Treat Your Business Like the Ballet!

With Tony Gattari and Achievers Group

I recently took my wife to the ballet and paid $250 for the privilege! As I sat there I thought to myself, ‘Would I pay $250 if the dancers turned up on the night, had not been given any choreography, and had not practiced?’

Imagine the uproar! People would demand their money back and the whole production would be shut down!

Yet everyday, pet stores hire young employees and don’t invest any time in teaching them properly, and don’t supply them with the appropriate systems to give a consistent level of service.

Why do you let your employees practice on your customers? Lucky it’s your money leaking out of the business, and not mine!

How is it that a teenager, who can’t clean their room, can run a multi-million dollar McDonalds business? It’s because McDonalds have systemized everything to deliver a consistently exceptional level of service time and time again.

Now ask yourself this question - is my business not making money because I do not have a system that produces an exceptional level of service, drives people into my store, and gets customers to purchase over and over again?

To ensure your success you should set up simple systems to ensure that you deliver an exceptional level of service time and time again. Here are the ones that you need:

Point-of-Sale System: Unfortunately most retail businesses purchase a POS system for the lowest possible cost. Without spending a fortune, you can invest in a POS system that can link with sales objectives. Look at having a popup reminder system that reminds the employee to sell an added value item. Also invest in a system that allows you to collect the customer’s details on purchase, and produces reports on what your loyal customers purchase on a regular basis.

Inventory Management Systems: To maximise the return from your Inventory Management System, it is imperative that you use the system to set re-ordering levels (or basic stock levels), so that you are always in stock of your bread and butter lines.

Sales Systems: Do you have scripts for how to answer the phone? Do you have a system for how employees handle customer complaints? How do your staff greet customers as they enter your store? If you don’t have these basic systems write them down now! It costs you nothing to train your people with basic systems.

Induction Process: No one who is on your shop floor should be serving customers until they are properly trained on how to serve a customer, have basic product knowledge, know how to put a sale through the register, and know what your expectations are of them. Imagine if your new employee loses a sale because they are serving a customer who wants a $1000 product they don’t know of. How long would it take you to make that $1000 back, as well as recover your reputation?

Retail is not difficult, and it isn’t meant to be. So as you develop your systems make sure that a 16-year-old can understand them and that the system is there to make you money, by ensuring that your people serve your customers consistently so that they not only close the sale, but also give the customer a reason to come back.

For more helpful business advice please visit www.achieversgroup.com.au.