Boost Retail Sales Using Collaborative Selling

Selling to consumers in a retail setting can be challenging (I know, all selling can be challenging). In retail, we have little control over our prospects. They can exit our store at any time. We don’t have offices or desks or conference rooms to anchor our interaction. We typically don’t have any privacy with our prospect as we might in their office or in our office. They often have children or other family members with them when they need individual attention, or don’t have a family member with them in order to move ahead with a purchase.

But we have several collaborative selling devices available to us in retail that can aid our selling in the retail sector. Use of these devices can increase customer engagement and increase our sales effectiveness. Here are three of my favorite retail selling techniques that use collaboration to its best advantage.

1. The Turn-Over.

Sellers of big ticket retail items can benefit from having a system in place so you can turn-over your prospect to another sales representative (or sales manager) if things are not progressing appropriately. A turn over can be particularly helpful in one call close sales situations.

Let’s imagine you sell boats and watercraft, and a couple comes to your store. You spend an hour with them discussing their needs and desires and looking at a product that interests them, but then progress seems to stall. You haven’t been able to develop the rapport that you want, and the relationship between you and your shoppers seems to lack energy.

It’s time to bring someone new into the relationship! Prospects with different personalities sometimes have preferences for salespeople with certain personalities, and your personality may not be the right one for this couple on this day. So bring on “the turn-over!” Here’s how to execute one.

Excuse yourself from your couple and fetch another sales representative or your sales manager. Quickly tell them you want to do a turn-over. Bring him or her back to your prospects and introduce everyone. Then, summarize the action so far: “Megan, this is Linda and Tony, and they’ve been looking at the XRT-100. They really like its [insert feature or specification here], and they have some good friends who have an XRT-90 which they purchased about five years ago. We’ve talked about the [insert feature here] and the [insert feature here] and aren’t sure they would use them.”

Continue the summary until Megan has a very clear picture of what’s going on, and then be quiet. Megan should now take the lead and start asking questions of the couple to either clarify or confirm the information you just shared with Megan and then move ahead with the selling process. You hang out with Megan and the couple for a few minutes while quietly observing. Then, you quietly slip out of the picture. Megan is now the primary sales representative for Linda and Tony and you are free to move on.

Turn-overs need to be a part of the company culture and guidelines in place so everyone knows how to initiate one and how to step into one. It needs to be practiced like any element of selling.

When Linda and Tony buy, you split the commission. Since half commission from a buying customer is better than full commission from a non-buying customer, everyone comes out a winner when a successful turn over is executed.

2. Team Selling

In police work they have “good cop / bad cop.” In selling, we have “team selling.”

“Good cop / bad cop” is used to manipulate a suspect through intimidation and fear, and then removal of that intimidation and fear to achieve the desired result. Although some companies use team selling in a similar manner (to intimidate), team selling can be used in a more comfortable and ethical manner to help move the sales process forward.

Team selling is most effective not when you use it to gang up against your prospect and close the sale through intimidation, but when two salespeople bring different strengths to the table. These strengths might be contrasting personality types, contrasting knowledge, contrasting experience, or something else.

Although the team selling concept can be introduced to your shoppers at the outset of the sales interaction, it’s usually more effective if you wait until some level of trust and rapport exists between an initial salesperson and the prospect. It’s even better to wait until some progress is made at identifying the prospects’ needs and desires.

Here’s a team selling scenario: It’s a slow Tuesday morning at the car lot until prospect Ben enters the store. You greet Ben and introduce yourself. Within a few minutes, Ben feels some level of comfort with you and he’s explaining why he’s there and what he needs.

To begin team selling, you excuse yourself and retrieve the other team member. You bring Rachel into the conversation and introduce him to Ben by saying, “Ben, this is Rachel, and she also has an interest in hybrid vehicles, so she’s going to join us as we chat if you don’t mind.” Rachel and Ben shake hands, Rachel shares some niceties, and if Ben seems amenable to the situation, you have now successfully initiated a team selling initiative.

You selected Rachel for some asset that you yourself don’t possess. It might be her analytical nature, her knowledge, or her killer body, but team selling works best when each team member offers distinct advantages to the conversation.

You and Rachel split the commission for the sale.

3. The Product Expert.

John and Danielle enter your furniture store. You learn that they are looking for a pair of recliners for their new cabin. As you get into the sales interaction, you excuse yourself and bring Charles into the conversation like this:

“Charles, this is Danielle and this is John, and they’re looking for a pair of recliners for their new cabin they purchased on Lake Whisper by Big Falls. Charles and Danielle, I wanted you to meet Charles because nobody knows more about recliners than he does.”

You and Charles continue selling together. Consumers love experts, and the more specialized the expert, the greater the likelihood this will influence your shopper’s decision.

You and Charles split your commission for the sale.

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