The Blind Leading the Blind

Most salespeople are blind these days. They see so much, they perceive so little, that they know even less.

The first cause of blindness is lack of education and training. Education and training are more important today than they ever have been in selling because products are becoming more complicated. Manufacturers add more new features with each production run and the salespeople don't have time to learn all the features on the products from last year let alone all the new features that have come out this year.

My cell phone is three years old. I have been thinking about replacing the phone for some time. Yesterday I went to the mall to look at cell phones. As I was looking at the cell phones; whenever I asked the salesperson a question, she had to keep pulling up a binder and looking for the product spec sheets to explain the function set of each phone to me.

That demonstration of incompetence did not do a lot for my confidence about buying a phone from her. So I told the salesperson I needed to think about it. She handed me several brochures and her card as I walked out.

The second cause of blindness is lack of good leadership. Leadership is all about modeling an example for the salespeople and managing them to that model. The number one skill needed by salespeople to keep the Internet from making them obsolete is product knowledge and the ability to transfer knowledge to the customer.

To review the brochures and educate myself on cell phones, I went over to the coffee shop across the hallway and got a coffee. I sat down at one of the tables in the mallway to review the brochures and think.

While I was sipping my coffee I watched as the salesperson, now freed from pesky customers, got on her cell phone and began a personal call. I was not surprised and felt sad that our encounter didn't make much of an impression on her about how much she didn't know about her craft and her products.

If she had been any good as a salesperson, she should have taken the time before her next customer to study some of the product information so she could be better prepared for her next customer. Instead of taking the time to learn more about the products she needed to sell to make a living; she was more concerned with making a personal phone call. Her call lasted until the manager came into the store. At which time she hung up and joined a group of salespeople gathering around the manager.

I had expected to see the manager do manager type stuff like make some announcements on new products and/or services. Checking the mood of the team, and checking on sales so far that day. I was expecting him to spend a few minutes with each salesperson checking on their needs or giving them a little personal coaching on challenges they were facing to help them perform better.

Instead, he proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes talking about a basketball game with one of the staff members and making personal phone calls of his own. That type of activity is typical of why most sales management fails.

Where have all the good sales managers gone? A lot of storeowners take a top salesperson and turn them into a sales manager thinking the former star will be able to replicate themselves on the sales force and it very rarely happens. The lack of good sales management was the reason why, I didn't buy a cell phone there.

The salesperson was not educated, trained or knowledgeable and that was a much the fault of the sales manager as it was hers. Her lack of knowledge revealed how new she was, indicating high turnover to me.

The lack of training more than any other factor is the cause of high turnover.

So instead of training his people; the phone store sales manager across the mallway was socializing with his people. He obviously was too concerned about remaining "buds" with his former peers to be a real manager to them.

Sales management requires a different skill set than selling does. The skill sets are almost opposite of each other.

A good salesperson needs to act fast and adapt to the changing situation of the moment. A good sales manager has to act slowly and with deliberate thought and planning. This is important because while salespeople need the ability to shift directions to go with the flow, the sales managers need to make sure they go the right direction.

A good salesperson has to have a "laser-like focus" on the customer in front of them to the exclusion of everything that is going on around them to be effective. A good sales manager has to be watching the all the selling situations from the 30,000-foot view looking at activities of all the players all the time. This is important because a salesperson only has to win the battle, the sales manager has to win the war.

A good salesperson is able to customize and deliver the knowledge a customer needs to make a buying decision. A good sales manager is able to train and motivate salespeople to take the time and make the effort to learn, and use knowledge to help them sell. This is important because the ability to personalize the amount and delivery of information is the only thing that keeps the Internet from completely dominating the world of retail.

A good salesperson is able to put the customer first and make them feel they are the most important person in the world. A good sales manager is able to put the salesperson first and make them feel they are the most important person in the world. This is critical because how you treat your salespeople is how they will treat your customers.

A good salesperson develops their customers into lifetime clients. A good sales manager develops their salespeople continuously improving their selling skills over a lifetime. This is vital to the survival of a retail store because fewer people every year chose retailing as a profession and we need to grow our own superstars because they don't come knocking on the door everyday.

The difference between the two skill sets is like the difference between playing checkers and chess. Great salespeople play checkers. Great sales managers play chess. Taking a top salesperson and turning them into a sales manager more often than not ends up with the "blind leading the blind."

The Times They Are A-Changing

"Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see in in the Sun, it's so.' Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?" —Virginia O'Hanlon

In response to the above letter from Virginia, Francis Church wrote a column in the on the spirit of Christmas that has become a perennial classic (http://nanaellen.com/village/cmas/cmas-virginia.htm) this time of year.

