The Miracle of Vulnerability
October 11, 2018
I’ve spent most of the last 30 years on stage, speaking to audiences about so many topics that I can’t recall them all. What I know is that everything I talked about likely focused on the wonderful world of retail, and that almost every audience was somewhere between 30 and 300 people.
There’s a bit of comfort in speaking to large groups. You get to keep your ‘guard’ up, or as is otherwise known, your self-made walls firmly planted between you and your audience.
The bigger the group, the easier it is to keep the walls up.
However, over the past 30 days, I’ve arrived to speak at client’s events and found myself face to face with just 6 participants. Not once …. Twice!
To say that’s a different thing for a speaker is a big understatement. Speaking to 6 is nothing like speaking to 600.
And, that’s where the ‘miracle’ happened.
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8 things you need to do now to ensure you're an All-Star this Christmas selling season
October 03, 2018
In my role at Graff Retail, I speak to Store Managers on a daily basis. At some point in the conversation we end up "talking shop" and managers share their biggest challenges with me (kind of like a retail therapy session!).
I've learned over time that the challenges aren't unique from manager to manager and, since I am in charge of our award-winning online retail training system at Graff, I happen to have access to a ton of tried and true techniques to take a manager from struggling to ALL-STAR!
In short order, here are 8 things you need to do to ensure you're an All-Star this Christmas selling season.
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Forget About The Money … and You’ll Have More Of It
September 27, 2018
We’re working on a couple of very interesting and fascinating projects lately. What’s resonated the most with me about these projects, is likely the most important selling lesson possible.
Let’s face it, making sales is essential.
But, not everyone on every team sees themselves as a salesperson who wants to ‘sell’.
You can imagine how difficult it can be to engage a team of non-salespeople in driving sales.
Consider that even with a team of people hired to sell, it’s not always easy to get them to do just that.
Being a slave to a sales goal or a metric doesn’t always produce the results you’re chasing.
However, what these projects I’m working on has reminded me of is that when you put the customer at the centre of your efforts, sales naturally follow.
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