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A Staff Motivation Plan To Make 2017 Your Best Year Yet | December 28, 2016 (0 comments)
Omaha, NE—Warning! This article may cause you and your team extreme changes in attitude, focus and enthusiasm! Probable side effects include increased sales, productivity and profits.
Praise Your Team! Take the time to tell each staff member how much you appreciate them and compliment them for something specific they have done. Whether it is the top sale of the day, selling an add-on, placing special orders or cleaning up the wrapping area. Let them know you’ve noticed. Make them feel important! They are your team!
Success is rarely an accident, it comes from a combination motivation and aptitude. If you are motivated, you’re willing to do what it takes to attain a desired outcome. When you continue to practice, you increase your aptitude which in turn increases motivation that allows you to continue on the success cycle. Aptitude is a result of learning - it’s a result of a permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice.
Ensure Your Team Clearly Understands Your Plan:
- State the new direction/changes and expectations you have of your staff. People respond better when they know the goal you want to achieve and what is expected of them.
- Describe the experience you are creating to reinforce your vision. Be specific. “Here’s what I am going to do.” By doing so, you are taking accountability for your changes. “Here’s how I need each of you to help…”
- Ask for feedback. “Can you think of something else I/we need to do?” This makes your team part of the process, which in turn, makes them more invested in the outcome
Communicate your Vision. Before you can guide your business, shape your strategies, define action plans and create a culture of continuous improvement, you need to communicate a vision that your whole team can understand and buy into.
A vision is a guiding principle that can provide context for completing objectives and strategies. A vision describes the way a business must operate to achieve it financial goals. It must become the guiding light around which all business systems align.
A vision allows you to attract team members that buy into a similar dream. Without one, you risk employing team members that are motivated solely by personal gain or something quite different. People generally perform best when they understand and empathize with what they belong to. We all want to be part of a team that strives for something together. Sure, we want to be paid well for our efforts, but our passion, enjoyment and job satisfaction usually comes from something beyond “earning a wage”.
Business is like a jigsaw puzzle with hundreds of individual pieces making up the finished puzzle. But you need a vision. Imagine how difficult it would be for a group of intelligent people (your staff) to put together a jigsaw puzzle if you took away the box with the picture on it! In other words, they had no idea what it was meant to look like when it is completed.
Hold weekly store meetings. Present weekly store meetings that clearly communicate your vision and define your goals. Turn the vision into something real and tangible rather than a concept. There are five steps to success:
- Define Your Objectives: “This is where we are and this is where we are going.”
- Establish Strategies: “This is how we will get there.”
- Resources: “What/Who will we need to help us achieve our objectives?”
- Implementation and Behavior: “We will all need to do things a bit differently and try new ideas, to ensure we achieve our goals and objectives.”
- Measure, Monitor and Modify: “Are the strategies working? Quick enough? If not, we need to modify the strategies and/or behaviors to see a difference.”
Create Monthly Incentives. Incentives are a great way to change behaviors, motivate and work toward a common goal. They can also be a lot of fun, and something your team looks forward to! Here’s an incentive idea that instills drive and teamwork: hang a chart on the wall and track/update progress daily. You can decide what to track: total sales, average retail sale, # of items on a ticket (add-ons), service clients turned into a sale, etc. Review progress at your weekly store meetings.
Ask your staff what will motivate them. Give them options to choose from, such as:
- $175 store merchandise credit
- Day spa treatment at the spa of their choice
- $75 dinner for two at a restaurant of their choice
- $75 cash
- Paid day off
If the store hits the reach goal, each team member gets to pick one of the above. If the store hits the stretch goal, each team member gets to pick two of the above.
In the event that drive and motivation occurred while reading this article, please feel free to reach out for more details and advice! Contact The Edge Retail Academy at Inquiries@EdgeRetailAcademy.com or 877-569-8657.
Darci Aselage, client services manager and business mentor, has been serving the Jewelry industry since 1989. In the start of her career, she grew from part‐time sales associate to the vice president of a multi-million dollar retail store in Ohio, where she contributed 19 years of service. Through her retail experience, along with gemological education from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and the American Gem Society (AGS), Darci was instrumental in directing all day‐to‐day operations. including retail sales, staff development and training, purchasing and inventory management, marketing and advertising, human resources and future growth forecasting. Darci has served in numerous community and jewelry organizational boards and committees and in 2005 was honored with receiving the Women's Jewelry Association (WJA)'s Midwest Rising Star Award. In continuing to propel forward in the industry, Darci demonstrates a strong vision to inspire and grow others using her abilities and talents.