Furniture Industry Sales Education Articles
10/1/2024,
Furniture World Magazine
Scott Coley unravels the past and present of furniture design and discusses his plan to pass this knowledge along.
10/1/2024,
Furniture World Magazine
Guide shoppers down a path to the sale that makes the most effective use of everyone’s time.
Published 2004 - 2024
Show your salespeople how to better understand their customers and they will quickly establish themselves as real experts in the art of selling!
The choice is yours. Will you have holiday sales this summer or holiday events? The difference is how you make your store POP!
Share these 12 key maxims with your salespeople to let them know “HOW” they can help your company’s “WHY.”
Recommendations for connection, consistency & coaching.
Editors’ picks of furniture and accessory designs.
Scott Morris says that many furniture and bedding sales associates habitually try to connect with customers in all the wrong ways.
Here are three major insights that can turn a $1 million dollar writer into someone who writes twice or three times that amount.
We are faced with third and long almost every day. Are the QBs on your sales floor and service department ready?
Whether or not you agree that we’ve entered a new retail paradigm, it’s time to double down on proven sales practices.
Sunbrella’s Greg Voorhis provides Furniture World readers with an update on the latest in outdoor fabric sustainability, colors and textures.
When an RSA suggests adding a mattress to a bedroom set purchase, the sale may start to get complicated and possibly start to go really wrong.
The secret of the most effective retail sales closers is that they don’t treat closing as a separate step in the sales process.
Contributing editor Scott Morris presents ways to help your retail salespeople get better every day.
Shoppers may see red and blue flashing lights when approached by an RSA. Here are useful skills to help people relax into the furniture sales process.
If you want to have more trouble-free sales, educate
your customers with facts and take care that your RSAs do not spread misinformation or disinformation.
Knowing the positive and negative
qualities of these seven sales types will help you to be a better coach or mentor.
There are many habits on and off the sales floor that can kill sales and reduce customer satisfaction.
Sol was the best closer in a chain of 23 furniture stores. He passed along
the following three selling “moxies” that are still relevant to salespeople today.
Personnel turnover is high and training costs time and money.
Sales training during onboarding often focuses on what’s important to stores. Ongoing training needs to refocus on what’s important to customers.
As pandemic related issues retreat, what exactly might be done to increase the relevance of in-store sales experiences?
Ten proven benefits that flow from asking shoppers the right questions to help them create the right feel for their rooms.
One exceptional salesperson wrote the equivalent of $10,000 every day in 2020, selling furniture and mattresses.
The product must be good, but just as important are how we make our customers feel welcome.
Free delivery and give-a-ways like free pillows and protectors do more harm than just eroding margins. They lessen perceived value.
Selling mattresses and furniture can be a great career. So, what can be done to elevate the status of RSAs, starting now in 2021?
Eight simple steps to improve the effectiveness of your sales meetings.
A true detective story about finding the right questions to ask to make that all-important mattress sale.
At Market, if you see me getting on an elevator, will you follow me through the doors or take the stairs instead?
Get your customers to spend more money than they intended on a mattress, and leave your store happy for spending it!
Advice from a half- dozen half pints that may just help you grow your retail furniture business.
Ed and Bill debate the ways millennials are likely to change as they reach their peak furniture buying years.
This sales
formula for growth will help you take actions that will directly impact the strength of your retail
business.
What RSAs know, or may not know, but should know about the business of selling bedding. Take this quiz and find out!
Here come the lizards! Words and phrases RSAs should avoid.
More troubles in the 1919 issues of Furniture World Magazine
Most mature, adults would say that they know right from
wrong. If it is that easy, then why don’t all retail players act ethically all
the time?
One damn thing after another in 1919.
If you've decided to negotiate, here's what you need to know.
Should retailers use YouTube for sales training to reduce turnover?
While plans have an annoying tendency to go haywire, having
no plan at all is begging for failure.
How to get the be-back customer back by David Benbow, author of How to Win the Battle For Mattress Sales.
The luxury sale isn’t a buzzword, it’s not a flash in the pan, nor is it a money grab. Luxury selling is a mindset.
A list of seven poor retail habits RSAs hang onto, but give your shoppers a negative impression.
Interesting excerpts from summer 1925 issues of Furniture World Magazine
Rapport is the glue that binds people together in families, organizations and relationships, including sales.
If you are a retail owner/manager you probably don't have a lot of down time. But what about your RSAs?
100 years ago the word "knocker" was common furniture industry parlance (often used in Furniture World Magazine) to mean a wholesale sales rep or manufacturer's rep.
Here's how to build sales by using a follow-up system that creates top-of-mind awareness.
Product designer and trend expert Nancy Fire talks about consumer design preferences, color and style trends for 2018.
Here's how to improve your stone-age phone practices to increase store traffic.
This holiday season my mind muses on season-appropriate themes of gratitude and turkeys.
With regard to gratitude, it is generally accepted that grateful people have less stress, which scientists say translates into better health and longer lives.
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same!
Part 1: How can a quiet, modest, non-pushy RSA ever be a good closer? Here's how!
Five steps to help retail sales associates serve customers like millionaires so they might become one.
Best ways to avoid situations that may lead to customer injuries; physical, emotional and financial.
Best ways to help the uninformed and misinformed to make the right purchase decisions.
Where does sleep deprivation fit into a sales narrative that emphasizes comfort and good, restful sleep?.
These two sales skills help to demonstrate that the salesperson has respect for the shopper’s thoughts and feelings.
Here we will present a number of specific objections furniture and bedding customers can and will bring up.
Responding correctly to customer objections is a powerful and productive sales skill. Here’s how to do it right.
A list of 25 traits, attitudes and poor practices RSAs practice that will contribute to failure on the retail sales floor.
“The most successful retailers have been able through nurturing, to obtain and develop exceptional employees throughout all areas of their businesses - whether it be sales, administration or distribution,” says Wayne McMahon in his “State-of-the-Industry” report.
