Competing with the big boxes is more than finding out how they can offer so-called “freebies” and continue to make their mark. Primarily it is teaching your salespeople the “human skills” that make consumers trust you over other salespeople. This will be a continuing theme in future columns.
With today’s aggressive and tech savvy consumers, selling requires a much more sophisticated approach. Any wrong statements will send them back to the national chains or home centers with their deceiving offers. Traditional “Greeting, qualifying, presentation, overcoming objections and closing” are of little help in improving sales performance. These so-called sales skills always seemed to me as coming off as “scripted” to our customers and sounding like something we do tocustomers rather than something we do forthem.