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Empower your team for success

Business4-May-2021

This month, Ruth Larkin considers the impact a strong team mentality can have on your business. She offers advice on how you can lead by example and get the best out of your team.

Welcome back to all of you who have recently re-opened - the rest of the year is going to be busy! Let’s look forward to a season of empowered teams, successful sales, and continued demand.

It is so important right now to make sure your team is performing at its best, not only to drive better sales results, but also to build a better brand reputation and create a healthy company mentality and atmosphere.

Below are easy top tips that can really help to enhance and empower your team. It can be the simple things that make a big difference, but often we can be too distracted to take the time to invest in supporting the continued growth and success of our teams. Let’s start this season by making sure your team succeeds alongside your business.

Lead by example

If you want a culture of energy, enthusiasm, and positivity, this starts with you. You must lead by example and create that company atmosphere. It’s your responsibility to inspire your team. When a team sees you working with confidence and a can-do attitude, it creates a culture of positivity and problem solving. It can impact the overall atmosphere and create the right mindset throughout the rest of the team.

Equally, how you work and are seen to work can also impact the dynamic in the business. If you want your team to perform at their top level then you need to be seen to be performing at yours, from when you walk into the store in the morning to leaving at night. How you approach every aspect of your role, and the pace at which you work at, sets the pace for the rest of your team, so make sure it’s a fast and inspiring one.

Put in place a clearly defined, repeatable and implementable sales process

Give your team the toolkit they need to flourish, and the sales will follow. The impact a tailored sales process can have on conversion rates and team performance is something that cannot be ignored. We spend so much necessary time on building brand awareness and brand recognition on our social media/website, this must also continue when a customer walks through the door. Brides are now looking more than ever to buy in the first shop they visit, having already found a synergy with that business through their online presence. The importance of ensuring your online presence remains a top priority, however ensuring that there is a repeatable experience for the customer and a set of steps that every member of the team takes from start to finish is imperative. This is such an important part of ensuring that brand awareness is continued from social media into the reality of an in-store appointment. Equally, clearly defined steps help your team members better control and lead appointments with confidence and helps them understand the impact of completing each step within the process before moving forward. Understanding that following a sales process helps them increase their closure rates and sales results further empowers them in both self-confidence and professional performance.

Empower them with knowledge and confidence through appropriate training

This should include Sales Training, Product Knowledge Training, and Market Trends Training, and should be a mixture of group sessions and regular one-on-ones.

The right sales technique will not only increase sales but also improve customer satisfaction, referrals, and reputation. The more empowered your team are, the better their performance, and the stronger the closure rates. Every engagement with a customer, whether at pre-appointment, in-store, or the follow up, is all part of the sales process, and every touchpoint affects the successful closure of a sale. When your team’s technique mirrors your company mindset it helps to build brand reputation and increase your teams organic closure rate. Educate your team on your brand, reputation, and the representation that suits the company and talk through the sales process steps. Even with experienced teams, a regular refresher on this does wonders for performance. In a group environment, discussions over missed opportunities are equally important for the team to learn from each other as positive sales.

Product Knowledge

This is an important and exciting aspect of the role. Try to utilise your brands, distributors, and reps as much as possible to deliver in-store brand training to your teams. Setting aside an hour a week for product knowledge training could transform sales results in certain areas. When your team are comfortable, confident, and educated on the brands and products they sell, their entire demeanour and engagement with customers becomes more fluid, organic and natural, which is always more appealing to a customer.

1-2-1 Training

By investing time to work directly with each team member on a regular basis to discuss wins, losses, and opportunities, you help empower them with new ideas, allow them to learn from your experiences, and acknowledge their success. Recognition always goes a long way, and it creates more accountability when a team is aware that you will be spending time with them directly to go through their performance.

In a small team environment, personalities and relationships are key. While it’s a professional environment, customers can always pick up on underlying issues within a team. Taking time every quarter to schedule a lunch, dinner or team drinks with no talk of work can help relationships in-store both personally and professionally, increasing mutual respect and showing a tighter team connection.

Pass on responsibilities that empower

Don’t be afraid to pass on the reigns of certain tasks that you see members of your team excelling in. Something that might be small to you could be seen as a serious investment of trust and acknowledgment by your team member. By giving responsibility for tasks that allow them to push themselves, it continues to create more confidence, and builds a sense of achievement and progression within their role that helps empower them, and your business for success.

If you would like any additional support on your sales and business strategy, reach out to Ruth at salesacademy@larkbridal.com and look out for her next IGTV Live on @bridalbuyermagazine. This month she’ll be joined by celebrity stylist, international show producer and model agency owner Mandy Maher, to talk about empowering your team for success through creating a uniform or in-store style code that best represents your brand.