If he had received the letter in 2006 instead of 1897, would his answer have been different?

Watching the news last night was a confirmation for me that should have been a wake up call for anyone working in the retail sector. There is a lack of Christmas spirit out there these days, and it is one of the factors driving more traffic out of the malls and onto the Net.

Two of the three business news stories on the national news had a Internet factor to them, and the only business story on the local news was about the drop in foot traffic in stores and the surprising numbers of Internet sales this holiday season.

The Bad News: The Internet is not a passing fad, no matter how much retailers want it to go away.

More Bad News: E-tailers are adapting to retailing faster than retailers are adapting to the Internet.

Even More Bad News: Unless you have got a TRULY UNIQUE product that you control the entire supply and distribution chain of, your retail model is going to be pummeled into oblivion by the Internet.

Even More Bad News Gets Worse: Doctors (http://www.doctorevidence.com/) , Lawyers (http://www.wklaw.com/), and Indian Chiefs (http://www.sevenfeathers.com/) have all developed online business models as the transmogrification of the economy into an e-conomy continues. Even as this happens, there are so many retailers out there not paying attention, it is almost as if they are wearing blinders. So many retail verticals have taken a vicious beating at the hands of the Internet, you would think the survivors would have learned by not to be apathetic.

But they are. The evidence this Christmas season to me is overwhelming proof of…and I can't believe I am actually going to use the quote I first became aware of when it was posted on the wall above the throne of Jim Jones of Guyana infamy; but here goes… "Those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them."

I watched a news story where the reporter was interviewing a Sears store manager who was commenting on the less than expected foot traffic. Almost as an after thought, he went on to reassure the reporter his store was doing fine because about 50% of their electronic sales this season are being done over the Internet.

I think one of the main reasons the foot traffic is down is there is nothing special about shopping this season. Retailers are so focused on cutting expenses, not offending anyone with decorations; they have turned Christmas shopping into a very bland experience. The very blandness of the experience is one of the reasons more people are shopping online this season.

I did a very unscientific informal survey of most of my friends and family on shopping this season, and I kept hearing the same things over and over.

"It doesn't feel much like Christmas these days."

But I didn't just take their word for it. Once again at great personal risk, I went to a few large malls, and different malls to see if my past experiences shopping this month still hold true.

Sad to say they do.

There are hardly any distinctly holiday decorations in stores. The few decorations there are in stores these days, are sterile and bland. If there is Holiday music in stores, most stores seem to prefer the Muzak version of Christmas Music - A little to sterile and bland for my tastes.

There as a very distinct lack of holiday apparel worn by the staff in the stores this year. I saw more staff in holiday dress on Halloween than I did in the malls during the last shopping week before Christmas.

In discussing my preliminary findings; a friend of mine in Michigan told me California doesn't count because it is hard to have Christmas spirit when the sun is shining; there's no snow on the ground and people are shopping in shorts and tee shirts. But he grudgingly admitted, he would rather be walking through a parking lot in Los Angeles than one in Detroit this time of year.

I thought to myself, maybe it's an economy thing.

Nope. The news stations and business web sites are reporting that national surveys are indicating consumers will spend about $195 more per family on Christmas this year than they did last year. And the online shopping news confirms this trend.

At the beginning of the shopping season, online sales were forecast to exceed $1 billion dollars. On two days, BLACK FRIDAY (the day after Thanksgiving) and GREEN MONDAY (the last day to guarantee packages will arrive in time) online shoppers spent $772 million dollars. If you take the total sales from the other twenty-two shopping days into consideration, online sales will probably beat the forecast increase of 25% over 2005's online Christmas shopping record.

The majority of the sales went to clicks and bricks stores that did a better job catering to needs of their online traffic, than they did creating a memorable Christmas shopping experience for their walk-in traffic.

And in this atmosphere of Christmas apathy at the retail store level, is planted the seeds of destruction for the Christmas spirit where staff is so afraid of lawsuits they wish customers a "Happy Holiday," if any greeting at all.

How can shopping be meaningful and special when two weeks before Christmas, people are already shopping the early sales for next year's presents and wrap? How can shopping be meaningful and special when one of the top five gifts this season is the Gift Card? No thoughtful consideration required.

How can shopping be meaningful and special when the most frequent Christmas stories on the news this season have been the mall upgrades on parking lot security and shoplifting prevention?

If advertising on TV had a Santa at all, he was marking down prices with a twinkle in his eye; delivering presents while driving a Mercedes, or whining and complaining about the competition he is getting at the mall from a cell phone company.

