In a previous life I ran a retail store in a mall. My store was one of over 350 stores in a chain of music stores, selling CD's, cassettes, videos and a host of other related products. I learned a lot about running a business in those years,from personnel management to keeping inventory levels manageable.
Working in a mall I could watch as other stores had differing philosophies when it came to their operations. Some were more focused on security concerns, like shoplifting, while others emphasized customer service. I learned a lot of things but one in particular still resonates today.
Each Monday morning I would do a store walk-through. With a legal pad in hand, I would make a detailed checklist of items that needed to be addressed. After an hour or so of this, I would have several pages of chores for my staff to handle. Some would be easy things, like making sure that the CD's were alphabetized correctly, or more involved like changing out a complete display. Some of these jobs could take hours while others would only take up a few minutes. The temptation was there for me to handle the quick jobs myself, but I didn't.
When my employees came in, I would give them a few jobs (one at a time) off the checklist. As most of my staff was comprised of high school and college students, motivating them was like pushing a rope, and you can imagine how excited they were when I would assign a task for them. Of course they considered it "busy work", and it was to a degree, but it also had another effect.
One reason why my staff didn't like these jobs was they were constantly being "interrupted" by customers. A few short minutes into a task, someone would walk in and ask for help finding something, or needed to be rung up at the register. "How am I supposed to finish changing the prices on this display when people keep wanting assistance?" they would ask.
Of course, my response was, "Customers aren't an interruption of your work, they're the reason you have work." It was horribly cheesy and partially true. But there was more to it than they knew.
You see, there is a strange law of the universe that states people will shop where they see people looking busy. When my staff had nothing to do, the store's traffic would be minimal, but the minute they held a clipboard and started counting something, the store would get busy.
In contrast, there were those shoe stores in the mall with the employee standing at the front of the store near the entrance. If their store was empty the sales clerk acted as if he or she was a greeter, waving and say hello to people as they walked past them. Why weren't people going into those stores? Because they weren't busy. The salesperson in front of the store exacerbated the problem. If he or she had grabbed a pen and paper and started to write down something, anything, shoppers would have at least considered walking in. Instead, the public saw someone doing absolutely nothing and immediately lost interest in shopping there.
I'm not bragging, but taking advantage of this "secret law of the universe" helped my store increase sales dramatically over the seven years I worked there. We consistently destroyed our competitor in sales each and every year, regardless of the fact that they were considered the "cool" place to shop.
Years after I left the retail world and had gotten into insurance sales, I found out that I could still take advantage of this phenomenon. I found out that if I looked busy, I'd get busy. If I was invited to be a guest at a networking event I'd have to walk around and mingle because I didn't want to be one of the "wallflowers" who would stand in the corner or go off into another area, alone and miserable.
And I would make sure my calendar was filled with something. As an old manager of mine would say, "You either need to be seeing a client or fighting to see a client." If I didn't have any client appointments on the books, you can bet I was at a networking event, taking a prospect to coffee, or just dropping in on someone I hadn't seen or heard from in a while, all in the name of "checking in to see how you're doing".
Staying active is a priority in sales. Momentum is key and taking your foot off the gas is never good, unless you need to recharge your battery. We all need a break from time to time, as it's easy to get burned out. But there's a huge difference between giving yourself a week off and just being lazy. Let your vacation be a vacation, but don't confuse it with taking the rest of the day off because you closed a sale early.
People want to buy from people they know are hard workers, because that means you're going to be around for a while. The sales industry is rife with the corpses of sales people who couldn't cut the mustard when it got tough, and your clients don't want to deal with corpses. If you are busy, you won't have to get busy.
I hope you keep your appointment book filled this week and every week this year. With Covid-19 on the horizon for the next few months it's tougher than ever, but I have faith in you. Keep your head up and as always, stay healthy!
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states
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