You Win When Your Employees Play
These Retail Sales Games Will Put Money In The Cash Register
You rely on your employees to keep your retail business running profitably week after week, year after year. And having employees who can really SELL is your key to extraordinary profits.
Your first step is to train your staff how to sell – it’s not an inborn skill, you have to teach the process. Your next big challenge is to keep them selling at peak performance. Sales contests are a fun and inexpensive way to inspire your retail sales staff to practice their higher level selling skills. Try our favorite contest and…
“Pass The Buck”
The game goes like this. Pick a day when you want to maximize sales and give the first person who makes a sale a $20 dollar bill to hold (or $10 bill or $50 bill depending on how hard you want your staff to play!) When someone makes a bigger sale they get “passed the buck”. The next time an even larger sale is made the “buck” gets passed again. The person who has the highest sale that day is left holding the buck and gets to take home the $20!
We love this contest for six very specific reasons:
1) It’s really fun.
2) It’s super simple.
3) It encourages lots of add-on sales.
4) It encourages up-selling.
5) It rewards great retail sales performance immediately.
6) It puts more money in the cash register!
This game has never failed to please our employees or put more money in the register. And it’s so easy you can do it today!
“Digging For Dollars”
Here’s another great retail sales contest idea from one of our favorite retailers, a flower and candy shop owner. She explains, “Here’s a contest we use on busy days. A large jar is filled with $1 bills. Every time an employee adds-on to a sale, (in our case, balloons, candy, etc.) they get take a bill from the jar. There is competition to see who can collect the most dollars, while giving everyone a chance to be a winner.”
Love it! Your whole staff is motivated to continue the specific behaviors you’re looking for all day long, with every sale and everybody wins something. Perfect!
Play “Poker”
Sales Poker is a slightly more complicated game, but it sure is fun! And it gets great results.
To play Sales Poker you’ll need several decks of playing cards, a bulletin board in the back room that’s big enough to post everyone’s poker hands, and a grand prize. Your prize could be cash, gift certificates to local restaurants, days off with pay, or merchandise.
You’ll also need a list of selling goals you want your employees to achieve with how many cards they get for reaching each goal. The harder the goal, the more cards they get. Here’s a possible list to give you the idea – but be creative and adjust to the specific needs of your store. The level of add-ons and dollars per sale should be higher than your average. You’re trying to push them to do more than normal!
- Add-on two items – one card
- Add on three or more items – two cards
- Sale over $75 – one card
- Sale over $150 – two cards
- Sell three clearance items – one card
- Sell a green-spotted turbo widget – three cards
- Daily personal sales total of $2400 (or $300 per hour) – three cards
The game is pretty straightforward from here… each time an employee achieves a retail selling goal they get to draw the number of cards indicated on your list and they post them on the bulletin board under their name. At the end of the game period the person with the best poker hand wins!
Poker is best when played for multiple days, like a weekend or a whole week. That way everyone gets a chance to play and win. One of the great things about poker is that there is some element of luck. Even though the better salespeople will get more cards and therefore have better odds of winning, your top gun salesperson isn’t necessarily a shoe-in to win. That keeps everyone motivated to play and sell.
Without a team of hungry “sales hounds” on your floor you’ll work much harder than necessary to make your retail store profitable. So start right now training your team to be sales superstars and then keep them hungry by playing for prizes – you both win!
If you want help with teaching your employees the basics of the sales process, look no further than the Retail Mastery System. The training System’s customer service kit combines basic customer service training with a tried and true, six-step selling process. Give your customers what they really want – a great buying experience every time they visit your store.
By Bob and Susan Negen, WhizBang! Training
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