So I did my Christmas shopping yesterday and I experienced a mixed retail shopping experience.

A week ago my wife Donna and I had already completed all of our shopping for our little 15 month old Daughter, Holly and all of our friends and family but now it was the dreaded “Shopping for my wife’s presents” time!

Let me tell you about just one of the experiences I had:

STORE 1 - H SAMUELS
MISSION: A locket and also a necklace

Everything was ok until the shop assistant asked me whether I wanted a 16 or 18 inch chain! Keh? Then he just left me to my own devices to choose - no advice whatsoever. He should have been asking the height of my wife, length and width of neck etc. Along those lines. Then, I asked them to be gift wrapped and he had to physically construct the boxes in front of me - this looked awful especially as they were very expensive items. By this time, all of the 8 staff in the store were with customers and another 6 customers needed help. The thing with jewellers, especially at Christmas time is that jewellery is very much a “see” and “touch” sale.

What I mean about this is that a customer almost always needs help from the shop assistant. They either want to see the product or touch it before making a buying decision so to be short staffed is a cardinal sin.

I can tell you that there were a lot of “tuts” and “comments” from the customers waiting around and a few of them left as I was walking out the door mumbling “bloomin ridiculous”

Just think how much money is walking out the door!

On a Saturday, especially at Christmas time you should be overstaffed if anything to make the customer experience that bit special. Why would you scripm and save during a month that makes you around 20% of your whole year’s turnover? It’s just crazy!

Think about the type of sell you have to make? If you are in retail, do your customers rely on you for guidance and help? Do they need to “see” and “experience” your merchandise? Or can they be left to their own devices as in a bookstore?

Think about this, your staff levels at times of the year and of the day and act accordingly.

DON’T LET MONEY WALK OUT THE DOOR WHEN IT IS READY TO BE PUT IN YOUR TILL!

Sean Mc

PS Click here for a free sales training course

The Fish and Anchor - Another Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare.

This was a restaurant based in Lampeter, rural West Wales run by ex-boxer Mike and his wife Caron.

The kitchen was like a war zone and so was the dining room!

The Fish and Anchor was very slow at turning around orders due to the menu - Gordon wanted to turn this around with the emphasis on speed.

Food that can be prepared in advanced and served up quickly.

Caron has a bad attitude for a restaurant owner. She had sloppy standards especially when smoking outside when guests were arriving.

The slanging match between husband and wife outside was comical. The shouting and screaming could be heard by the customers.

Just please tell me that your business is not like the Fish and Anchor!

In any business the customer is always king. I was gobsmacked by the way that they spoke to some of the customers. Having said that I was gobsmacked when Mike wrote bogus reviews on the web!

Unbelievable!

The locals did not have a good word to say about the Fish and Anchor restaurant - bad experiences spread like wildfire! The Fish and Anchor’s reputation was awful.

The first thing to address were the arguments between the owners and to give it a new identity i.e open up as an Italian restaurant

The new menu enabled speed and the food could now fly out of the door - i.e the system was now set up for successful selling.

The dining room staff needed to work on their people skills so they set up some role plays - never be scared to practice like this. Make the service friendlier!

Everything was set. It was now time to drum up business.

Remember, marketing and sales are two different animals but they need to work hand in hand. Marketing generates the leads - sales close them down!

With the new launch and lots of customers - the kitchen at the Fish and Anchor could not cope when the chips were down. Added to a waitress slipping on the floor and collapsing - it turned into a real nightmare.

When Gordon came back to revisit they had painted the outside a clean white colour. Their customers had doubled! Gordon then called up their customers to get some feedback. It is vital that you get feedback from your customers too.

With a bit of passion, planning and refocussing - it can make a huge difference.

Happy selling

Sean Mc

Hi

Don’t worry if you come up against price objections - in my book it’s a sign of real interest. Here are some things to consider around handling price objections.

INFORMATION
Make sure your prospect has all of the information to really understand and value your products and services.

DON’T AGREE
Don’t agree that your product is more expensive than your competitors if your client has told you that it is. You know the reasons why it is more expensive but your client probably does not - you need to compare eggs with eggs!

DISCOUNT AHEAD!
Your prospect may be fishing for a discount when they come back with a price objection. It’s just another way of asking “Can we do a deal?”

GO OVER YOUR USP AGAIN
When a price objection is raised go over your USP’s once again. Confirm all of the benefits and quality and support this with case studies of companies who thought the same as they did.

