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How To Compete Against Big-Box Retailers
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Article 1: Hire Outside The Box
Employees at big-box stores often seem less interested in talking with customers than in restocking shelves and rushing through the aisles to parts unknown. Part of the reason for the disconnect between employee and customer is the necessity of hiring enough people to fill the warehouse operator’s stores. Warehouse stores are bound to end up compromising their standards to get enough people.
In contrast, you can compete against the big-box stores by hiring great salespeople who feel the need to understand and interact with your customers.
Unlike the warehouse operators, you can take your time to find just the right people.
“Some places are so desperate for people they will take anyone who is breathing,” says Ian Jacobsen, president of Jacobsen Consulting in Morgan Hill, Calif. “But if you hire in haste you will repent at leisure.”
Jacobsen suggests asking applicants open-ended questions that reveal attitudes about work and selling. Here are some examples:
- Tell me about one or two salespeople you believe are outstanding and what makes them so good. How do you compare yourself with them?
- In your past performance reviews, what have been identified as your strengths? What have you been asked to work on? What progress did you make?
- What feedback have you gotten from supervisors, coworkers and customers about working with you?
- Please describe for me the sales training you have had. What were you able to use from it? What should it have covered, but didn’t?
- What do you find satisfying about sales work? What bugs you about sales?
- Describe a successful interaction you have had with a customer. What did you do to get the customer to come back?
- (For someone not yet in sales) What do you find attractive about sales work? What leads you to believe that you would be good at it?
“Retailers are discovering an amazing secret,” says Jim Dion, president of Dionco Inc., a Chicago-based retail consulting firm. “One good person is better than three marginal people on the payroll. Smarter independents are upgrading their staffs, paying fewer people better money. This makes a huge difference in productivity and in customer service.”
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