How hard is being into retail sales?
I worked in retail stores for a lot of my time as a teenager. Retails sales are tricky because:
1: the customers can be in a hurry, and there are often rushes where most of them visit the store all at once.
2: the customers have constantly shifting expectations. For instance, I can’t count how many times I’ve heard from a customer “Oh, you don’t have ABC? XYZ store down the block had ABC.”
3: low customer loyalty. In an online-dominated world, it’s getting more and more convenient to just order stuff online. It makes me want to pull my hair out when a customer wants something, we order it in bulk, and they buy it one time and stop coming.
4: Instead of selling one product, you have to be capable of selling any one product from potentially thousands on the shelves.
#2 is why I love selling online, by the way. I never have to deal with somebody complaining that my store doesn’t have what they want. I only attract customers who are searching for exactly what I sell. Let’s discuss retail some more.
There are many hard parts in retail sales, but obviously a big part of it is just the challenge of selling to people in general. If a salesperson conquers that challenge, things are going to be a lot easier for them. Achieving a sales target is not easy in retail. However, anyone semi-competent in social skills can meet those targets, if you know to tackle the customers’ objections in sales.
I have been into cold calling and retail sales for a long time. Door to door selling had been a challenging task for me, as direct interaction with customers having different behaviors and reactions was a real test of my patience.
With my varied experience in sales, I have discovered that there are five universal objections or doubts customers will have to your offer when you approach them as a salesperson. After thorough research and analysis, I have discussed all those objections, and solutions to them, in my post: 5 Deep-Seated Customer Doubts That Kill Your Sales (And How to Erase Them)
The five objections/doubts are:
#1 No Time/Too Busy
#2 Seen It (Outdated)
#3 Not Interested
#4 Yeah Right (This Is a Scam)
#5 Later (Can I Think/Talk It Over With Someone First?)
To handle them:
#1 Create urgent interest
#2 Do not argue, re-frame product as “tried and tested”
#3 Find or emphasize urgent customer problem
#4 Social proof
#5 Cheese whiskers formula (explained in the post)
If you have ever faced any or most of the above objections from customers, then that post is for you, as it goes into much more detail.
Since discussing all of those objections and their solutions in this answer would make this answer lengthy, I would recommend you read that post. If you are interested, you can visit this link.
In conclusion, hitting sales targets used to be a headache for me in retail sales until I discovered the common sales objections, and found working solutions for them. After that, retail still wasn’t fun, and I eventually left it, but I performed the best out of my team!
Please feel free to reply to me if you need more information on any of the points discussed in this answer. You are also welcome to share your specific retail sales issues. I would be pleased to suggest solutions to them, involving the suggestions of top-notch industry experts in sales.
Good Luck!
Thanks,
Cleo
