Well, hey, everybody. It’s Bob Negen. And today, we’re gonna talk about adding on. Adding on at the holidays is just one of those sales behavior that you and your team really, really, really should do skillfully.

So before I begin, let me tell you a quick story.

So, years ago now, when I was in my early forties, after a lifetime of superior eyesight, I had to get glasses. So I went to my local optometrist’s office, and she did a wonderful job of doing all the things that optometrists do and selling me a pair of glasses. So I go in, I get my new glasses, and I go home, and they’re a little dirty. And I didn’t wanna scratch them.

I didn’t wanna mess them up. So I asked Susan who was wearing contacts at the time but wore glasses her whole life. I said, honey, what should I do? My glasses are dirty and I don’t wanna scratch them up.

And she said, well, they should have sold you some spray cleaner and a cloth, didn’t they? I said, no, they didn’t. So what did I do? Brand new glasses, don’t wanna mess them up, didn’t wanna use paper towel on them.

So I get in my car, drive twenty minutes to the optometrist’s office. I walk in and I say, you know, I would like to buy some spray cleaner and a cloth.

And they said, here, you can have it.

Really? You just wasted forty minutes of my life. If you would have said, hey. You need this for seven dollars and ninety nine cents, I would have been happy to pay the seven dollars, five dollars, ten dollars, what ever it was.

It was something that I needed. Now a couple weeks later, my glasses get a little wiggly. And I say to Susan, honey, my glasses are a little wiggly. What do I do?

She said, well, they should have sold you a little tiny screwdriver to tighten up the the the the nuts there. And I said she said, did they? I no. She no.

They didn’t. I get in my car. I drive to the optometrist’s office. It’s three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.

Get to the optometrist’s office. They close at one. And if you know how I feel about customer friendly store hours, you’d also know that my head about exploded. And so I drive all the way across town to the superstore and buy the little screwdriver.

What’s the point here?

The point is if you’re not selling everybody everything they need to have a successful experience Selling is service, and particularly during the holidays, selling and adding on and making that perfect purchase, that perfect gift purchase perfect is about giving them all of the things that they need, that they want, that they may not even know that they need and want so that they have a wonderful, wonderful holiday experience.

So there’s three different opportunities to add on. Let’s explore them. The first opportunity is when you are selling the main items. So if you are in women’s fashion and somebody comes in and they’re looking for a gift for their wife or their mother or something like that, and let’s just say that after a couple of questions, you understand that a sweater would be perfect. Well, if you sell the sweater, that’s a nice sale.

But what do you really want to sell? What does the person really want to give their mother or their wife? They wanna give them something special.

The sweater is good. The sweater with a scarf or a matching, necklace or a bracelet or earrings is even better. So you’re always thinking about what would make this purchase even more perfect. So we’re always thinking ahead for our customers.

You’re selling them what they’re in the store for, but you’re thinking about what will make it even better. And by merely by asking those questions, by talking to them about what would make it better, then, you’re giving them better service. The question there is or not even the question, the statement with a lot of these add ons is this idea of you’re going to need this with that. When I was in the kite business, we would sell snap swivels, fishing snap swivels that would attach to the kite line that would attach to the kite.

It made the whole experience a lot better. And at the end, after I had sold the kite and figured out the line and did all those things, I’d say, you’re gonna need this snap swivel swivel for a quarter. Actually, I what what I would say is, let me spend a quarter of your money. You’re gonna need this.

Right? So this idea that you add on to the primary purchase by showing them what they need or what would make the purchase even more perfect is the first opportunity.

The second opportunity is in transition.

So somebody comes into your store and you sell them the thing.

The sale has been made. The gift has been decided upon. And now it’s time to go from the sale, wherever it happens in your store, to the counter where you ring them up. On the way from making the sale to the counter, there is another add on, opportunity.

It’s called the transitional add on. And what you do then is when you walk by something, you say, have you seen?

And you show them something else. You can make so much money during the holidays. Have you seen this thing? This is the hottest thing. Show them something on the way. So let’s just use the example. So let’s just use the example of men’s clothing.

So you sell the person the suit. You sell the person, the outfit. And on the way, you say, hey, have you seen these jeans? This is the latest style. So this idea of have you seen so as you’re walking, you are showing people different things that might be of interest to them. That might be another add on.

If you’re taking notes, write this down or certainly share this with your team. This came from, my colleague Harry Friedman, and he was a retail sales, trainer also. And, he’s been long retired, but his statement is show, show, show until they say no. It’s the holidays.

People are buying. People are in the mood. If they’re buying from you, keep showing them stuff. As long as they’re having a good time interacting with them, show show show until they say no.

And then the third, place to add on is at the counter. I’m just looking at all of you and sharing with you that it should be a nonnegotiable standard that everybody who comes to the register is shown something. So I don’t know what your merchandise mix is. It could be hand lotions.

And at the Mackinac Kite Company, we would sell these silly little toys, whistling balloon helicopters. We blow them up. We let them go. They’d fly up in the air.

People loved them. You know, I don’t know what’s right for your business, but stocking stuffers, impulse items demonstrated at the counter is a surefire way to build the average ticket.

Again, nonnegotiable, defined as a standard that everybody here adheres to, including you, in exchange for their employment. If you demonstrate something at the counter with every single mean thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, additional dollars into your holiday sales. The final add on I wanna share with you, and this is a killer, killer, killer add on technique during the holidays is say. Once you see so let’s go back to just back up just a little bit. If you have done a good job of engaging your customers, you know, if if they like you and you like them and you’re talking to them, you’re doing all these things, you have established enough trust. You have enough of a relationship that after it’s almost all said and done, before you get to the counter, ask this question.

Who else is on your list?

Who else is on your list? You see, one of the functions of holiday shopping is to cross people off the list. And while somebody might have come into your store for a particular person, if you merely open their eyes and their mind to the possibility that you may be able to help them cross more people off your list, you’re going to be surprised at how many people will share their lists with you and give you an opportunity to serve them. My brother Steve, who was a great salesperson, not as good as me, but who was a great salesperson during the holidays, he would just look at people and say, give me your list.

Tell me how much you how much you have to spend and come back in a couple hours, and I’ll have it all done for you. It’s this idea that people are shopping during the holidays. They’ve got x amount of money to spend. They have x amount of people they need to shop for.

Some of them love the activity of shopping. Some of them just wanna get it done. The more you know, the better you serve. The better you serve, the more you’ll sell.

And this is particularly true during the holidays. So here’s what I would say to you right now. Your action item is to take this episode of Real Retail TV and watch it together with your team. If you can’t schedule that, maybe schedule a Zoom where you watch it together.

If you can’t go even go that far, assign it to people. Say, watch this lesson, watch this video, and I’m gonna ask you. I’m gonna quiz you. I’m gonna make sure you watched it because this information is too valuable, too profitable not to get it into the minds of all of your team members.

Alright, everybody. I hope you found that helpful.

I can tell you that adding on is just a fantastic way for you to build your sales. I hope you’ll take this information and help and let it help you have a more profitable holiday season.