The Presentation Step is the start of closing. Here’s how to do it right.
What’s the solution to under-performing sales associates?
Is lab-grown leather something furniture retailers might be selling in the very near future?
If not executed properly, the selection step can wind up badly for both RSA and the customer. Here’s how to do it right.
Every day your service or sales teams end phone calls without suggesting a solution or invitation.
More qualifying questions RSA’s can use to keep the sale moving along.
What are the most common mistakes you can stop your salespeople from making in 2016?
Part 6 of our Steps-Of-The-Sale series. Qualifying questions RSAs need to know to complete more mattress sales.
For those of you who haven’t heard, there’s a (big) tiny home movement brewing.
Anticipate these common but often ignored needs that can hinder the pathway to completing a sale.
The right colors make a huge difference in the selling power of retail displays.
Part 5 of our Steps-Of-The-Sale series. Do your RSAs fail to ask even the most fundamental qualifying questions?
Bad habits are easy to form but hard to break. They equal lower sales and declining revenue.
Part 3 of our Steps-Of-The-Sale series. The ‘Meet and Greet,’ is where the R.S.A. makes a first impression.
This installment provides a checklist of everything your R.S.A.’s need to know, inside and out, about the background knowledge that supports and sustains the sales process.
A structured, two-week training program for new bedding (and furniture) RSAs.
Five simple selling techniques you should be able to implement flawlessly.
Panel of industry retailers and manufacturers give Furniture World readers advice on how to position leather offerings for maximum sales through intelligent sales and advertising practices. A leather identification chart and glossary of terms rounds out this three part series.
Panel of industry experts follows up on it’s discussion of current leather trends covered in the last issue, with leather buying facts, advice on servicing and cleaning leather, plus warranties.
Larry Schneiderman's Eight Foot Rule
Ideas, stories and teaching moments adapted from a new, well reviewed book by Larry Schneiderman of Schneiderman’s Furniture.
Bienenstock Furniture Library Gardens to debut during High Pont show.
This two-part series is a complete guide for retail owners, buyers and sales professionals that details leather features, benefits and advantages. It also includes best retail practices from a panel of industry experts.
Retail is full of first dates. Gordon Hecht reflects on how a bit of maturity goes a long way in pleasing customers, partners and improving performance in retail organizations.
This 90 Seconds To Success Series article looks at furniture coatings and their impact on the long-term beauty of our products. It will also touch on how sales associates might address some of the health/environmental concerns that relate to the furniture making process.
A three-step process to explain and train your way to a comfortable and hospitable customer buying experience.
Tips for jump starting the furniture careers of young employees and co-workers.
Part 11: Are we in the middle of a bedding revolution,
an evolution, or is it a non-starter for your operation?
Customer Connection is multifaceted. Let’s explore connecting on three levels. Store image, marketing message, and the personal connection brought about by our sales team’s charm and expertise.
Use Form and Line to your advantage when creating retail displays and customers' rooms.
Without proper attitude, even superior sales skills and impeccable product knowledge can fail to create customer buy-in. So, what is an optimal attitude for retail salespeople?
The 10th installment in our Better Bedding & Mattress Sales series continues with a close look at the latex and gel used in mattresses, their features and benefits.
The 9th installment in Furniture World Magazine's Better Bedding & Mattress Sales series continues with a close look at foam.
Rene’ Johnston-Gingrich finishes up her four-part series with a discussion of ways your sales team can “wow the crowd” by exceeding your customers’ expectations.
How positive, empathetic and effective are your employees?
This time, we continue our exploration of mattress anatomy by looking at springs and their role in mattress support, comfort and durability.
Get the dream sales force you deserve by establishing standards, committing to ongoing learning and communicating the right information to your customers.
Selling mattresses is about to get more adversarial.
In the second part of this series we will examine the lost art of mastering our relationships with difficult customers. We will learn how to develop productive and mutually beneficial relationships with the toughest and most elusive personality types.
Sales personnel who fail to explain industry terminology and the unique features that benefit the potential buyer, frequently fall back on price and discounts to close the sale.
The past seven installments in this series on selling better bedding presented tools and techniques the best retail furniture stores use to price, promote and present mattresses, pillows, mattress protectors and foundations. This time, we start an exploration of mattress components and construction with when, why and how to bring up components and construction.
Part six of Furniture World’s selling better bedding series features expert sales tips and techniques that will help you to increase attachment rates on power bases.
If you’ve made a decision to take advantage of the uptrend in furniture production and sales of Made in USA and Made in Canada furniture, this article is a must-read.
More bedding salespeople need to focus on the importance of selling strategies. Salespeople who use only one strategy will keep using it, even if it is often doomed to fail.
This article is about reaching out and making a connection with your customers. It is about giving them a “hug”. Cathy Finney uses concepts developed in Jack Mitchell’s new book to not only explain how you can make home furnishings relationships work, but also how you can make them happen.
If you think that better communication means developing a way to talk longer, more persuasively and more eloquently, you are mistaken. Communications skills must be developed and practiced to yield results at retail. Communication isn’t about how natural you feel, or how comfortable you are. It’s about how comfortable the listener is and the effectiveness of the sender.
If you think that better communication means developing a way to talk longer, more persuasively and more eloquently, you are mistaken. Communications skills must be developed and practiced to yield results at retail. Communication isn’t about how natural you feel, or how comfortable you are. It’s about how comfortable the listener is and the effectiveness of the sender
The “curse of competence” is a syndrome that leads potentially great salespeople to complacency. In this two part series, Cathy Finney looks at ways that good salespeople can become great salespeople.
If customers find that you are exciting to work with, you will be able to create urgency rather than just pressuring them to buy.
The “curse of competence” is a syndrome that leads potentially great salespeople to complacency. In this two part series, Cathy Finney looks at ways that good salespeople can become great salespeople.
