectations of the agreed store targets.

A great team of sales people will increase the average sale per customer when customer count declines. Why? They have more time to get involved with individual customers. At present there is customer resistance to go shopping and many businesses are seeing customer count decline by 5% in twelve months. To me it was not such a big concern, because surely an effective sales team could increase the average sale per customer accordingly as they could have more added value time with each customer.

Start being passionate today

Passion starts with the owner or manager of the business, not with the sales team.  The owners passion quickly filters down to team members.  It is up to every manager of a retail business to look in the mirror and ask themselves how passionate they are.  Once you have the passion, spread the message to the team and it will become infectious.

Your Passion Check-List

1. Make sure you have an effective induction training procedure.
2. As owners and managers always respect the product and don’t trash it verbally in front of team members.
3. Product knowledge training is essential and must be ongoing.
4. When customer count goes down make sure average sale goes up.
5. Provide average sale figures to the team and reward their success.

John Stanley is an internationally recognised conference speaker and retail consultan. He has authored several successful marketing and retail books including the best seller Just About Everything a Retail Manager Needs to Know. John’s retail experience covers hands-on retailing in supermarkets, hardware stores, garden centres, farmers markets and drug stores.  For more information on John Stanley and how he can help your business prosper and grow, visit his website www.johnstanley.cc

What happens without passion?

We’ve all come across retailers whose team lacks passion.  The result is fewer consumers are converted into customers and when they are, the average sales is lower than should be expected.  The company goes into a downhill spiral and many often don’t come out of it.  They blame the economy, the competition, the weather and anything else they can think of, but rarely analyse what is really happening.

A passionate business can weather any storm

Businesses with passion seem to do well whatever is happening in the marketplace.  Consumers will continue to purchase products and naturally gravitate towards passionate people.  Why?  They enjoy the experience, the passion spreads to the consumer and they in turn start talking to other people and ‘viral’ marketing prospers.  Plus, passionate people enjoy their job, the whole experience becomes fun for all the stakeholders.

Passion about the product must come first

When retailing gets tougher, you need to re-look at what you’re doing. Are you ensuring your team are passionate about your product?

Consider how you approach your product training. How often have you heard small retail owners say that the benefit to the consumer of going to a small retailer versus a box store is that you get better service. I’m not sure what benchmark they are using for this comparison, but compare your training with the program B & Q, the UK hardware chain, have introduced into China. According to an article in the South China Morning Post (Sat July 5, 2008 by Wilson Lau) the trainee is inducted as follows:
It starts with an induction session on B&Q’s core values and what the company’s expectations are of that salesperson when dealing with other team members (not customers). Recruits are then exposed to the 12 hardware categories, but do more intensive product knowledge training in one of the categories for a period of six months. By the end of such training the company hopes that the team member is knowledgeable and passionate about the product.

Build passion for the customer

Now let’s go one step further.  My suggestion to my clients is that they provide team members with the minimum customer care standard they expect when a consumer enters the store. I believe it is essential that the team know what the average sale is and that team members are rewarded if they exceed the measured expectations of the agreed store targets.

A great team of sales people will increase the average sale per customer when customer count declines. Why? They have more time to get involved with individual customers. At present there is customer resistance to go shopping and many businesses are seeing customer count decline by 5% in twelve months. To me it was not such a big concern, because surely an effective sales team could increase the average sale per customer accordingly as they could have more added value time with each customer.

Start being passionate today

Passion starts with the owner or manager of the business, not with the sales team.  The owners passion quickly filters down to team members.  It is up to every manager of a retail business to look in the mirror and ask themselves how passionate they are.  Once you have the passion, spread the message to the team and it will become infectious.

Your Passion Check-List

1. Make sure you have an effective induction training procedure.
2. As owners and managers always respect the product and don’t trash it verbally in front of team members.
3. Product knowledge training is essential and must be ongoing.
4. When customer count goes down make sure average sale goes up.
5. Provide average sale figures to the team and reward their success.

John Stanley is an internationally recognised conference speaker and retail consultan. He has authored several successful marketing and retail books including the best seller Just About Everything a Retail Manager Needs to Know. John’s retail experience covers hands-on retailing in supermarkets, hardware stores, garden centres, farmers markets and drug stores.  For more information on John Stanley and how he can help your business prosper and grow, visit his website www.johnstanley.cc