※Translation in English of the column.

FB serial small lessons

Sales is the work to sell happiness ⑤

“Passion and logic”

by BRUSH chairman Eiko Akiyama

In order to succeed in store operation, various factors such as store location, MD strategy and VMD are necessary. The most decisive factor is “performance of salesperson”. Even under the same conditions, the results can vary greatly depending on the performance of the salesperson. The best performance needed to maximize performance is the passion. Love for products, dedication to customers and efforts to achieve goals… However, this alone will not allow us to survive in an increasingly competitive market. The ability to objectively perceive and analyze reality, the Logic is further required. Outside the box and without getting carried away by emotions, verifying the numbers and science is the key to growing sales.

A familiar example is to “visualize (quantify) daily sales behavior”. By tracking KPIs such as the number of customers served and of opportunities decided, you can clearly see the trends of the store (each staff) . For example, a large number of customers served shows the willingness to sell. High decision rate with a small number of customers served means passive customer service. The numerical values can unravel the structure of people and stores.

By providing accurate feedback based on this information, behavior of staffs can change. The results of actions, good or bad, appear always in numbers. The more the number goes up, it motivates staffs and the higher they try to aim. Also, confidence in effectiveness through continuous tracking leads staffs to start to analyze themselves. And there is another advantage to visualizing sales behavior.

Since store staffs work in shifts, it is difficult to grasp the behavior of each person, and virtually impossible for store managers to see for themselves everything happening in the store. It is said that they can see about 35～40% of actual range of business hours. Stores are operated in 60~65% that they don’t know. I was shocked when I found out about this fact. By visualizing sales behavior, it becomes possible to estimate this invisible 65% from the numerical value.

The world is rapidly changing, and customer needs also change. It is important to look to “the present and the future” and think about the best. Numbers (logic) give us great hints to find the answer.