It's a good thing that Virginia didn't send her famous letter this season, because the answer she would have gotten back would have been a whole lot different.

Lose it Forward

I didn't plan to spend a lot of time writing about Christmas shopping, but there is an undercurrent of discontent as so many levels or the retail world this season, it needs review from many directions. Here's mine.

While shopping this past weekend I witnessed the seeds of destruction for the New Year Sales being planted. This was big home accessory store, and to drive sales they were having a 50% off sale on all Christmas items. The manager must have been under pressure to get sales levels up higher because he came on the PA system and announced, "take an additional ten percent off on all items purchased between now and closing."

The immediate result was that all customers who had completed their purchases ran back the cash registers and customer service counter and demanded their "additional ten percent off" which resulted in an wave of confusion washing over the cash registers. The check out lines slowed to a crawl as the cashiers had to cancel the previous sales and reenter them manually with the additional discounts.

The next thing that happened is customers began grabbing more Christmas stuff. So now the main stock for the "after Christmas sale" was flying out of the store before Christmas. I heard customers even comment on the fact they are going to get such a jump on next year's Christmas shopping now, they may not have to shop the New Year Sales.

A perfect example of "Lose it Forward."

As I watched, what I began to think of as the "Titanic Sale," continued to slide along the iceberg. Three shoppers who had already paid and left the store, came back after their friends told them about the additional discount. The three of them went to customer service and demanded the additional discount also. The manager approved it.

So now the cashiers are once again tied up canceling sales and re-keying them to reflect the additional discount causing lines to back up again. As people waited in line, two customers abandoned their shopping carts and walked out the store.

However, the floor traffic picked up as two women called several of their friends still shopping in different stores in the complex and told them about the 60% off sale.

Let's go to the root cause of this sale in the first place. To my mind, one of the main reasons sales are down is lack of Christmas spirit in the stores this season. I am not the only one saying it. In addition to numerous business reports saying the same thing, millions of consumers are saying it as well by where they decide to shop.

Most of the reporters are reporting flat to slightly negative floor traffic. The Internet stores are reporting about a 26% increase in sales over this point last year.

With traffic down, the sales are starting earlier this year. By January the public is going to be "sale weary" and traffic will drop further causing the "panic discounts" to get bigger earlier in the shopping period after Christmas and New Year. The newspapers will report another disappointing holiday shopping season – the fifth in a row.

The earlier sales and bigger discounts are going to kick start "Lose it Forward" into high gear as the media begins reporting a lack of "follow through" in January sales numbers as retail floor traffic continues to fall.

Bah Humbug!

I guess that I will be forced to address Christmas several times over the next couple of months. Today I am compelled to address it because I saw Scrooge yesterday. Yes Scrooge exists. I, like most of you, thought he was a fictional construct used as a thinly disguised metaphor representing the “de-humanizing” aspect of industrialization at the beginning of the Industrial Age.

After yesterday, I came to realize that he was real.

An explanation is in order here. I walked into a furniture store and had the pleasure (?) of witnessing the motivational session of a sales manager chastising a salesperson for arriving at the store twenty minutes late. This was a bad experience for the salesperson to be sure; but it was also a bad experience for the store on many levels.

The first level of bad was the fact there were witnesses. Unfortunately the sound acoustics in the store are very good, and the sales manager was passionate about what he had to say. So I and about seven other people got to listen to Scrooge tell the salesperson, a young woman in her mid-twenties, “Your baby sitter problem is yours. You being late is mine! I don’t give a f**k about your problem. But if you’re late again; even one second, you’re outta here!”

When something like this happens on a sales floor it poisons the buying mood of customers. Customers want shopping to be a fun and pleasant experience. What happened on the sales floor was the equivalent of a drive by shooting. All buying activity came to a halt. The seven customers in the store began browsing their way towards the door to leave. The “nervous energy” of those remaining contaminated the “buying attitudes” of the customers who came into the store after the motivational “drive by.”

I have seen this happen many times in many different stores and the results are always the same, buying slows dramatically until there has been a complete change over of customers on the floor.

The second level of bad was the effect on the salespeople. The morale of the rest of the salespeople plummeted. Being is sales is a hard job. It takes a lot for salespeople to get into that “happy place” mentally to be able to do their jobs effectively, and the sales manager just destroyed it.

The effects are salespeople are similar to an experiment I read about in a psychology class in college many years ago. It was a scientific experiment investigating the effects of motivation/de-motivation using plants.

