Sales Strategy
How To Be The Most Successful You March 02, 2016 (0 comments)
Tampa, FL—Two major factors weigh heavily on achieving your maximum level of success. At the risk of losing those readers who hate football (bear with me), the answers are best understood through a sports analogy.
The Denver Broncos won Superbowl 50 while the Tennessee Titans won only three games the entire season. Both teams have a forward pass as an integral part of their playbooks. So what’s the difference between the forward pass of the Denver Broncos and the Tennessee Titans?
It’s talent and execution. Not only did each member of the Broncos possess a generous amount of talent, each player executed the responsibilities of their position better than their competition. No “trickeration,” just flawless execution of the basics: blocking, tackling, running and catching.
Similarly, two key differentiators between top performing retail fine jewelry organizations and all others can be synthesized down to talent and execution.
The Science of Talent. Since top performers are clearly doing something right, it behooves us to understand them. In 2016, using validated behavioral assessment instruments, we scientifically measured the behavioral dimensions of the top performing 1% of retail fine jewelry consultants. Included in our study were high-end local independents, regional and national chains, as well as e-commerce jewelry stores from across North America.
From this data we were able to create a benchmark which would be akin to a diamond cert, but for people. We can now predict with 92% accuracy which employment candidates will perform at superstar levels. A new hire candidate’s behavioral survey can now be compared to this “TalentCert” benchmark to determine how they will perform—before investing in them. In additional to increasing sales by improving hiring accuracy, the assessment is used to personalize the training focus of existing staff.
The Science of Execution. The new hire onboarding and training in many fine jewelry stores consists of simply telling the wide-eyed new hire, “Here are the keys. Now go sell.” What management does with a new hire in their first ninety days of employment will dictate their level of long-term success.
So what is the fine jewelry equivalent of football’s blocking and tackling? Consultants must flawlessly execute three fundamentals:
The Science of Mastering Relationships. Every successful business and personal interaction is built on the solid foundation of relationships.
The Science of Building a Customer Community. It is the owner’s responsibility to get new customers into the store. It is the sales consultants’ responsibility to get existing clients back in to the store.
The Science of Activating Your Selling SuperPowers. There is a very specific five-step process to which today’s consumer responds exceptionally well. The advent of e-commerce has forever changed the customer interaction—in fact, so much so that following the old-school manipulative techniques that culminate with “the close” will actually encourage customers to purchase online where there are no manipulative salespeople. We’ll address this in future installments, but I’ll leave you with the reminder that becoming a “most successful you” and impacting the store’s success is reliant on scientifically hiring the people that fit the benchmark and consistently and constantly training them to execute their job roles better than your competitors do.
Terry Sisco, founder and CEO of Exsellerate, Inc. has observed, studied, assessed and benchmarked the sales top performers throughout the fine jewelry industry for more than 40 years. From these insights he has authored and facilitated fun and engaging training programs that have impacted the performance of major bridal brands, industry giants such as Platinum Guild International and Blue Nile Global Call Centers, as well as national and regional chains and high-end independents. He is a CPBA, CPVA, CPHD certified to assess and analyze behaviors and driving forces. He has recently completed a research study funded by Platinum Guild USA to determine the behavioral commonalities of the top 1% of fine jewelry sales performers throughout the United States. Contact Terry Sisco here: tlsisco@exsellerate.com, 813-787-7355, www.exsellerate.com, facebook.com/exsellrev.