What can I do to ensure my retail business succeeds in these challenging times?

Amongst other courses of action, like cutting excess costs and overheads which any accountant can spout, what you really need is simply more sales!

‘Oh great, like I didn't know that', I know what you're thinking, here is an accountant telling me the obvious, yet again.  So how to get those sales or I should say, how can you get them before your competitors?

Sales come from marketing and sales generating methods, and yet marketing still seems to be one of the biggest areas of total mystery to most small businesses, yet you engage in marketing every single day of your business life.

The shop sign is a form of marketing, just like a newspaper advertisement. Cristina Favreau, a Canadian mother and small business owner,  has defined the marketing cycle as a four step process:

1. Filling the Pipeline (finding opportunities)
2. Following Up (pursuing those opportunities)
3. Getting Presentations (selling to that customer)
4. Closing Sales (getting that sale)

Although Cristina's guidance has a service industry bias rather than retail I feel there is merit in her reasoning.

How many small retail businesses actually do any marketing, and I am not talking about an expensive advertisement in your local newspaper? The answer is all of you.

We all know it is simply not enough to paint the shop, make the window display eye catching and then open the doors and wait for everyone to flood in, if it was that easy you wouldn't be reading this, would you. Many business owners simply do not realise when they are marketing,  a retail shop for example, every time a customer comes into the shop and every time you speak to a customer you are getting the chance to engage in marketing. The question is, is your marketing done with a positive or negative approach?

Think about how you approach a customer, what is your initial greeting? ‘Hello, can I help you?' I don't know about you but my instant reply is ‘No thank you, I am just looking'. Well that closed that conversation didn't it. What happens if you try a different marketing approach?

‘Hello, I see your looking at the Kuster high chair'

Now, you can not get a negative reply to this, and now the door is open to, as Cristina would say, ‘Getting Presentations' and hopefully followed by ‘Closing Sales'.

‘This model is ergonomically designed with your baby in mind, it is also one of our best selling highchairs because of its combination of price and quality, and I actually bought this model for my baby.'

Now go in and close the sale, ‘If you are interested I could offer you a discount, our ‘beat the credit crunch' sale doesn't actually start until next month, but ..'.

Think about how you market to every customer you greet, try different greetings, different sales pitches, and see which you are comfortable with, and most importantly see what doesn't work and don't use it again.

Make sure all your staff follow the same approach, hold sales training days, remember this is a business you are running and the idea is to be successful.

Other marketing ideas to get customer inside the shop and generate sales are:

• Eye catching window display, make it stand out, something that makes people look, if those without children look then imagine the impact on those with children.
• Traditional advertising, local newspapers, advertise your X% off sales, latest products that only you stock in the area.
• Local hospital maternity departments, speak to them, can you leave leaflets, do they need anything that you could provide, as long as your shop details are on it, in a very prominent place.
• Local mother and toddler groups, leave flyers, go in and meet them, offer discounts to members of that group. Give them discount vouchers, also with their details on so you know where these new customers are coming from.
• Local children's nursery, offer discounts to their parents if they shop with you, again leave them with discount vouchers, if you have old stock, offer to loan the nursery these items but make sure your shop has all its details plastered all over them.
• Offer a lay away scheme? Pregnant mothers/fathers could give you an amount every week/month and when the baby is due they can come and spend what they have saved with you, relatives can also use this method. There is the opportunity to save for Christmas, Birthdays etc, in times when money is short this is the basic help people need. Remember, you are responsibly for this money that people will trust you with.

And of course we cannot finish without talking the obvious - your website:

1. Do you have a website?
2. Does anyone else know you have one, what is its search engine ranking?
3. Do you sell through your website, if not why not? Online sales are over £46billion.
4. Do you sell on other websites like ebay, if not why not?

In my opinion there is nothing you should not try; there is no such thing as bad ideas, just ideas that didn't work.

Jason Holden is a qualified accountant and business consultant with over 20 years experience based in Lancashire.

http://www.holdenassociates.co.uk/

Tel: 0845 225 2845

jason@holdenassociates.co.uk

Skype: holdenassociates