In the experiment, there were three rooms: In the first room were two plants, the control group. These were just left alone. They were watered and fertilized automatically with no human contact. They just grew. In the second room, the two plants were watered and fertilized automatically, but each day one of the plants was talked to in a nice an encouraging way. They both thrived, but the plant talked to grew a little grew taller and a little bushier than it’s roommate. In the third room, the plants were watered and fertilized automatically, but each day one of the plants was verbally abused. Both were equally barren and stunted.

After spending years in sales management and more years watching sales management, I can say without fear of contradiction that the effects of most sales manager “motivational” conversations have the same effects on salespeople and they did on plants.

The third level of bad is the negative impact on the bottom line. For customers, the memory of their experience that day will last for years. This event caused a very visceral reaction that is now going to be incorporated into the subconscious memory of all the shoppers who witnessed it. They now have a negative feeling associated with this store anchored at the subconcious level. In the future, when given a choice to shop at this store again or another store, subconsciously they will go to the other store first.

The store will lose those customers for life. Unless this store creates a reason so compelling for them to come back it negates their subconscious feelings. That reason is usually a “very big discount” sale. And that is what is happening more and more. In this store, on this weekend, they are having 70% off sale.

After what happened yesterday I make the following prediction: The sale will be extended!

When I see retailers posting lower than expected earnings and blaming the housing market, I see a bunch of people in denial. Customers haven’t stopped buying; they just stopped buying from them. So as we enter the season of good cheer, I offer this word of advice to the Scrooges of sales management: Be nice to your salespeople!

My first sales manager mentor was a man all the salespeople would fight tigers for. He taught me well and as I moved up the food chain, I had the kind of sales management success he had by following his five simple rules.

1. Love your salespeople. Make them feel they are the most important people in the company because they are. They are the people who generate the revenue that feeds everyone else.

2. Commend in public. Reprimand in private. Seeing you come out onto the sales floor should be a good thing; not the feelings of dread felt by a cell of prisoners watching the executioner coming for his next victim.

3. Be a trainer, not a dictator. Salespeople are like thoroughbred racehorses; the are nervous, skittish, high strung and temperamental. They rarely respond well to the whip. Do everything in your power to help your people improve their talent, skills, abilities, and life; and they will win races for you.

4. Don’t post sales performance records for all to see. Everyone must believe they are winners, posting performance divides the team into winners and losers.

5. Do everything in your power to make the sales floor a fun and exciting place to work. Happy salespeople cause customers want to shop and return often to a place that is fun and exciting.

The holidays are here (already) and the difference between a good season and a bad season is going to be the happiness levels of your salespeople.

Another Inconvenient Truth

Today I went to see “A Inconvenient Truth” at a local movie theater. The movie was great, but the experience was horrible. The theater has a very unfriendly customer service policy: “Box Office will open 15 minutes before show start time.” It is a bad enough policy to begin with and circumstances conspired to make it worse.

It was ironic that we were going to see a movie about “Global Warming” on one of the hottest July days on record. It was 106 degrees in downtown at 12:35 pm. We still had ten-minutes before the box office would open and there were about twenty “baby boomers” all waiting to get in the theater.

Several people tried to get the attention of the teenagers inside the “air conditioned” theater lobby, but they ignored all attempts at communication as they chatted with one another.

At 12:45 pm, several people began knocking on the door to remind the teenagers that it was time to open up the doors and ticket window, but they were involved in a very intense conversation and couldn’t be bothered to open the door. By now the group of people waiting to get into the theater had swelled to about 50+. The line at the ticket booth extended out from under the awning into the bright and very hot sunlight.

By 12:50 pm, people were knocking on the door, and the teenagers finally began to move to their positions. By then about a third of the group left to go see the movie at a theater in a bigger town with a cinema multiplex 25 miles away.

At 12:55 pm an angry crowd began to enter, with most people bypassing the popcorn counter because:

1) They were angry with the teenagers, and

2) They didn’t have enough time to buy anything before the movie would start.

Now it is time for “Another Inconvenient Truth” for all business owners based on what happened here today. The way you treat your customers tells more about the long-term survivability of your business than any balance sheet ever will and your prospects aren’t good.

The movie theater didn’t sell as many tickets as it could have and should have for two reasons. The first was their minimalist approach to customer service: “Box Office will open 15 minutes before show start time.” I would love to learn the thinking behind a policy designed to minimize the amount of money a company can take in, while maximizing the amount of bad will generated with customers.

The second reason was the attitude of their staff. The staff was more concerned about talking with each other, than they were in serving the customers. I haven’t been to the theater in over a year. I don’t think I will ever go back after this experience.

A Day at the Races

Today I had the pleasure of talking to a potential new hire for the store of one of my clients. This salesperson is thinking about jumping from the frying pan into another one. In the process of doing an interview, I asked why he was leaving one company to do the same thing for another company. His responses were very telling of the kinds of problems retailers at all levels are facing today.

