The point of opening a retail store is to get people in the door so that they purchase goods and services. Advertisements are an obvious method by which to accomplish this, but the actual store must be used in order to attract customers as well. Rent is already being spent on the store, so it would be wise to maximize its potential. There are ways of making the most of your store’s frontage that will entice people to stop in and spend money.
First of all, contact the city and county to familiarize yourself with local building codes. The reason for this is so that you know the limits on the size of a sign on the front of the store. You want the biggest one allowed by law. Big signs can be seen from the street, and that is how to reach motorists driving by the store. It should have a distinct design that people relate to your business. The first quality of the store many people notice is a large, memorable sign. Visibility is essential.
Window treatments should begin with a tasteful open sign at, or slightly above, eye level. Don’t even bother with a sign that indicates closed anywhere on it. The term bears a negative connotation that should be avoided. Other signs in the window should present a common theme. For example, the signs may be advertising a particular new product or an exciting new sale that is happening at the time. Be sure that at least one of the signs presents a call to action, such as a limited time sale or a buy-one-get-one offer. Any good salesman knows that you have to make customers feel as though it is imperative that they visit your store or risk missing out on an incredible deal. It should go without saying that the text on displays should consist of large print.
Store exposure goes on after the door is locked. Set aside a little extra for electricity each month so that you can illuminate the front of the store with lighting. You can use lights to simply shine on the front of the store to brighten it up or to project a memorable image onto it. You are going for tactful instead of gaudy, so do not use colored lights.
Above all, use your store’s frontage to entice potential buyers, but don’t clutter it so much that they cannot see inside. Window shopping is important too. As long as you treat your store’s frontage as another way in which to advertise and you do so tactfully, people will walk and drive by and feel compelled to check out what’s inside.
Learn More : Shop Awnings
As a business or company expands, so do its telephone requirements. As more and more employees are added, a business telephone system will need to be set up. This is necessary because one or two phones cannot possibly deal with all of the calls that will be placed and received on a daily basis. There a few ways you can go when choosing a business telephone system.
Business telephone systems are designed so that anyone at any telephone connected to the system is able to access the lines. Almost all systems these days offer supplementary services such as voicemail and data transfer. In the early days of business telephoning, key systems were the method of choice. Someone would manually switch calls from line to line and the telephone on the receiving end would feature buttons that allowed the selection of whatever line on which the call was coming in. Relays then performed the switching tasks, but even these have mostly been supplanted by large-scale integrated circuits (LSIC). The cost of utilizing a key system has been largely diminished using LSIC technology. Caller ID, speed dialing, and automatic call accounting are also facilitated using LSIC.
Key business telephone systems have become integrated with private branch exchange systems (PBX) with the advent of integrated services digital network (ISDN). Two or more connections that carry voice, data, video, fax, or other combinations are facilitated on one line using ISDN. It used to be that only the large and costly PBX systems could support ISDN, but key systems have advanced to the point at which they are able to do so. This has created what is known as a hybrid system that can carry digital and analog signals. Analog, however, is becoming scarcer as time passes. Hybrid systems offer an advantage over strictly key systems in that they add functionality found on PBX systems to the hands-on approach of the key.
A private branch exchange is a business telephone system that is exclusive to a particular business instead of one that is operated by an outside carrier. PBXs connect all of the internal telephone lines of an office or business with each other and with the public switch. Switches between lines are done automatically, unlike in a key system in which the user selects lines manually. Private exchange branch systems can become somewhat pricey due to the amount of features they offer and the complexity of their operation, but they save money on internal calling, something that can become expensive when handled by local phone services. And of course, PBXs allow for many more simultaneous voice and data deliveries with more complexity.
Choosing a business telephone system really comes down to the size of your company. Smaller businesses maintain more control and spend less on a key or hybrid system. Larger corporations would be better served with a private branch exchange and the greater capabilities it offers.
Next : Phone Systems
Whenever the subject of excellence comes up, I immediately think of Tom Peters’ best selling work from 1982 “In Search of Excellence.” It’s hard for me to believe it’s been over 25 years since my dad presented this book to me, an aspiring young sales rep, telling me “you need to read this…this guy Peters really gets it!”