It doesn’t matter if you are selling a racked pitcher in a flea market for $2 or a $2,000 sofa; honesty makes a big impression.
Use Your Personality and charm, along with some common sense and a little push, and your sales could increase dramatically.
The way salespeople frame customers’ objections largely determines whether they will see them as roadblocks to be blasted out or as steppingstones to assist their progress. Positive minded salespeople reframe objections: they never think of them as something to be overcome, but simply as something to come over.
If customers are the ultimate focus of your retail existence, you will want to know their commandments. What retail “sins” can bring down fire and brimstone (as well as lousy sales) on your stores, your salespeople and your peace of mind? Former sinner Cathy Finney preaches to the faithful in this enlightening article.
In the February/March issue we examined four major sales mistakes. This feature looks at ways to avoid ethical problems that occur in sales situations. Should you share information that may “kill” a sale? Should you blindly believe everything customers tell you about their needs? Is “nice” always the most professional attitude?
Your customers hope that your sales goal is to help them make the best buying decision. If you don’t ask for the sale, it could mean that you are too timid… or worse, that you don’t fully believe that your products are the best choice for your customer.
If you buy into negative mindsets, your business fortunes will follow along...OOPS! Your attitude will plummet and you will dive in a free fall. If you think that you or a
colleague may be susceptible to suggestions of doom and gloom, read this article that outlines common sales pathologies and their cures.
Salespeople often have trouble establishing rapport with customers from different cultural backgrounds. Are there ways to overcome these difficulties? Salespeople should concentrate on the needs that all customers have in common.
In the June/July issue of FURNITURE WORLD Cathy Finney presented words of wisdom gleaned from some of the most talented retail sales consultants in our industry. These are salespeople who Sell With Assured Techniques (SWAT). This month, more top salespeople share their secrets.
This article, excerpted from Peter Marino’s new book “It’s Buying Silly,” explains why benefit statements must be personal as well as properly delivered and timed.
In the world of retail, attitude is everything. Energy Vampires can masquerade as a client, a colleague or your mother... so read this before sunset!
Today more than ever before, retail sales people need effective tools to capture their clients’ attention, give them a positive experience and aid in making the sale.
Most of us have heard the saying, "Features are; benefits do." Nevertheless, features and benefits are actually different aspects of the same things. In this excerpt from his wonderful new book, Peter Marino explores the kinds of benefits that leave our customers feeling glad.
This article presents words of wisdom from some of the most talented front-line retail sales consultants in our industry. These are salespeople who Sell With Assured Techniques (SWAT).
The fertile imagination of Peter Marino brings FURNITURE WORLD readers the fanciful tale of Don Key Hoaty, failed furniture salesperson. It is very loosely based on Peter’s own life and on Cervantes’ beloved character.
Customers tend to be won over only by personalized feature-benefit statements that are relevant to what really turns them on.
The only way to turn low-margin one-time customers into clients is to help them to find comfort in their buying decision. The only way to do this is to make shopping an emotionally satisfying experience. Buying home furnishings is an emotional experience. Not buying is a logical one.
What do evangelical faiths and great salespeople have in common?They talk about what they believe in all the time. They’re sold on it. They’re happy to get into a conversation about their beliefs with anybody, anytime.
Part 3 in this series presents the “rapport report”. Rapport must be established and nourished. It is both a state and a process. Peter Marino looks at how to establish it and keep it alive.
Many salespeople just want to be nice. They don’t want their customers to perceive that they fit the mold of pushy commissioned salespeople. In doing so, they may fail to meet the needs of their customers and cause them to buy from that pushy salesperson down the street.
Part 2 in this series looks at the fear your customers have of making a serious buying mistake and how you can make them feel glad by helping them to become aware of their needs... and then fulfilling them!
We’re in an age of complicated communication over-wrought with high technology and bombarded with thousands of sales and marketing messages a day. Make it easy for your prospect. Make it simple for your customer. Just get right to the point.
Cathy Finney’s article on closing the sale continues from the June/July issue. She presents closing techniques your salespeople definitely need to know and others that they need to forget if they want to effectively help customers to buy. Remember, it’s not about "closing" a sale. It is about opening a relationship!
Chapter 1 in Peter A. Marino’s new manuscript on selling furniture. If you think that you and your salespeople are in the business of selling furniture to your customers... Peter says that you are dead wrong. Why? Because selling furniture is all about getting customers to buy!
If you’ve ever wished that someone could visit your store to teach your salespeople how to more effectively "close the sale" you are not alone. The reality of the situation is that your people probably don’t need to learn how to close. They need to be taught how to open! If you can’t open, you can’t close. It’s as simple as that.
Having wrestled with sales tips and techniques offered up by sales educators such as Genie Z. Laborde, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Madelyn Burley-Allen over many years, Peter Marino presents his top seven secrets for selling success.
If your customer’s think that a mattress is just a mattress, then they probably think that a furniture salesperson is just a salesperson. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a customer is just a customer or let them get away with this unfortunate mindset.
Part one of a two part series poses this question. If you really satisfy your customer’s needs and establish rapport, why wouldn’t she tell all her friends, co-workers and family about you? Cathy Finney looks at reasons why salespeople don’t ask, and why they should.
Each salesperson has the option of leading the sale, following the customer's lead or trying to overlay the store's agenda on the sales process. An ethical approach to helping your customers avoid purchase mistakes will bring bottom-line benefits to your store and a world of change to the reputation of our industry.
Customers like to do business with someone they consider "nice" and they will send their friends to these nice people as well. It's not always a bigger store or lower prices. It can be as simple as a genuine regard for the customer.
Today's sales trainers suggest that salespeople establish customer rapport, spend time determining needs and solve problems. But what happens if they don't ask for the order?
Do your salespeople meet, greet and sell every customer the same? Cathy Finney gives practical tips on how to serve customers the way they are comfortable being served. It's about learning to speak their language. It's about understanding them and their needs, and figuring out how you can help them.
