Sales Strategy
Jimmy DeGroot: How to Open All Avenues of Communication With Your Team March 20, 2025 (0 comments)
Green Bay, WI--Often when talking with employees I’ll hear the words, “Communication is horrible around here. There is none! We don’t know what’s going on or how we’re doing until there’s an issue.” I once asked a salesperson when the last meaningful conversation they had with their boss, and she told me the day she was interviewed. And I know it’s extremely easy to get caught up in all the activities of our jobs and business but here at Train Retail, we want you to run the business and not the opposite. So everything we’re talking with you about is about maximizing your business while minimizing your time. So let’s take a quick examination of your communication or lack of communication and chat about 4 methods you can use to not only improve communication and morale, but your bottom line as well.
First, for you managers, the daily morning huddle. Ideally, this is held 15 minutes before the doors open while there are no customers to distract you. This is strictly a positive meeting where you as the manager give your stats on where you are towards your monthly goals, progress or winners of any contests or promotions going on, congratulations to achievers from yesterday, what’s happening in marketing and promotions and finally, what’s happening today as far as personal schedules or special customers coming in. I would focus highly on Google reviews, how to get more, contests we're having, and read any 5 star reviews from yesterday. This is huge. This meeting is 100% positive and encouraging. This happens every single day and if you’re the one running these huddles and you don’t happen to be there, put someone else in charge. Something good always comes out of a morning huddle, even at the very least, everyone getting together.
Next, for owners and managers, have a once-a-week meeting in a regular place at a consistent time. I personally like a remote location like a coffee shop because it feels more comfortable than in an office or in the store where there are many distractions.
At this meeting, first discuss metrics as compared to your goals. These can be whatever key metrics are important to you, and this can also be driven by the metrics that you want to improve such as average retail or profitability. Then of course there’s marketing, sales professional’s progress and then any other key operational discussions you may need to have.
This regular meeting can be very successful if you keep it consistent, discuss the same agenda items every week and get a lot of input from both sides on their input on your discussion. For example, I always loved asking my managers, “What do you think can be done to help Randy increase his average sales?” What do you think is a fantastic question for both sides. Owners, be disciplined on holding these meetings regularly and don’t cancel them or make changes wistfully without respecting your manager’s time. Having regular topics will also help your manager prepare these reports ahead of time. So be fair and don’t spring things on them. They have a lot on their plate. Also, keeping the discussion to metrics and activity will help you both not get into a downward spiral talking about personalities. All you can manage as leaders is activity. So only discuss what you can work with, activity and metrics.
Next, managers have a once-a-week meeting with the staff to discuss sales training, products, operations and marketing. These are your four topics. For the sales training, many people use our sales training videos that only take 10 to 15 minutes per week. But whatever you do in sales training, be sure to have a healthy discussion with good feedback and input from your team.
Next, any new product information, training or new lines coming out. Then any operational items that may need to be discussed such as a new point of sale system, a new procedure or anything related to operating the store. Finally, the marketing. Now I know we discuss marketing in the daily huddle, but this is a little more in depth where we talk through promotions or ad campaigns.
Finally, managers should have regular one-on-ones with your team. By regular, I mean at least once a month. The most important thing here is that it gives each of our people the opportunity to be heard and to hear how they’re doing. My meetings were very short. I told them how they were doing again the store averages such as average sale or average sales per hour. Discussing metrics against the store’s numbers de-personalizes it and doesn't pit one employee against another. We never want to compare people to people, always against the store’s metrics. Give them an opportunity to tell you what’s going on with them, how you can help them in any way and what they think they can do differently if needed. This little on-on-one is fantastic for morale and communication.
So, those are four main communication tools for you to use on a regular basis. If you’ve not done this yet, like all habits, it’ll take a bit to get the habit rolling, but once you implement all of these, it’ll get much easier, smoother and help your business to run smoothly and efficiently.
