Retail Today with Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor

What Does ‘Culling The Herd’ in Retail Sales Mean? | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

Today is all about culling the herd. That's right, C-U-L-L-I-N-G. The goal is to get rid of the merchandise that isn't selling. Get rid of the dogs, get rid of the one-offs. Go through and make sure that you use this time in the soft months of January and February, to really get rid of that lower 20% that you shouldn't be in. To get rid of those little bits and pieces of merchandise that you thought would be wonderful and then clear it out. Make it at such a low price that your clearance sale only lasts about two weeks at the most. I encourage you to read my blog about how a new broom sweeps clean and that is http://bit.ly/clearancebob, and you'll be able to download the 10 types of merchandise to put on clearance. The main thing to remember though is, use this time to become lean on inventory because it's going to be a while until shoppers are going to be running back in buying more merch.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

Why Understanding the Value Of Retail Your Product Leads Increased Sales | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

Do you feel like a fraud when you're selling in your store? Well, today I want you to think about where does that come from because an awful lot of times people who have trouble selling really don't believe it's worth the money and so maybe you know how much you paid for something and then you see the markup and so you think, okay, well that's really bad. Except you haven't really thought about all of the other things that have to go into pricing, which is what happens when something breaks? What happens when we have to put it on sale for half off or 60% off or what happens when the trends change or that's my money sitting there and who's paying for all of that? So the first part of that is to think about, are you feeling like a fraud? Then I want you to think about, how do you find the answers? My tip for you today is talking to satisfied customers. Why did they purchase the item from you?
If you can get into their head, then you can get into your game and ultimately not feel like a fraud, but realize I'm selling the best product I can at a fair price and the person who wants it is going to pay it. I just have to get over myself.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

How to Leverage Your Knowledge to Make More Sales in Retail | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

Okay. Today is part two of tribal knowledge. Yesterday I talked about going and getting a friend and ascribing either your store or align you like, or even a product you like in really well, that you like really well and then having it transcribed.
Well today I want you to transcribe, take that transcription and you can cut out all of the stuff that you don't like and then actually bring that down into maybe a paragraph, or you could write a blog, or maybe you could go through and find copy that you could put on your website. Or maybe it's going to be additional ways that you talk about your products so that your employees will be able to improve their sales presentation.
The point of this two-part exercise was we want you to leverage your knowledge to make more sales, and it doesn't help anyone unless you can get it out of you in a natural way that then someone else can take and run with.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

Improve Your Retail Sales Pitch With This Simple Process | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

So today is a two-parter, so you'll have to come back tomorrow. I call this one "Tribal Knowledge Doesn't Help Anyone".
Are you the best salesperson in the store? Are you the one that knows exactly how something fits together? Are you the one that knows how to be the best with this one product? How to use it? The secret features you've learned? It doesn't make additional sales if that's only in your head.
So today, part one is, I want you to take a friend, go to a Starbucks, or invite them over. Just describe, maybe first, your store. How is it different than other stores? Maybe you'll take one line of yours that you really like, you'll go through and talk about why you chose them, or what makes them different, or maybe you'll just talk about it as a customer. Say, "I bought this product, and this is what I got out of it. This is how it works so well for me." That's today. I just want you to record and transcribe one conversation. You can upload it. There's a lot of different ways you can do it. One I use is called speechpad.com.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

How to Draw Customers In By Framing the Doorway in Retail | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

So many times we think about attracting customers, and one of the ways that I've seen develop over probably 30 years was framing the doorway. Yeah, that's right. If you go and look at a lot of Chevy or Toyota dealers, you'll now notice a rectangle or a square right where the doors are that's painted in a very bright color. And why do they do that? Well, they want to make sure they grab your attention to know where to come in, but it also frames the entryway. And there's a lot of ways you can do that. You can do it by paint, you can do it by adding to the actual building, depending on your building codes, you can do it with plants and a welcome mat. But the framing of the entryway into your store helps shoppers realize that your store is different. And then come up with a companion window that actually grabs their attention enough to say, "Come inside and learn more."
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

