Low seller sales: who is to blame and what to do?

The success of the transaction is 80 percent dependent on the ability of the seller, so the problems of the seller turn into problems of the entire store. How to solve the most common of them? This is what BEITRAINING experts say.

(Only a part of the article "Problem Seller: From Difficulties to Solutions" is published here. Read the full version in Shoes Report # 108)

"Am I to blame?"

The seller is the face of the company, and in retail, the number of sales and the number of regular customers depends on him. Often the buyer falls in love not with the product, but with the very attitude of the seller towards the client, whose professionalism allows him to bring the deal to its logical conclusion. But there are no ideal salesmen, just like ideal people, and in professional life everyone has ups and downs. The main problem for the seller can be a drop in sales. But before trying to influence the situation, you need to understand the problem.

“Remember that every person has a level of productivity, and fluctuations in this level are natural for every employee,” says Anya Pabst, head of the Russian branch of BEITRAINING. "And the task of the manager is to track changes in employee performance and respond to them in time." At the same time period, employees may show different results simply because someone is in the first (growing) and second (most productive) phases of the cycle, and someone is in the third phase, characterized by a decline in productivity. It is easy to avoid misjudgment simply by taking a sufficiently long period of time as a basis.

Ambulance pareto

The second rule is not to forget about the Pareto principle, which is one of the determining ones in trade. The Pareto principle says that 20% of employees make 80% of revenue. Of these 20%, only 5% of sellers show outstanding results, and 15% show very good results. Of the remaining 80% of sellers who bring the rest of the profit, 25% of employees show good or satisfactory results, and the results of 55% of the remaining need improvement. This general correlation, determined by the Pareto principle, changes quite insignificantly in the situation of staff turnover or motivating actions.

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The Pareto principle is also true for customers. Of the 100 people who went to the store, only twenty are really interested in the product. Five of these twenty are ready to make a purchase right now. Consequently, the usual level of conversion of visitors into buyers is five percent, and how many people are hiding behind these five percent is determined by the traffic of the outlet.

If you own two stores, and in one the seller makes 25 transactions a day, and in the other - 15, this does not mean at all that the first works better than the second. If the first store is located in a more lively place, and 500 people cross the threshold of the outlet every day, then 25 transactions are a sign of normal, regular work of the seller. If at the same time the second store is located on the outskirts of the city, and no more than 50 people enter it daily, then with the number of 15 transactions per day, the conversion of this outlet is as much as 30 percent, and your employee in this case is a true genius in his field.

And this is a cause for concern:

It is worth worrying about the low results of an employee when the conversion to his shift is less than five percent. But in this case, one should not cut off the shoulder: you need to understand the problem, because the solution always depends on the cause. If the low conversion is caused not by negligence of sellers, but by insufficient traffic of the outlet, then the solution to the problem lies not in the area of ​​working with personnel, but in the area of ​​promoting the enterprise. In this case, you should think about a competent advertising company or even to change the location. But if the problem lies with the seller, it’s worth understanding the essence of the matter. Perhaps the root of all troubles is that the seller is unsure of himself - for example, he does not approach the client, afraid to receive a refusal or fearing that he will not be able to answer the question. Here we are talking about a mismatch in the personality profile, or about insufficient knowledge about the product. The second problem is easier to fix than the first, but both can be solved through mentoring or training. Build a good training system for managers so that they know everything about their product that is possible.

If self-doubt does not disappear, it is worth considering whether the employee corresponds to his position. If the seller’s personal profile corresponds to his position, and there is enough knowledge about the product, the matter may be in the employee’s unwillingness to actively offer the product. The most obvious way to deal with low sales in this case is financial motivation. Moreover, fines in this case are the last thing to resort to. It’s best to develop a bonus system whereby the best sellers receive bonuses - monthly or quarterly. It is possible that the bonus part of the salary is saved when a certain level of sales is reached, it decreases slightly if the sales correspond to the average at the enterprise or decreases significantly if the sales plan is not fulfilled. The seller must fulfill not only a personal, but also a team plan. To some extent, the presence of a team plan may be more effective, since the achievements or failures of one affect the others, and the pressure of the team can have a decisive effect and be more effective than a challenge to the carpet to the authorities. To increase motivation, you can use not only financial leverage. Motivation can be improved with the help of internal corporate competitions, where the prize is not a financial bonus, but a prize. Establish a small cash desk at the enterprise, where everyone must contribute a certain symbolic amount, and, based on the results of the competition, give the winner the tickets to the cinema, a toy for a child, or something else that were bought with this money, which are not very valuable, but pleasant. No matter how ridiculous at first this method of motivation may seem, it can not only have a good effect on sellers, but also raise the corporate spirit. In addition, the reward may also be intangible - for example, an extra day off or the opportunity to choose a more convenient shift.