Sell Your Way Out of the Recession!

The retail furniture dealer is now faced with the worst recession since The Great Depression…and all signs say it is going to get worse before it gets better. But you are not alone. Retailers of all types are faced with the same problems. So how can you come out ahead?

You can sell your way out of the recession.

Our nation’s salespeople are the answer. YOU are the ones who will get this country back on its feet. You must know what your customers need—even in these hard times. As it turns out, what is in your best interest (surviving the recession) is exactly what’s in your customers’ and store’s best interest…and is in your country’s best interest.

Moaning and groaning and complaining is the only thing most retailers are hearing from their salespeople, customers, the media and all others affected right now. But you need facts, not opinions nor whining, to help you successfully through this time.

Even in the good times, the average salesperson only sells less than 15% of his prospective customer contacts. What if you were selling 30% of your prospective customers now? You’d be doing almost double what you were doing during the good times.

Here’s why:

During the good times, everyone got all of the little sales that were easy. But the bigger sales, when the prospective customer needed more information to make the right buying decisions, were left by the wayside. These big sales are the ones that do not disappear in a recession. People do without the little things in times like these, but still have to have the basics—like dining sets, living room furniture, and bedding. Recession selling brings out needs, not just wants. And therefore your selling can increase during these times.

If retail salespeople are even a little more competent than these average salespeople, it would be very easy to make the sale during these hard times.

There are a few—yes, very few—retail furniture salespeople who sell almost every prospective customer they come in contact with, in addition to those dropped by other salespeople.

I have been employing and interviewing these salespeople in many capacities for about 60 years now, and have talked with every one of these rare masters whom I have heard about in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. I have developed step-by-step instructions on how you can be like these rare masters.

In 1984 my first book Selling Retail was published. Ten years later, my second book, The Selling Bible: For People in the Business of Selling was published. The Selling Bible was the first book which fully defined what the masters of selling furniture did that caused their prospective customers to buy. It fully defined selling.

If you read Bill Gates’ book Business @ the Speed of Thought you will see that he is explicit in what he tells the retailer to do if they want to survive this recession. If you read the The Selling Bible (published over 10 years earlier) you will see they tell you to do the exact same thing during hard times.

And that is:

Gates says the retailer must require his salespeople to gather every bit of information gained with every interaction with every prospective customer. Then the salespeople must bring it to the retailer and the retailer must act on that information. The salespeople will not think it is important if the management doesn’t do anything with their information. Then of course, they will stop bringing it. And if they quit gathering it and bringing it, that will be the beginning of the end for your company.

But he never explains a system for doing this—or what information is important. In The Selling Bible it tells you to gather specific information, and unlike Business@the Speed of Thought, The Selling Bible explains exactly how to act on this information. Simply measure all prospective customers that each salesperson comes in contact with (and whether they get sold or not) each day, week, and month to date. This will determine the current level of selling competence of each individual salesperson. Measure this one thing accurately and continuously and watch your percentage of prospective-customers-sold increase.

Why? How? You ask. Well, the fact you need to know in these hard times: What gets measured accurately on an ongoing basis improves. It’s that simple. A proven mathematical fact that will allow you and your company to sell your way out of
the recession.

Accurate ongoing measurement will guarantee the owner, manager, and salespeople will all be improving on an ongoing basis.

This system has been best put to the test using our Selling Retail Fabric Protection Selling Plan. This has allowed me to prove this fact to every retailer in the world who uses it. So how does it work so well and so easily?

When a retail sale of unprotected upholstered or leather furniture is made, the retailer has a record of that sale and the salesperson who made it. Then, someone in the office records that customer information each day for each salesperson (and tallies it per week and month). As they compare this with the percentage of fabric protection that is sold, they learn that the percentage sold of fabric protection or leather care is increasing on an ongoing basis to over 80% of all furniture buyers.

I know of no retail furniture dealer with the Selling Retail Fabric Protection Selling Plan who uses this simple measurement with their salespeople that are not selling over 80% of their fabric protection or leather care customers.

So, what if this simple plan were applied to your furniture sales!? Recession or not, your sales will increase (remember, they are most likely around 15% now).

Imagine doubling, tripling, or quadrupling your sales even in a recession! You can do it with the simple measurement provided by our selling plan.

Often, especially in times like these, managers, salespeople, and even owners of retail stores begin to feel powerless over their situation and our economic situation as a society. But you, the retail salespeople are our only hope. If you do not take your power back and take care of all of your prospective customers, our economy is doomed. This is your chance to sell yourself and our country out of the recession.

The simple act of accurately measuring something on an ongoing basis causes what is being measured to improve on an ongoing basis. This means your sales potential is unlimited. Even in a recession.

But how do I measure my sales accurately so I can start improving? Start by using either The Selling Retail Fabric Protection Selling Plan or The Ultimate Agenda along with the book Selling Retail, you are on your way in four easy steps (and we’ve already done step one for you!).

1. Define prospective customer (Ultimate Agenda: anyone greeted by a salesperson, or turned over to that salesperson by someone else, or dropped by another salesperson during peak traffic periods, or any unattended person browsing on the showroom floor*)

2. Gather every bit of information you can about the prospective customer (Ultimate Agenda or Fabric Protection Selling Plan Prospective Accounting Card) on the card. Then, when the customer leaves, turn the card in before approaching another customer (no matter how busy the showroom floor is at the time).

3. In the office/downtime: Input the information from each card, how many contacts that salesperson made per day, what percentage of those were sold, the average volume of the sale, as well as other information like why didn’t a customer buy or what did they want that you didn’t have.

4. Act on that information. Now the sales manager knows the percentage sold for each salesperson using this system, and you can easily see why customers aren’t buying. Each week and month you tally these totals and observe this recorded information, sales will improve.

And that’s it. Sales will improve faster for some, slower for others, but guaranteed for all. Proven time and again by the SRI Fabric Protection Selling Plan.

Oh, and by the way, if salespeople are already selling 80% of their fabric protection prospective customers, why shouldn’t they be selling 80% of all of their prospective furniture customer contacts? Especially when it is this easy.

I look forward to hearing your stories of how you are selling the United States of America out of the recession. And thank you all for what you do.