Retail Today with Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor

One of the things we all dread is an employee who comes up to you and says, "I've got to talk to you." Then you find out that they're going to quit and they'll give you maybe a few days’ notice or any number of things. They might give you some excuses. But how to tell if an employee is going to quit is pretty easy.  First off, you start looking at their eyes. If they can't look at you in the eye,...

Do you know how to create a compelling window display? Well here's a little tip for you, is to understand where their eyes will be. So if you have a window to work on, I suggest having somebody walk down the street, and then someone else is inside the window, and the outside person is going to mark where their eye is on the front of your display window.  The key is, once you've got that focal poin...

Should you have name tags in your store? That's what I want you to think about today. You know, when I go into a store and I see people all have the same shirt on, I think, "Oh, well, that must be the uniform." And then when they don't have a name tag you feel awkward, like "Is this really somebody who works here or not?" In fact, I often have people say that to me because of the way I hold myself...

When I asked some businesses how they're doing, they'll say, "Oh, our customers love us." And I always have to say, "Well, how do you know your customers love you?" "Oh, because they tell us." But you know, I don't really care about how your customers, your loyal customers feel about you. Ultimately, what you care about is, how does a new customer feel about you. And that's why you need to inspect...

So many retailers these days are saying, "Oh, we just want to get our customers in and out." That's often because that's the way the employee or the owner wants to shop. I just want to get my stuff and get out. So, when somebody asked me the other day, "Is it better to get a customer in and out of the store?" I said, "No, not really. Because lingering is where the money is." So, when you're going...

How do you get customers to come back? Well, first off, make sure that they have an exceptional experience in your store. That means that they have to feel for those few minutes they're in your store, they're the most important person. And the reason that is is because they're the ones that pay your salary. So first, give them an exceptional experience, and then what you're doing with your marketi...

Setting a Higher Bar For Dress Code in Retail Sales | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing I was in an apparel shop recently and there was a young woman with a tee-shirt that had stains and some rips in it, and it didn't look like they had bought that way. And she was waiting on a woman who was buying a pretty nice outfit. And I just found myself thinking, "Does anyone...

One of the worst mistakes I see retail sales trainers do is they allow employees to get all the way to the end of the sale and they try to close it. And then the customer says, "Oh, I'll be back." And they're like, "Okay, well here's my card." Look, if you have to give them your card, you didn't really close them. And the reality is once somebody walks out of your store, they're open to another co...

It's tempting to cut costs when things aren't going your way. Right? And with a lot of retailers, foot traffic is down. But how do you know if your labor is too lean? Well, the biggest way is to stand outside and notice how many people don't receive a greeting or they are looking around for help and nobody is talking to them. The key and the tip I want you to think about today is staff for the rus...

Have you ever had somebody that you could sell anything to? It was so easy, they loved you or the same thing with an employee and then there were other ones, whether it was a salesperson, as a salesperson, you couldn't sell anything or there's an employee just couldn't get through. A lot of times I find that your own personality style might be holding your sales back and there are four personality...

Do you have a high performing salesperson? And do you think that they are just the best? And if you lost them, the whole world will be lost. A lot of times I find that high sales cover a wealth of sins and sometimes we're rewarding our aggressive employees because they've got the most sales. Whereas they might be shutting down the rest of your employees, or they might be selling your merchandise a...

Sometimes when employees ask me questions after a training program, they'll say, "Well, how would I have known why they didn't buy from me? They just didn't say anything the whole sale." Well, that's a big warning sign. Silence is deadly in sales. Either you talk or you ask questions to make a connection, but you don't let people get away with not saying anything. That means you probably spoke too...

  I hope you're taking these tips and training your employees, and one of the things that will help you to understand how we train is to know the bell curve of training. There are four parts to a bell curve, so picture in your mind or a little hill that goes up. At the beginning, your employees are unconsciously incompetent. That means they don't know what they don't know, and they're just moving...

  McDonald's back in the 80s instructed all their cashiers to say, "Do you want fries with that?" What that did was, it got the average ticket to go up, but unfortunately got a lot of pushback from employees. "I don't want to say the same thing over and over again." Eventually, they abandoned that just for their Value meals. Smart retailers know that upselling and cross-selling are the very best w...

  If you're an apparel retailer, I'm wondering, are you using your fitting rooms correctly? Look, the sale isn't final until somebody tries it on. And so many times we just say, "Oh, the fitting rooms are here and we forget about them." But the fitting rooms are the best place for an apparel retailer to grow sales. Why? Because the person is half-naked and they are susceptible to you bringing new...

A lot of people wonder when someone walks in with a smartphone, “Are they going to find a way to use it during the sale or after the sale to get a better price?” Here's the key to avoid showrooming. It's stay in the sale. Make sure that you engage the stranger and you discover the shopper, and if they do pull out their phone, help them scan the tag or stay in that sale. When you help them use thei...

How do you keep a shopper engaged? That's the question I get more often than not. The easy answer is you get them to be engaged by asking questions to qualify and explain. The other part of that is you get them to hold something you are showing. Instead of you holding it or just pointing to it on the shelf, you hand it to them, and point out something for them to look at or turnover or something l...

Did you ever hear anyone say, "Oh, this is the odds of somebody winning a game," or, "These are the odds that someone is going to get the job?" Well, the odds are about converting, right? How many times do you think they're going to win? And one of the things that we forget in a brick and mortar store is, it's all about converting lookers to buyers. So you need to track your conversions. There's s...

The more you talk to your employees, the better they'll perform, because how you'll coach is how they'll play. So, whenever you can talk to them in a small group, like a huddle before doors open, that's great. But I recommend having a store meeting. And a store meeting doesn't have to take a lot, but you do need an agenda. So, start off by introducing everybody because invariably there's someone n...

Have you ever started a sale, and you've gotten all the way into it after 25 or 30 minutes, and there you are with two identical products, pretty much, that the customer can't decide between? When that happens, invariably they're going to walk out. And you know what happens when they walk out? You didn't get any money. So what I always say is, when that happens, and it's a rarity, but when it does...

Did you know that one of the most powerful ways you advertise your attention to detail and how focused you are on your business is how clean your bathroom is? It's true. An awful lot of people go through and they check out a bathroom just to see how thoughtful and detail-oriented you are, and I'm here to tell you that if you are one that leaves it to when we think about it or when something goes w...

Are you one of those retailers that waits until you absolutely need someone before you hire? I'm here to tell you that's not the way to do it. You should always be hiring. That's #1 today, but also, what are you saying when you go out to try to find new employees? One of the things that we do is we throw up the now hiring sign. And you know what? That's just not very engaging, and if you're lookin...

When I do in-person retail sales training I am always shocked by the number of people who go through and think that, "How are you today," is a proper greeting. It's not. Because invariably you are hoping that customers are going to say, "Fine, and you," and they're going to say fine. That's just a place holder for an interaction. It's not good. And what even worse, if you say, "Hi, how are you tod...

Hey, today is a quick tip about scheduling. I just think it's really important that instead of you scheduling whoever is available on certain days, that you award hours on their ability to make sales. Doesn't mean that they're been with you a long time or a short time, can they do more? Here's a simple test. Can they juggle multiple shoppers while you're on the sales floor? If they can, they are m...

Do you ever hear that old adage, "The customer is always right?" Yeah, they aren't always right. Anybody that works in sales worth their salt, especially when a retail store knows that, you know what? Customers can actually lie to you. They'll tell you they have no need after they just told you they had a need. They can tell you they have no money even though they do have money. What we want to do...