How Do I Raise My Prices to Fight Inflation as a Retailer? | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

For many retailers, the new year bought in higher minimum wage laws and a lot of other people are looking at surcharges to try to get their pricing back to where they can be profitable. And I don't want that to catch you off guard. You know, if inflation is rising, you have to think about, maybe I should be raising my prices.
Now, it doesn't mean you raise all of your prices equally, but today, I want you to ask yourself, “Could I selectively raise my prices to keep my overall margins intact?”
And often you'll find that in a category report and look at what people are buying the most and see how you could make a bit of a difference to it and then raise your prices. And also don't forget that when you raise prices from a vendor, you get a new invoice, that means you should price up the inventory that you have already in stock because it's going to cost you more to replenish.
So today, just think about raising your selective few prices that can help meet your margin goals for 2020 and then if you raise your prices now, you know what, few are going to notice, but it can mean the difference between profit and loss.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

What’s the Value of Creating a PR Calendar as a Retailer? | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

Well, it's 2020, have you started to think about getting your own PR, press relations, for 2020? I hope so.
Today I want you to think about creating a PR calendar. So many times businesses miss the easy way to get publicity is by covering events, or product launches, or some kind of upgrades that you do with your local media. What you want to come up with answers the question: what's the news angle to this? So if you're a 150-year-old store and you've started to add WiFi, that doesn't really matter. But if you added WiFi because you could use a new enhanced shipping app that would cut the price down by 30% to local deliveries, that would be newsworthy.
Today, I just want you to think about where are the options that you have? What are the stories you could get out there? What are the news hooks, is what we often call them, that you could get featured in your local media that would get customers to say, "Hey, that's my store."
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

How Do I Successfully Manage Multiple Stores or Departments as a Retailer? | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

It's 2020 and we're trying to do more things with less people. You know, I always get this question, "How can I leverage myself and open a second store?" Or, "How can I manage two different stores or manage two different departments?" And look, you can probably do the work of two people. I have no doubt on that. But can you actually be two people? Can you actually have a different set of ears and listening skills, and can you actually be in two different places as one? You know, look, managing one store is tough, but going back and forth is worse because nobody is loyal to you. So today I want you to think about, "Am I trying to be two different people?" And if so, then hire somebody else so that you can get their input and become an even stronger retailer.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

Why You Need A Way to Answer Customers Questions In Real-Time as a Retailer | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

Are you operating like it's the 1980s that people leave messages on phones and then get back to them? When your shoppers have an inquiry, they expect answers and that means when they're on your website, when they are on your app, when they're in your store, they want answers right then. So today I want you to look at how many ways are you available to your shoppers. So if you haven't set up some kind of call forwarding, whether that's going to go to a support center or it's going to go to your own personal phone, it doesn't matter. You want to answer questions, whether that's going to be through a text, it might even be through a chat on your website. It might even be a bot like I have on retaildoc.com. But the key is that you speak to customers when they want to have your information, right? When you get an inquiry, that should be a chance to say, "Hey, I have a chance to make a sale."
So make sure they can greet you and don't make them wait because you know what? The next person that answers their inquiry gets the sale.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!

How Do I Monitor Employee Conversions In Retail? | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

It doesn't matter how many employees you have, it's really tough to know how well they're converting lookers into buyers. Today I want you to pick one employee and then just watch a random five sales encounters, because ultimately, it's all about conversion in brick-and-mortar stores now. It's not about how they're greeted, it's not about if they asked if you had an app or signed up on a loyalty card, it's did they convert them from a looker to a buyer.
Today just pick one employee, take a look at five random shoppers. And if in five random shops, nobody bought anything, you'd probably have to look at your training. And I would encourage you to look at my online training program, Salesrx.com, but you have to have a process that converts more lookers into buyers because the browsers, well, you know what? They're online. The buyers, the people who really have the money and want to buy it and take it home from you today, they're in front of your store and when they don't buy, it makes you wonder how good a job that employee standing in front of you is really doing.
That's all for today.
If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!