ME: “Why are planning to leave your current company?”

Mike: “I am not making the kind of money they told me I would make.”

ME: “How much did they say you could make?”

Mike: “I can’t remember, but I know I’m not making it.”

To Mike’s credit he did show me his commission statements which proved he was right. The commission statements also told me the reason why he was looking was for a new sales position was the fact he is coming off probation, and still not making enough sales to cover his draw.

ME: “What would be different in this position; which is basically doing the same thing you did in your last position that is going to improve your income?”

Mike: “I don’t know.”

That sad part of this exchange is the fact this is his third sales job in 20 months. In spite of having little skill or talent for selling, he is able to move from job to job because most store owners wait until they are desperate for people to cover the floor. This forces them to hire the best available at the moment, instead of the best.

Desperation is why Mike, with little skill or talent for selling is able to get a sales job. Once he moves on to another operation, their performance standards will drop a bit, accelerating the death cycle for the business. Hiring the Mikes of the world is one of the reasons why perfromance standards drop.

To my client Mike is a strong potential hire soley because he has experience. They prefer hiring people with furniture sales experience, the justification being that hiring people with experience shortens the learning curve. The problem with that, is most people looking for sales jobs with experience have bad experience.

This is because of the lack of commitment by owners to developing their salespeople. Everywhere I go, owners tell me they have trouble hiring qualified salespeople. I ask them what they mean by a qualified salesperson, and their description is usually that of the next Michael Jordan.

There aren’t many Michael Jordans out there. Even Michael Jordan wasn’t Michael Jordan without a lot of time and effort invested in coaching and training; something most retailers are reluctant to do today.

The fact owners are reluctant to do the kinds of things necessary to improve the quality of salespeople on the floor, like training them, is out of fear. This kind of behavior reminds me of the old saying: “Cut of his nose to spite his face.” I never really understood it until now. There are a lot of store owners don’t want to train new salespeople because they are afraid they will be training the competition.

This attitude actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the new salesperson fails and leaves and looks for greener pastures, like Mike is doing now, forcing owners to once again do an emergency hire of the best available, and the vicious cycle keeps repeating like a bad day at the races.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

My computer equipment is three years old and is starting to give me trouble. I decided to buy a new computer network and replace my existing home office network. I walked into a computer store and let the salespeople try to work their magic. After walking into the store I began to wonder, "where have all the salespeople gone?"

I came to buy something and my initial impression of the store was not good. I was ignored upon entering - par for the course - and ignored the entire time I was in the store. That was fine with me based on the attitudes I see walking around. Unfortunately for me, I needed to ask someone about the one of the products I was interested in due to lack of info on the display.

I look around for a salesperson and the only one in view is standing behind one of the display counters. I stand in front of the counter and wait to see how long the salesperson will talk on her phone to one of her girlfriends. One minute goes by.

She finally acknowledges me with her eyes and she points at her phone and keeps talking. I have no idea why she points at her phone. I can see she is on it. Two minutes go by.

I look around the store to see if there is any other salesperson available. There are two at the back of the store talking to each other. As I start to move towards them, they walk into the back as one of them pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his vest pocket so I return to the counter. Three minutes go by.

I try to interrupt her by asking, "Are you going to be much longer?" She excuses herself to her caller and implies I am being rude when she tells me "Can't you see I am on the phone? I'll be with you in a minute." I am tempted to say something from a professional point of view but in I decide not to waste my time. I look around one last time to see if the smokers are back. Four minutes go by.

No wanting to waste any more time, I decide to go home and buy two new computers, some wireless networking equipment and two laser printers (one black and white/one color) over the Internet. If am going to be treated rudely, I might as well do it from the comfort of my own home. The downside for me is that I will have to wait a few days for everything to arrive frustrating my need for instant gratification.

As I walk for the door, a manager type approaches and asks me if I found everything. "Yes," I reply, "accept good service." She gets an annoyed look on her face as she responds with a lame "could I help you?" in a tone that clearly implied she didn't want to. "No thanks!" I tell her. "I'll just wait for the G.O.B." She then gets a stunned look as she recognized that by using that phrase I was probably someone in the trade.

As I walked out I thought to myself that I could do a good deed here. I could tell her what is going on her showroom floor. I could tell her how the attitude of her salesperson just cost them a pretty good-sized sale. But I think she already knows. Besides, I was off duty.

I had other reasons for not volunteering: they are not my clients, she did not ask, and one phrase I have learned the hard way in my life is that "no good deed goes unpunished."