The next time a customer says "I can buy it cheaper on the Internet," or "There are better deals down the street," or whatever, don't give up! Personality skills, creativeness, and cleverness do pay off when you are trying to put a sale together.
There are twelve major ways that retailers systematically lose bedding sales. The first eight ways were discussed in the April/May issue of FURNITURE WORLD. In this issue Dr. Marino looks at handling customer objections, selling with a strategy, the Valence Factors, the foundation for qualifying customers and the roles of the salesperson. This series is based on the new FURNITURE WORLD video and workbook Stop Losing Those Bedding Sales.
Business cards are both the wave of the future and the way of the past. The cards may be low-tech, but they can leave an indelible impression. Ideas from a new book on creative ways to create and use business cards to expand your business.
There are twelve major ways that retailers systematically lose bedding sales. Eight of these are outlined in this important series. Every step of the bedding sales process is examined from handling phone inquiries to creating and following though on a successful bedding sales strategy.
The fourth in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
The fourth in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
In sales you learn to prospect, qualify, present, and close. You learn to sell. No one teaches us charisma. The best salespeople are loaded with it.
Drawing a line on a page and quoting Ben Franklin, or committing 27 textbook closes to memory is not going to work any more. Now closing is about relationships, ambiance, atmosphere, presentation and product suitability.
The Principles of Interior Design are the tools with which the Elements (covered in the August/September issue) are applied. There are five basic Principles of Design. They are balance, scale, proportion, unity, rhythm/ harmony, and emphasis/focal point.
Ron Wolinski of Simmons looks at how to re-focus your customer's attention on the health aspects of a better night's sleep.
The third in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the hear of successful selling.
Decorators use basic design principles almost intuitively in their day to day work. If you understand how to use space, line, form, color texture and pattern, you will be better able to meet the decorating needs of your customers.
The second article in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
Ron Wolinski of Simmons explains how a few minutes of preparation can save the demonstration and the sale.
How can you handle customers who want a better price without losing them?
The first article in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
Nasty customers are a fact of life. Their Prozac supply runs out and they take it out on you.
When salespeople hear an objection, they often panic! Instead, they should get excited! It means that their customer is interested. If they weren't, they wouldn't object!
The "real" concessions and the "real" bargains customers need are the benefits that lie within their products and services.
Ron Wolinski of Simmons shares a checklist of things that the best sales consultants do consistantly.
Within every company another Nordstrom waits for those who are willing to put in the effort. Subservience to individual role alone will fail, while focusing on the ultimate goal will result in true customer service.
When you get the name in the beginning of the "selling relationship" it is much easier to get their address & phone number at the end. She is more comfortable volunteering this information when you've been calling her "Louise" for the past 20 minutes. But how do you get this information upfront without being nosy or pushy?
Peter Marino's fertile mind created this story of Verax Dotcom, the salesperson who could not lie. It is fun to read and full of great sales skill information. Enjoy!
We as professionals must do our "probing" to understand what is important to our customers. There is, however, another side to this analysis process. That other side may be our biggest challenge. That challenge is to be a good "listener." Listening, very often, is one of the most difficult parts of the consultative selling process.
All things being equal, customers like to do business with salespeople they can relate to. If your prices are pretty much the same as your competitors' and customer service seems to be equal among stores, customers are more apt to do business with someone they like.
"Get yourself a good bed and a good pair of shoes because you are in one or the other all your life." That is the advice given to Peter A. Marino by an elderly customer. Why do some salespeople inspire customers to share their feelings and personal stories? The secret, he says is contained in the phrase; customers don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Ron Wolinsky of Simmons, looks at the national problem of sleep deprivation and suggests ways retail salespeople can help their customers to get a better night's sleep.
This ends Cathy Finney's 4 part series on the "Approach" which started with the June issue. This installment looks at having fun and alleviating your customer's worst fears about you.
We've all seen them. The "Don't" or "No" signs in the stores, the showrooms, the restaurants, the shops. They are "negative customer factors" because they do nothing to encourage business. Take these negatives... (including problems with the image of the entire retail home furnishings industry) and turn them into your positives.
You made a good first impression (See May FW). you look great, attitude appropriate and can handle "browsers" (See June FW). You avoided those drive-by-greetings, learned the fine art of looking busy and handled rude customers. Now you are ready for small talk and to diffuse any problems before they surface.
The proper maintenance of their sleep set plays a major role in the consumer's understanding of what they can experience with a new sleep system, and how they can gain the greatest return on investment (long-term comfort and support). We do not want our customers returning a sleep set due to lack of knowledge and understanding.
The Principles of Interior Design are the tools with which the Elements (covered in the August/September issue) are applied. There are five basic Principles of Design. They are balance, scale, proportion, unity, rhythm/ harmony, and emphasis/focal point.
Drawing a line on a page and quoting Ben Franklin, or committing 27 textbook closes to memory is not going to work any more. Now closing is about relationships, ambiance, atmosphere, presentation and product suitability.
Your salespeople may wonder how they can more effectively engage "browsers". Salespeople keep going back, and customers either get more rude with each attempt, or they act as if salespeople are totally invisible. What's the formula? What's the answer?
In sales you learn to prospect, qualify, present, and close. You learn to sell. No one teaches us charisma. The best salespeople are loaded with it.
Many of us provide our bedding customers with pillows. We ask them to lay their heads on these pillows, despite the fact that many previous prospective buyers have used them. Our customers don't like this practice. Fortunately there is an easy, sanitary solution.
