The count down is on….it’s the best time of the year for those of us that work in RETAIL…. did you know there are only eight Saturdays left to Christmas?…WHAT???
Yes indeed this is the time when we get to help lots of people around the world buy gifts for their loved ones and this is something that should not be forgotten amongst all the craziness of Holiday shopping, merchandising, sick calls, schedules, hiring and much more.
Even though everyone wants to drive results and meet sales targets we need to remember that at the end of every purchase there is usually a very happy person receiving a special gift from a very special person. This means that our goal should be to ask a ton of questions and find out who and what that special person’s likes and dislikes are.
Questions are a powerful tool and if you ask the right ones at the right time you can discover a lot about people build trust and engage with customers in a deeper way.
The problem is most people don’t develop their ability to ask questions. With lots of new seasonal hires joining your teams your role as a manager is to lead and teach them this powerful selling skill. But how do you do that in such a short period of time? stressful right?
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The best way for your newbies to learn is for you to show them. Leading by example is more powerful than any form of training and one that managers forget about. Role modelling is a powerful way of influencing your team’s behaviours. Top managers know this, they own every moment of every day and use it as an opportunity for their team to learn by watching them in action.
Have you heard that saying people do what they see not what you say? This means that they need to see you the leader engage with customers and provide the best service in your store. I heard a line this week that I thought was brilliant it was from a manager …My standards are higher than everyone on my team and I expect them to catch up to me, not the other way!
It’s kind of like my yoga teacher said last week (in a class where we were all dying) as soon as you think you have mastered my class I will move the needle and make it that bit tougher so that you will never master it!
In my mind I was like really, is he crazy? but in fact not at all. If you apply this to role modelling service behaviours this would mean that you the manager are constantly setting higher expectations with your team. This is called raising the bar and you need to do it in every aspect of your business.
So next time you are satisfied with what you and your team have achieved, ask yourself this.
How could we improve this? And what do I need to do to role model raising the bar with my team?
