Sales Strategy

Jimmy DeGroot: The Benefits of Proactive Salesmanship in Retail February 06, 2025 (0 comments)

Green Bay, WI--Is your sales team proactive or reactive? For jewelers to survive and thrive today, we must move toward a proactive sales team.

Gone are the days when we can just sit by and wait for customers to come through our doors.  There are many more forces out there that can grab the attention of customers, even our existing customers and lure them away from the habit of pulling into our parking lots. 

Proactive salesmanship is actively engaging customers and initiating conversations that eventually lead to sales. My Wisconsin jeweler friends calls them “Created Sales.” By reaching out for special in-store events coming up, customers' anniversaries, birthdays and significant events, or just an invitation to see something new you just got in, we can enhance customer satisfaction, optimize operations, and ultimately drive higher sales.

Benefits of Proactive Salesmanship in Retail:

• Enhanced Customer Experience: Actively engaging with customers allows jewelers to understand their needs better and provide personalized recommendations, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty. For example, we can anticipate our customer’s preferences and proactively suggest pieces we think they’ll like.  Now we’re wowing them and creating an experience that will last in lifelong memories.   
• More Consistent Sales Opportunities: When we’re actively engaged in outreach, we can create a more consistent flow of business in our stores.  We’re driving the bus by starting conversations.  I may reach out to Janet about her engagement ring restyling that was inspired by an event we had in store last November.  Now she begins that custom project in March rather than on December 15th.  As long as we’re continually reaching out, we can enjoy consistent sales throughout the year. 
• Improved Inventory Management: We can often ejoy the process of moving out old inventory if our staff is “alerting” customers to a unique piece that’s going away soon at its lowest price ever and never to be seen in our store again. 

• Cost Optimization: Simply put, we can enjoy the cash benefits of selling an item that’s spoken for many times with a deposit or even fully pre-paid before delivery.  This reduces our inventory on hand guessing game. 

• Enhanced Customer Loyalty: Proactive outreach helps our customers to feel connected, even when we have to give them bad news such as a delay in delivery or even the non-availability of a product.  Honest, fast communication with alternative choices and problem solving helps customers feel more connected with us.  They’re much more willing to be understanding of a negative situation in a created sales situation.  

Proactive selling is the new norm for the most successful sellers.  If your store doesn’t have a program in place, feel free to reach out to me at jimm@trainretail.com and we can show you what we’re doing or suggest other programs out there.  

Sources: Retail TouchPoints and Retail Dive

James (Jimmy) DeGroot is a professional jewelry sales and operations trainer from the jeweler’s side of the counter. Having been in management and the jewelry business for over 20 years, Jimmy offers weekly training to jewelers nationwide via the Train Retail website. Jimmy is an AGS titleholder and specializes in training relevant and timely methods for jewelry teams. He can do a full training on making Bridal Presentations the best they can be, among many other regular training options. Contact Jimmy at jimmy@trainretail.com or call 920-492-1191.