The fourth in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
The national average closing percentage for a first-time customer walking into a home furnishings store is about 25%. The closing percentages for housecalls are between 93%-98%. In this article, Cathy Finney fine-tunes the skill of making house calls so you'll no longer waste your time, spin your wheels or get your brain picked
There are twelve major ways that retailers systematically lose bedding sales. Eight of these are outlined in this important series. Every step of the bedding sales process is examined from handling phone inquiries to creating and following though on a successful bedding sales strategy
There are no bad-hair days at retail. This is your wake up call to assess your flight plan for soaring... your action plan for "Me, Inc." This is the perfect time to "get over it and get on with it!" Cathy Finney offers some practical and motivational and fun advice on how to realign your sales efforts to ensure success.
Cathy Finney implores you not to talk about product. Instead, find out what they really want.
Every good salesperson knows that it is important to qualify customers. The questions you ask and the way you ask them determine whether or not the answers you get will help move the sale forward.
In order to establish good customer relationship, we need to be able to identify and deal with the various customer attitudes... Acceptance, Skepticism, Indifference and Objection.As we probe to identify customer needs, we will then introduce an appropriate product benefit that will solve that need.
Herrod's Department Store knows how to sell premium bedding. Sales perspectives from Great Britain and VI Spring.
You made a good first impression (See May FW). you look great, attitude appropriate and know how to handle "browsers" (See June FW). Now it's time to avoid drive-by-greetings, learn the fine art of looking busy and handle rude customers.
You made a good first impression (See the May issue of FW). Now it's time to approach those customers. This first in a three part series on "The Approach," deals with appearance, attitude, handling browsers and making your customer's shopping experience start out happily.
Bon mots (witty sayings) can be especially useful on those days when you are challenged to walk on water, for as author Herb Cohen wrote, "The secret of walking on water is knowing where the stones are." While there is no script for being a salesperson, the best salespeople seem to have an uncanny ability for saying the perfect phrase at just the proper time.
Your ability to solve specific problems depends upon how well you support the customers needs with appropriate product benefits. You can do this effectively with a communication skill called a Support Statement.
Ron Wolinski, Manager of Sales Education and Director of the Simmons Mattress Business "Academy" explains why the proper use of open and closed probes can vastly improve the customer/ salesperson relationship.
Nine to thirty seconds - that's it! That's all the time you have to make a good first impression! What's even more scary? If someone's first impression of you is negative, it will take them three times as long to change their mind about you!
This month, Peter A. Marino looks at the Verbal Attack Patterns (or VAPs) most of us use. Constructive criticism aimed at employees or co-workers are often taken as personal attacks. No matter what the manager's intent, if the comments are improperly phrased, they will probably be perceived as placing the blame, being mean, insensitive or unwarranted.
This article, which illustrates the "thinking process" established by the Simmons "Mattress Business Academy" is the first in a series of articles by Ron Wolinski, Manager of Simmons Education.
Have you ever said something, and as soon as the words came out of your mouth you would have done anything to stuff them back in? Part 3 on words to use and not use will explain how to avoid the lizards.
Using metaphors, especially those having to do with sports and war help convey that every disagreement needs to be hostile. Peter Marino discusses the role metaphors play in disagreeing with someone without being disagreeable.
There are words that calm and words that can enrage your customer. How can you quote them your policy, ask for their commitment, find out their budget and get a deposit without saying these words?
There are words that calm and words that can enrage your customer. How can you quote them your policy, ask for their commitment, find out their budget and get a deposit without saying these words? 99% of your job as a retail manager is psychology, is it not? It follows that what you say & how you say it will either earn your client's trust or ignite their true passions of anger!
Placating, Blaming, Distracting, Computing and Leveling. These five communication modes and any combination of them, affect the manner in which you communicate values, desires, expectations, and ideas under stress. The way salespeople and customer service people speak to customers, and the way managers use these modes to communicate with salespeople, can affect the long term success of your store.
Placating, Blaming, Distracting, Computing and Leveling. These five communication modes and any combination of them, affect the manner in which you communicate values, desires, expectations, and ideas under stress. The way salespeople and customer service people speak to customers, and the way managers use these modes to communicate with salespeople, can affect the long term success of your store.
My friends, take a closer look at your store, your products and your life. Use the passion you have, once had or only occasionally glimpsed. If you master this feat, then as Seneca suggested, your cup of clay will be seen as a cup of gold. Your customers will see that gold too, and sales will soar.
January is a time for reflection, that is, a time to think upon the past year and to plan for the year ahead. Fittingly, the ancient Romans named it January after the two-faced god Janus who with one face looked to the past, with the other to the future.
In an age when, as one author on marketing put it, "the free enterprise system has nearly choked us with choice," providing a "one on one relationship- selling" service for customers should be the goal of every salesperson. Martin Buber, the noted philosopher's ideas on the art of dialogue can help every salesperson to achieve this goal.
You know the routine. The cards that are angled 45 degrees to the right are the people I must follow-up on. The cards "tilting" to the left are distinct possibilities, and the ones standing straight up have items on order. Here's a follow-up system that can keep anyone on track!
Another of Ma Cooper's famous stories that looks at the problems salespeople encounter when speak, but fail to communicate. HFC research on confident and non-confident home furnishings buyers is also discussed.
Listening is not merely hearing. Anyone blessed with healthy ears and brain can hear. Yet the experts have known for some time that the average adult listens at about twenty five percent proficiency. Peter Marino looks at listening as a skill that must be learned.
Handling skepticism, misunderstandings, and drawbacks are some of the most challenging tasks facing the retail salesperson. The first step in successfully handling these objections is to consider them as customer concerns... as either expressed or implied needs.
One area many retail salespeople and managers address with alarming nonchalance is the approach to the prospect. A proper approach is essential to set the stage for the rest of the entire sales process. This article by Richard Tyler looks at the seven steps salespeople should take in the first 60 seconds of the sale.
Those familiar with John Lawhon's book, "Selling Retail" will remember how ecstatically he begins Book Two by exclaiming that the greeting, the approach, qualifying, and selecting, are not selling; they are getting ready for selling. While this article readily acknowledges Mr. Lawhon's indispensable contribution to retail selling in general and to selling furniture in particular, it does not share his conviction that presenting alone is selling.
