µ ICE news & info
Why I Was NOT the Best Salesperson (But Wrote the Most Business)
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any years ago, I had to finally admit I was not the best salesperson on the floor; Ron and Doug had the natural talent. Ron was very smooth with the
customers, and they loved him. Doug had so much technical knowledge that customers trusted his advice. And yet, I was always one of the top writers. So how did I overcome Ron’s charisma and Doug’s knowledge? I worked smarter! One thing I did well was to maximize my existing customers. Luckily, I had a few tools at our store that made maximiz- ing my customers easy: I had a POS system and an install schedule. You have those tools, too? Great! Read on and cash in. After I worked with my customers and figured out
good time to call is a day or two before the end of the month (again, trying to be front of mind as the cus- tomer is trying to figure out how to spend the next paycheck). As I was becoming successful with this idea of call-
JASON DENTON
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, IN CAR EXPERTS
what amp and woofers they needed, and I did my job of maxi- mizing their budget (that’s code for “shook every penny out of their wallets”), I realized that in many cases the premium amp and woofers I sold them were more than they had planned on spending. That left them without the budget for grills, sound deadening, a capacitor, an upgraded battery, or any of the other things I would have liked to have added to the sale but couldn’t because they ran out of budget before we got there. Then it dawned on me—I needed to keep track of these customers so I could persuade them to come back later and get these missed items. But how could I easily track them? My POS system! My POS system made it easy to add new model numbers to
the system, so I created a SKU called “NOCAP,” and it had a $0 selling price. It was simply a marker I added to the customer’s invoice if they did not buy a capacitor but needed one. Then I created one called “NODEAD” and one called “NOGRILL.” Before I knew it, there were 15 to 20 new SKUs I could add to any invoice to tell me what opportunities existed and where. After I wrote up the order for the customer, there would be a few extra lines on the invoice called NOCAP, NODEAD, etc., and at the end of the month, I would run a report on these SKUs so I would know whom to call. Typically, I would run the report and call the customer on a
Thursday, since that is the day before payday for many people, and I wanted to be first in line to get part of that paycheck! Another
64 Mobile Electronics May 2014
ing my customers to remind them of the products they wanted but couldn’t previously afford, it became obvious that when the customers came in for these upgrades, they tended to buy more stuff! Why not? They were in my store with their paycheck in their hand, they were in a mood to buy, and I was in a mood to sell! So the question became, how could I get ALL of my customers to come back into my store? That was easy—I would tell them they had to come back. Now, grab your installation schedule and follow
along. We told our customers they needed to come back in a week so we could do a five-minute quality control inspection of their install. Do a quick sound check and adjust the gains and covers if needed, make sure the woofers are tight in the enclosures, and check the stability of the amp rack. It’s really a win-win situation, since doing this shows you really care about the quality of your work, and the customer appreciates the extra attention. When we booked the customer to get the equipment installed, we would book a follow-up a week later, or we would call them a week later and ask if they could stop by on their way home from work for a quick quality assurance check. Do your duty, and check out the system. If you find a problem that requires shop repair time, it is still a win, because you are the hero to the customer, who would have called upset when the problem surfaced. I had customers who loved our store because of these quality assurance checks; they made us stand out from our competitors, and we pitched them as a value-added service when trying to close the customer. So, between calling customers who needed caps, grills, back-up cameras and everything else we did not sell them the first time around, and with recent customers coming back in for quality assurance checks, we always had cars in the parking lot, and we had happier customers. I didn’t have the skills of Ron and Doug, but I had a better plan of attack, and I had the commission checks to prove it. µ
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