Today my roll as a sales rep has helped me notice that while many sales reps strive for excellence, very few will achieve it.
The Difference Between Excellence and Good is Slight yet Powerful
I have learned that excellence is attained most often not by a resounding victory or a large margin of superiority, but instead by a very slight edge. Our sport culture provides a good example. Tiger Woods is recognized as the best golfer in the world. His average number of strokes per round in 2006 was 68.11. Tiger earned $9,941,563 for achieving this and winning 8 PGA Tour Events. Know who was number two? Jim Furyk, with a 68.86 stroke average. That’s just 0.75 strokes per round more than Tiger. Talk about a slight edge! That less than one stroke per round earned Mr. Woods $2,731,000 more than Jim Furyk. So if being excellent is a matter of gaining a very slight edge, why don’t more of us achieve it?
I think it is becasue we simply view excellence from the wrong side of the defintion. In your role of coachingyou must challenge your sales team members to think of excellence as a standard set by themselves, not anyone else. Go here to learn more!
The first step to excellence starts with how we view ourselves. The best thing you can do when sales coaching is help your reps remove their “head trash” regarding success and develop strong self-concepts. From my sales coaching and sales management experiences, I’ve learned that sales reps can only perform in a manner consistent with the way they perceive themselves. Click here to learn more about helping your reps!
Let me say that again – your salespeople can only perform as well as they see themselves performing. If you want them to be excellent, you have to help them envision themselves as excellent and successful. They have to believe that they offer an excellent service; at the self, product and Company level. And in your role as sales coach it is your job to help them discover this for themselves through ride alongs, weekly meetings and debriefing sessions. Got it?
As someone interested in maximizing performance through sales coaching, your number one job is to help your team members uncover and vanquish their own barriers to excellence and to success.
Of course, you yourself must have the desire, and the mindset, to be the best… to strive for the extra stroke per round in your “game” as sales manager and sales coach. This brings us to an interesting point. How does Tiger Woods, arguably the best golfer to ever play the game, not only keep his edge, but continually improve?
Simple, Tiger Woods has a coach.
So let me ask you… Who is your sales coach?
It seems as though everything these days is being done electronically. Correspondence is performed through email and businesses communicate with one another by sending forms and bills from one computer to another. The transfer of these documents and other sheets full of data is known as electronic data interchange, or EDI.
It would be incorrect to sum up EDI as simply shooting emails back and forth. Electronic data interchange has come to encompass sending bills, checks, and other important documents with proper formatting. An exchange from person to person via something like a floppy disc or DVD can be considered a part of the interchange, as long as the intent is not to have one or both parties perform any interaction with the data. Current standards prefer that human interaction not even be a part of the equation. The only time an actual human being should have contact with any EDI documents is for the purpose of error correction.
In electronic data interchange terms, those who send and receive the documents are known as trading partners. It is up to them to decide what to send and for what purpose the documents will be used. Because this is one of the few aspects of EDI that involves human interaction, these communications are sent using human readable specifications. Products that are to be sent and received also need to be as specific as possible between the trading partners so that the proper transaction is completed. EDI guidelines within rather large companies are sometimes particular to each individual department.
One of the benefits of electronic data interchange is that the automation of it corrects many errors. When shipping and billing documents are transmitted in proper EDI format, mistakes are caught by computer programs and fixed before they reach the end user. Both trading partners’ computers will reconcile aberrations so a person doesn’t have to. Not only do these errors not have the chance to cost anyone money directly, but even more money is saved in the amount of time electronic data interchange frees up. Without the need for someone to scan a ton of papers and forms with a fine tooth comb, his or her efforts can be better spent on more productive tasks. That, and a company does not need to keep a costly position on the payroll to do the job that EDI can take care of.
Electronic data interchange saves time and money. There is no more poring over scads of information that could take hours. Without tying up someone (or an entire team) in such tedious activity, their services can be better utilized elsewhere, making for a more efficient and profitable business.