The average salesperson's inability to handle customer indifference may be the greatest single factor contributing to our industry's loss of productivity. Accordingly, store owners and managers ought to concentrate more on teaching their salespeople how to handle indifference.
Unless you are selling pencils on the corner of a busy avenue, you should look upon closing as several possible next steps the customer and salesperson agree to take together. Peter A. Marino looks at topics such as; when to close, how often to close and how to "leave the door open" when the salesperson fails to win the customer's final commitment.
Amazingly, many salespeople do far too little probing to uncover their customers' needs. Meanwhile, many others misdirect their probing they so that the end result of their asking questions fails to uncover customer needs.
Furniture sales floors too often end up, a place where salesperson and customer carry on a casual rather than a focused conversation. Instead it should be a place where both salespeople and customers focus. This series continues with a discussion of the opening, a critical point in any sale.
Peter A. Marino again blurs the lines between literature, philosophy and selling skills to get to the heart of what our customers want from salespeople. He asks the question, "do customers want us to spin the very pictures they intend, or of that same old dull hat?"
Why Pareto Probing doesn't work and how you can successfully use open and closed probes to get the information you need to build customer confidence and make the sale. Open probes tend to raise the window of opportunity more significantly than do closed probes.
A manual manufacturer's reps can use to work more closely with sales associates in their home furnishings client stores.
Recently, noted sales educator Peter Marino began to examine some of his own habits on the sales floor. He found that, like so many other good salespeople, he had clung on to habits which needed replacing. The problem for most sales professionals is knowing when to replace that comfortable old sales pitch.
The best salespeople certainly possess all three of the basic skill elements of selling, namely: attitude, product knowledge and selling skills. It is the first of these... good attitude, which if lacking can poison a whole organization.
Put these twelve rules crafted with great care by Dr. Peter A. Marino into practice every time you do your presenting. They're the Golden Rules of Presenting.
Dr. Peter A. Marino discusses Penrose Scull's book, "From Peddlers to Merchant Princes, a History of Selling in America," which traces the development of selling from Colonial times to the present. Selling has changed, to be sure, but what still matters is not so much how the products of salespeople are conducted, but how salespeople conduct themselves.
Half a century has passed since Elmer Wheeler, called America's greatest salesman in his day, came up with what came to be known as the Wheeler Points of Selling. In this article Peter A. Marino revisits four of those points and adds a fifth from Michael Le Boeuf's book, "How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life."
Overcoming customer price objections is a daily challenge for retail sales people whether they are selling low, medium or high end home furnishings. Can we accept these objections at face value? Russ Page of Moosehead Manufacturing, illustrates his point with the classic story of 'Ma' Cooper
Once customers do not trust the salesperson's product knowledge, they tend to doubt the salesperson's honesty. Why? Because everyone has doubts about the intentions of salespeople who are not qualified to do what they say they'd like to do for us. Here is a close look at how to effectively use specialized product knowledge to get the sale.
By asking questions instead of telling, salespeople become more effective at both giving and receiving important sales information. Peter A. Marino explains the proper uses and associated benefits of mastering this skill.
Fanciful tale which reads a little like a famous Dickens Christmas tale. A bedding salesperson falls asleep at his posts and is visited by three sales scenarios.
The last of a three part series on customer objections looks at two kinds of customer indifference; objective and subjective. As salespeople we can only effectively deal with the subjective variety.
In selling there are three main objections salespeople face; objections being defined as obstacles put up by customers to impede their commitment or buy-in. The three types are the drawback, indifference, and skepticism. The second of a three part series looks at the toughest objection, even for top salespeople. The drawback or un-meetable condition.
In selling there are three main objections salespeople face, objections being defined as obstacles put up by customers to impede their commitment or buy-in. The three types are the drawback, indifference, and skepticism. The first of a three part series looks at how to win over customers who doubt the validity of your benefit statements without making them defensive.
While it is all right, and even advisable to remind customers to ask for us when they come back, we should put that request and all others we make of our customers in terms that benefit the customer too!
One of the significant differences between outside versus retail selling is the normally short amount of time the retail salesperson has to make the sale. Another is the anonymity of the customer at the start of a sale. These factors make it imperative for the salesperson to create an atmosphere of trust within the first several seconds of the sale. Peter Marino discusses several ways salespeople can create this all important atmosphere of trust.
More customers are lost to company indifference at all organizational levels, than any other cause. Simply stated, if the customer feels unwanted, unappreciated or like your employees are not interested in his or her needs and concerns, they will find another place to shop... and tell all their friends to shop there too!
True relationship selling requires that salespeople adopt an approach (a form) that sells something to the customer (the function). This concept de-emphasizes the role of closing in favor of building customer rapport.
Many good salespeople use the technique of preempting or anticipating objections. This technique teaches salespeople to bring up ahead-of-time those objections which tend to come up frequently. Preconditioning goes a step further. It preconditions customers to look for the product in your store that best meets their needs.
The problem with most sales training programs is that salespeople learn sales techniques, but are not taught to use them. Become familiar with the kinds of available programs; insist that the system they use trains a trainer; and make sure that any program they use has lots of role playing.
Treat customers like friends and they will buy. Make them mad, sad or scared and they won't. Sales guru Peter A. Marino looks at some common sales practices and explains why his ''unconventional wisdom" can result in dramatically increased sales and more satisfied customers.
The three-fold selling process is continued from the November (Maslows Hierarchy), December (Probing) and January (Qualifying) issues. The final part of the process... 'Strategizing," allows salespeople to use information gained in the first two steps, to complete the sale. The alternative to mastering this process is blind selling that relies on unfounded assumptions about customers and what causes them to buy.
"He's a born salesperson" and "He's a natural at it" are the words we hear from time to time. In his "Art of Poetry" the ancient Roman author Horace wrote: "For my point I fail to see the use of training without natural ability or of natural ability without training." Peter A. Marino provides more practical advice on how to implement an effective program to help you 'make' some good salespeople of your own.
