The slower summer months are the ideal time to institute new practices at the shop that reinforce for the customer why it’s worth shopping with you. See how McArdle Florist and Garden Center in Greenwich, Connecticut revamped the way it greets and serves customers.
The (relative) slowdown after Mother’s Day and before the busy fall months may be a good time to remind staff of a key sales philosophy for higher transactions: offer the best solution, not the lowest price.
“Selling the best solution is not about having the lowest price,” writes Alen Mayer, author and speaker. “The best solution entails having a solid understanding of your client’s needs.”
And that, of course, requires that you train your team to really listen to customers, rather than going into an immediate pitch or — worse — autopilot.
“Knowledge is the key to sales success,” Mayer points out. “Anyone can sell something cheap, but not everyone can create an effective solution that actually benefits the customer.”
One easy way to make better listening standard operating procedure: Insist staff take the card message first, suggests Tim Huckabee of FloralStrategies and a longtime contributor to Floral Management magazine. Doing so will give your team immediate context (“Happy one-month anniversary, babe” versus “Happy 30th anniversary to the love of my life”) and a better starting-off point for suggestions.
Want to make even better use of downtime? Check out Floral Management’s online archive for practical ideas and inspiration, including a story about how one business successfully instituted step-by-step changes to how customers are greeted and served in-store and online and a story about how one shop in Austin, Texas, resists the pressure to compete on price (and has ended up with an incredibly lux reputation and healthy bottom line).
