Speakers offer sales advice
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, February 18, 2007
Scottsdale, Ariz. — Speakers at Furniture Marketing Group's 2007 Symposium here emphasized listening, execution and willingness to change as key ingredients to doing business in today's world of time-starved consumers and commodity-like pricing.
Sam Geist, president of marketing and consulting firm Geist & Associates, asked retailers why consumers should do business with them. He quickly added that the usual answers — about quality, value and service — are mere entry-level requirements.
Retailers need to dig deeper to figure out how they can distinguish themselves from the competition, he said. Price isn't the answer, he added — there is a glut of product and services on the market and this is eroding profit margins.
"When you use price to drive business, you become a commodity," he said. "Somebody will beat you at the game."
He suggests focusing on other points of differentiation and then execute. Compared with Wal-Mart, he said, Target is cleaner, has wider aisles and often carries better products.
Leslie Carothers' presentation on "Aligning Your Organization for Sales Success," could have been called "What Women Want," as the founder and principal of The Kaleidoscope Partnership sales training and consulting firm reeled off ideas and desires regarding the furniture shopping experience.
For starters, "I want to be able to come to your store at 7 a.m.," she said, adding that retailers need to rethink their business hours for time-starved working women and spouses. If they can't open early, they might consider a monthly breakfast for customers.
She also encouraged retailers to take a cue from Starbucks, which has given consumers a sense of community in a high-tech world.
"We have a great opportunity to create a third space" for consumers in stores and through online community boards, she said.
In a presentation on the secrets of power negotiating, expert Michael Sloopka suggested that there aren't any shortcuts.
The three key stages of every negotiation are establishing opening positions (or finding out what the other side wants and saying what you want); probing for the other side's real needs; and reaching a compromise.
Argument and anger are never part of a successful negotiation, said Sloopka, an expert on the subject and practice director of negotiatingcoach.com, a division of Selling Solutions.
When a consumer asks a salesman for the best price, the answer shouldn't be an immediate discount, he added. More has to be learned. For instance, is the customer paying cash or by credit card? That will affect the bottom line.
Sloopka encouraged dealers not to offer a concession unless it pays for itself in some way. He also suggested they consider maintaining price integrity by negotiating instead on other areas of value such as set up, delivery, and furniture removal, which he said some stores misguidedly provide for free.
"I don't like 'free,'" he said. "I prefer 'no charge,' because free suggests there's no value to the service to start with." Rather than saying design service is "free," for example, just say the charge is "waived."
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