The purpose of qualifying is to interpret the information obtained by probing in order to set up the best possible selling strategy. Peter A. Marino explains how salespeople should qualify customers and why they need to remain flexible throughout the process.
Probing is the skill by which the salesperson gathers information and finds out the customer's level of need (see November Furniture World). Noted sales trainer and educator Peter A. Marino examines when and how to use open and closed probes.
Do customers buy because they need or like our products? Peter A. Marino examines why customers buy and how we can match what we sell to what customers are really looking for.
Whether the pressure felt by your customer comes from the salesperson, an ad, or other source, it never grows out of the customer's reasons for buying, namely the customer's felt need. Urgency to buy, however, even though promoted by the salesperson, results in satisfied customers and repeat business.
Do our customers want to make the 'safe' or the exciting design choice? Do we insult or comfort our customers by telling them that "brass goes with anything," or "don't worry, beige is a neutral... it will look fine." Peter A. Marino explores how the salesperson's choice of words send powerful messages to customers.
Which is the most important component in the sales equation... selling skills, product knowledge or good attitude? Noted sales trainer and story teller Peter A. Marino gives insight into this question often asked by furniture sales managers and sales educators.
Would you like to have a sales job in which every customer you encountered bought something? You’re probably ready to shout, "Take me to that job!" It’s the sales job at a supermarket checkout counter
For many furniture retailers, consistently making “clean” sales and perfect deliveries is as difficult as grasping that gold ring on an antique carousel. Peter Schlosser reviews the entire process from receiving to delivery. Potential problem areas are identified and solutions described.
There are too few good salespeople and too many alternative jobs out there. The current business climate not only makes it more difficult to hire, it makes keeping good employees more challenging. Here are a number of ways you can keep employees so you don't have to spend as much time looking for replacements.
Homes are making headlines. “Extreme Makeover for the Home Edition” was recently the number one show on ABC. A lot of viewers are hooked on HGTV. If you want to take advantage of this cultural shift, you won’t need liposuction or a chin implant, but you may need to learn a few new skills.
This article will focus on the skill of setting up an effective strategy for selling mattresses. It is a strategy that helps customers perceive which one of your mattresses best fulfills their needs.
Selling is all about creating meaning between two or more people using words or other impulses. There is a source, message and receiver.
This article will look at fear, the single biggest impediment to becoming a fully actualized retail sales professional.
If the mattress and box spring specifications (coils, foam, etc.) could speak, what might they say about the customers and your salespeople?
The cheapest mattress for any customer is always the used one they already own. Dr. Peter Marino looks at ways to approach customers who mistakenly believe that your cheapest mattress is also the best for them.
Even though the temperatures are dropping, and kids are back in their classrooms, your customers are not yet thinking about the holidays. So now is the season to follow-up. Here are some practical techniques on how to do it.
Unstick Yourself. Let your biggest competitor be you!
A detailed guide by Peter Marino to the art of keeping customers on the line, calm, receptive and ready to listen to what customer service and sales associates have to say.
A 5-8 second investment in greeting your customers properly will pay back huge dividends. Article by FW subscriber Michael Bowman.
Will Rogers said, “If you are selling something, try and make it so good that you’d rather be the man who bought it than the man who sold it.” Cathy Finney applies this logic to the fine art of working with clients in retail furniture stores.
Ninety percent of salespeople suffer from some form of sales reluctance. Cathy Finney looks at some of the common problems they face, and provides solutions that can make selling more fun and profitable.
What happens if you don’t know as much about your competitors’ pricing, quality and service, as do your customers? Peter Marino looks at the benefits of shopping competitive stores as well as technique, ethics and courtesy.
Peter Marino looks at the benefits of shopping competitive stores and discusses shopping techniques, ethics and courtesy.
Cathy Finney looks at the skill sets you need to possess to end up in the land of “Awes”. Once there, you can take your company, “Me Inc.” to new heights by embracing change in 2006.
Is there anything you can do when your customer says, “let me think about it” and asks for your card?
Excerpt from FURNITURE WORLD Magazine’s Dining Room Furniture Guide used by thousands of furniture retailers for product sales education.
Insights, advice, and practical information that can turn your retail sales Uh,Oh’s, “Oh, No’s,” into “Ah Ha's!” and even “Eureka moments!”
A purchase that lasts a long time, but fails to meet your customer’s other needs can become a lasting headache.
The first in a series of articles that will show how to create design and product presentations that will impress customers and close sales. This one looks at creating e-mail Techno-Presentations in MS Word.
What can salespeople do and say during the selling sequence to maintain the trust of their customers?
Your customer’s worst fears are amplified by your own fears as a retail sales consultant.
The second in a series of articles
that show how to create design and product presentations that impress customers and close sales. This month you can learn how to create Techno-Presentations for your customers in PowerPoint.
Believing that all customers are looking for the same things is to assume that all customers have the same needs. This is an assumption that can cost you both sales and customers.
The last two articles in this series looked at creating Techno Presentations in MS Word and Powerpoint. The discussion now turns to how to work with customers to
furnish their rooms and takes a look at a more sophisticated online design tool.
Your sales performance is what sets you apart from lesser salespeople and from the clerks sitting in other furniture stores up and down the block. Cathy Finney looks at ways to fine tune a sales presentation to meet the specific needs of different types of customers.
This six part series will help you to quickly gain and retain valuable and usable design and decorating principles that you can effortlessly communicate to your customers—principles your customers want to know. Part 1 introduces the series and provides rules for putting on simple and sensational design seminars to help build a loyal and educated customer base.
Apply the principle that every customer objection is an implied need. It’s a principle every professional salesperson should buy into because customers respond positively to it.
Making and actually using rough sketches of your customer's rooms can improve the quality of the information you collect, as well as the effectiveness of your follow-up.
