Promote a Competitive Atmosphere at Your Retail Location

Promote a Competitive Atmosphere at Your Retail Location

Promote a Competitive Atmosphere at Your Retail Location : Multi-thousand tips to make your life easier.

If you are in the retail business, your success depends on your sales team's ability to attend to customers promptly, cross-sell items, and engage the customer. You need to motivate your sales team so they can get customers excited about your merchandise. If they feel positive and optimistic, it will translate into dollar sales for your business. One way to do this is to foster a healthy but competitive atmosphere in your store.

• Hire the right people. The first order of business is to make sure you hire people who are enthusiastic, hardworking, and highly personable. You need people who are highly motivated self-starters.
• Use verbal reinforcement. When someone does a good job, praise it. Most people thrive on affirmation, so give it. A pat on the back is sometimes enough to keep someone motivated.
• Don't reward what is basic or expected. The first thing to remember about fostering competition and offering incentives is that you should reward what goes beyond the basic. You don't want to reward mediocrity; instead, you want to encourage stellar performance.
• Set clear goals. If you want to foster competition, you need to be clear about expectations and goals. Your staff needs to know what they are working for and how much they should be selling.
• Offer a multi-tiered rewards system. One way to raise the bar in your business is to set different levels of achievement. At the very least, you should set the bare minimum in sales that each person should meet to keep their job. Next, start offering small rewards. You may offer two to three levels. The more sales, the better the reward. You may start increasing commission percentages as more sales are brought in, or you may offer larger bonuses after certain sales levels have been achieved.
• Offer tangible rewards. Aside from verbal reinforcement, you need to offer your people something they can see, hold, and touch. It doesn't always have to be money. It can be as simple as a coupon for a large latte, a gift certificate to a nice dinner, or a designer item from your store. During the holiday season, offer a honey-baked ham to the person who brings in the most sales.
• Have a visual tracking system. To foster a competitive spirit, place a production chart where your staff can see how they are doing. If a person is at the bottom rung, it may motivate them to do better and improve their standing. It's also impressive to see how high a person ranks. If an employee is in second or third place, it will help motivate them to move up to first place.
• Update employees. You need to let people know how they are doing. This is where the visual tracking system comes in. However, you may also want to meet with your staff once a week or do a one-on-one to find out what you can do to help. Get feedback from your employees. However, be careful about employees tattling on their coworkers. You want to foster healthy competition, not backbiting or a crab mentality.
• Make it fun. No matter how serious your sales situation is, you need to stay positive and upbeat. Make your competition fun. Give each level a quirky name or create a fun theme. When you make your charts, use cute figures. Inject humor and excitement, and don't pressure your team so much that they stop working as a team.

A healthy but competitive atmosphere in your retail business will encourage your salespeople to do their best. If they have their own sales goals to meet, they will be more likely to push products, attend diligently to customers, and provide great service.