ACE Magazine: Issue 2 / 2016 ACE Magazine: Issue 2 / 2016 | Page 44

ASEAN COMMUNITY OF ENTREPRENEURS TRENDSETTER to-people customer experiences. You can’t fight e-commerce without people skills. Sales People Are Not PeopleOriented Enough: They don’t understand customer’s needs and requirements. The general rule of questioning skill is that the higher your price, the more you need to understand the customer’s needs and wants. That means if your retail business sells a product that is $10 (i.e. food item), you technically don’t really need to ask many questions. However, if your product costs $100 and above (i.e. clothing), you may need to pose a few basic questions. But if your range is $1,000 and above (i.e. beauty care), the consultant role needs to come in. By the way, the higher your price, the higher the degree of professionalism is ‘expected’ from the customers. in view of their high turnover. But if they don’t, what happens? Once again, people would go online because all their questions will be explained online. Retail Sales People Are Not Positively Closing: Closing is defined as asking the buyers to buy or encouraging the buyers to buy. How many retail sales people do that? Very little. Allow me to share with you the proven method of closing a larger transaction for every customer as used by the world renowned fast food chain, McDonald’s. First of all, there is no more small set meals anymore. Therefore, customers must now opt for only medium or large set meals. The next thing is when you walk to the counter and order a Big Mac meal, for instance, the person at the counter will ask you “Large?” Guess what? Most people would answer in the affirmative. Indeed a proven up-sell technique mastered by the king of retail. Just imagine if your retail sales people do the exact opposite of the mistakes I’ve highlighted above. Your sales need not suffer substantial slowdown. But this is one tough battle because your retail staff have to first master the psychology of selling to cautious consumers. That is not the job of the order-taker or even service people. Train your staff well, push them hard, motivate them more and how would your retail business fare? Retail Sales People Are Poor At Presentation Skills: Most sales people can’t explain their products. Why? Not trained properly is perhaps the best answer. I can understand that most retailers are not keen to train their sales personnel extensively 42 ASEAN COMMUNITY OF ENTREPRENEURS | ISSUE 2 : 2016 Hanzo has helped many clients achieved the HIGHEST sales record ever in their company history. He has also turnaround many under-performers and sky-rocketed their sales results through his Sales Ninja training programmes. For more information on Sales Ninja training, visit www.SalesNinja.asia today!