Part 2 in this series on design and decorating principles can be used as a script for putting on your first customer color seminar.
Decorating seminars help customers to solve problems, and they position you as a home furnishings expert. Margarett DeGange presents a script you can use to put on a Furniture Styles Seminar for your customers and prospects.
What actions can you take to connect with customers and keep performance on track when you feel unsettled and negative?
Time spent recruiting, interviewing and hiring are critical to the continued health of any furniture business. Here are tips and tools you can use to find and hire better people.
It is possible to re-imagine, re-create, and re-define your professional life with each new “opportunity”.
Decorating seminars help customers to solve problems, and they position you as a home furnishings expert. Margarett DeGange presents a script you can use to put on a Decorating with Focal Points Seminar for your customers and prospects.
Decorating seminars help customers solve problems, and they position you as a home furnishings expert. Margarett DeGange presents a script you can use to put on a Furniture Placement Seminar for your customers and prospects.
Sales tips and training tools from some of the best sales associates and Cathy Finney.
Convert More Phone Price Inquiries Into Sales
This is the first in a FURNITURE WORLD Magazine series written by Leslie Carothers to help home furnishings retailers manage their intentional and unintentional internet presence. This month she explains how to turn internet inquiries into solid sales.
Decorating seminars help customers solve problems, and they position you as a home furnishings expert. Margarett DeGange presents a script you can use to put on an Accessorizing Seminar for customers and prospects.
Sixteen ways you can boost bedding sales... from developing rapport (#1) To handling customer objections by treating them as implied needs.
Peter A. Marino, Ron Wolinski and Cathy Finney provide helpful information for sales professionals on qualifying and probing.
Excerpts from Furniture World's 16 page guide on rug construction, fibers, styles, quality features and cleaning.
Lesson #7a: Script for a design seminar that will help your customers to make knowledgeable color, pattern and texture choices.
A small attitude adjustment and a few reminders of important sales do’s and dont’s can get you back on track.
Continuation of this popular series that provides scripts furniture retailers use to conduct successful consumer design seminars. This installment reveals how customers can choose main and supporting fabrics, and work with pattern and texture. Included is a glossary of fabric terms and photos.
A look at how showroom wall colors and lighting can make furniture either blend in to the background or make it stand out to create exciting displays.
In part 8 of our popular Decorating School Crash Course series, Margaret DeGange looks at redesign. The basic premise of a redesign is to use what customers already own to redefine interior spaces. Sounds like a splendid idea, right? Not if you are a furniture store owner!
What IS working in today’s economy is the “soft sell.” This is taking place online-through two way interactive conversations with consumers.
Here is Cathy Finney’s final article for FURNITURE WORLD Magazine that examines principles outlined in Dr. Sam Gossling’s recent book “SNOOP,” and applies them to sales situations in retail furniture stores.
This is the ninth article in our Decorating Crash Course series. The text is written so that you can easily use it to put on a customer seminar on lighting in home decor. It can be presented “as is” but you should add additional elements to give your seminars a personal touch.
Some retailers seem to always manage to perform well. In this article David McMahon takes a close look at what those successful retailers do to cut costs during lean times and achieve maximum returns. Specific steps to cut fixed costs and make retail operations more responsive to cost cutting measures are examined.
Part 1: Peter Marino presents an updated sales skill manual for retail salespeople and managers in retail furniture stores.
The good, the bad and the ugly. A tale of the lead-up to the war through its end, 1938-1945. A remarkable story of difficult times in which the ingenuity of manufacturers and retailers, against all odds triumphed.
Many of our most enterprising home furnishings retailers have shared their stories of survival, growth and service with FURNITURE WORLD readers. This is the second installment in a series that commemorates the 140th anniversary year of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine.
Presented are seven ways that furniture stores can implement an effective personal business card marketing strategy. Salespeople often neglect this inexpensive and surprisingly effective way to increase the number of customers who come in to the store asking specifically for them.
FURNITURE WORLD’s retail readers share their stories of survival, growth and service. Due to overwhelming response, this series, that began in the March/April 140th year anniversary issue of FURNITURE WORLD, will be continued throughout 2010.
Your business will vault 10 steps ahead if you take gender differences seriously and adjust your sales and customer service approaches to meet the requirements, needs and wants of male and female customers.
The founder of the famous Statler Hotel Chain E. M. Statler once said: “The [salesperson] who thinks that his first duty is selling, is absolutely wrong. Selling is only one of the two important things a [salesperson] is supposed to do – and it is not the more important of the two. The [salesperson’s] first duty is to make friends for his house.”
Systems most furniture stores put in place to implement a customer focused sales strategy are being subverted and hijacked by salespeople. When this scenario plays out in your store, your selling strategy and training programs that aim at having salespeople establish strong relationships with customers are sabotaged.
Your business will vault 10 steps ahead if you take gender differences seriously and adjust your sales and customer service approaches accordingly. This installment continues our discussion about how women buy, and presents tips furniture retailers can use to sell more by creating sales initiatives.
This installment continues our discussion about how women buy, and presents tips furniture retailers can use to sell more by creating sales initiatives.
Although some furniture salespeople insist on going sequentially through the five steps of the sales process mechanically, the most effective salespeople know when to retreat to an earlier stage in the process.
Some best and worst bedding sales practices in furniture and bedding stores.
Lessons a veteran furniture guy learned watching people browse, decide and negotiate at a garage sale.
Retail strategies a successful second generation furniture retailer learned from her Mom and Dad.
Part four of our selling better bedding series looks at creating demand by using the “Science of Sleep” approach.
It’s the stories of our industry that this installment from Grandpa Mike-e-e! at 90 is all about. Every furniture rep, manufacturer and retailer has a few really good ones.
Part five of Furniture World’s selling better bedding series features expert sales tips and techniques for furniture and bedding retailers that want to sell more pillows and mattress protectors