SHOWING TOO EARLY?
A major reason why you might be coming up against price objections is because you are showing your price too early in your sales dialogue.

LAYER THE VALUE
When you the build the value of your product you must make the client think that the product or service is going to be at least 50% more expensive than what you tell them it is.

PRICE MIGHT NOT BE THE ISSUE
Whilst the prospect says price is the issue it could really mean something else. When they say “It’s too expensive” respond with “What do you mean?”. You might be able to help with method of payments, timings, budgets, finance etc. You never know until you ask!

Until the next time, take care of yourself and happy selling!

Sean Mc

The Curry Lounge was a 110 seater, all glitz and no taste curry house based in Nottingham.

This was the latest installment in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and the restaurant was losing £3k per week.

A “DIY” restaurant - on the face of it a nice customer orientated idea but practically a nightmare! The DIY part was that the customers could “create their own curry”. There were over 100 variations of dishes that they could possibly have - madness!

In the Curry Lounge the customer was truly the king! So much so that they could have whatever the liked! Now, I am all for giving the customer what they need but you can’t sell the business when doing so!

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Raz, the owner and former salesman himself was trying to please everyone with fancy dishes that had lost it’s authenticity by trying to be too smart.

Calling all Sales Directors! Don’t think that just because you are in charge of the sales in your company that you could just drop that and become a successful restaurant owner! Raz, the owner of The Curry lounge was an ex Sales Director but was found wanting.

Many people try to over complicate things - my advice? Keep things simple!

That means…

Simple food.

Simple service.

Simple systems.

Simple concepts.

People are easily confused!

One part made me really laugh when Ramsay made Raz take down their BEST CURRY HOUSE (runner up) sign in the shop window. I came second in the British Business Awards in 2007 as young entrepreneur of the year and I would never dine out on that forever.

There was a lack of teamwork between the kitchen and the front of house - remember this with your salespeople and their admin staff - everyone is important.

Ramsay took a step back and “niched” the offering going back to simple authentic indian cuisine with just 8/9 starters and 10/11 main courses.

The results? Well, they took £3k in one night!

The Curry Lounge has a lot of promise if they keep things simple, work as a team and understand what their customers really want.

These are valid sales lessons for you and your sales teams.

So please keep things simple, listen to your customers, work hard and the results will come.

Sean Mc

The Granary in Hampshire - where ego met ego in the latest Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare!

Nigel Nieddu, the owner of the Granary and “successful businessman” just did not take to Ramsay’s straight talking and feedback.

When egos meet they would rather be proved right than have the right decision made. I hope that makes sense. Rather than admit defeat or they are wrong the “ego” would fight their corner even if it’s the wrong decision!

It’s crazy in theory but very true.

There’s a lesson here for sales people too.

Far too many sales people build an ego that is counter productive. Rather than listen to the client’s needs they talk far too much about themselves and their product/services. They dress to impress the “girl in accounts” rather than their client. They boast about how much money they’ve made this month rather than how many people they have helped. They also do not work as hard as they used to because they feel they can “close anyone” at “anytime”.

If you are in danger of obtaining the “sales ego” my advice is to just lose it right now.

The thing is…..this disease can just creep up on you without you even realising it!

I fell into this trap a couple of years ago. MTD Sales Training was growing at a phenominal rate and we were closing deal after deal after deal. Every company that used us experienced awesome results of 30%+ increases to their sales. I started to get an ego. I was winning entrepreneur awards and the money was pouring in. The Porsche came along and then it hit me - the ego! I became lazy and forgot almost everything that got MTD to where we were. We didn’t lose any market share or business it’s just that instead of year on year growth of 40% we were running in at 20%.

This didn’t last long though as it was my wife who cut me down to size! I got back to the basics, the unique processes and the training that got us to where we were and the rest is history. MTD are now the leading sales training company in the UK. I can now spot the “ego” in any sales person or trainer that I come across whether it’s at MTD or any of the clients who we work with.

Learn this lesson!

Sean Mc

Do you want to know the most popular question I get asked?

Well, here it is…

“Sean, how do I make more sales?”

Yes, that’s it in a nutshell!

The problem with the people who ask this question is in the actual question itself. Too many sales people focus on the end result i.e the sale rather than the process.

As a professional sales person you should breakdown each of the processes and stages you need to go through to make the sale and set about to improve each stage. Make sure you can measure the success of each stage too.

By focussing on the process, the result will take care of itself!

Happy New Year!

Sean Mc