It’s Bob Negen. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, we’re going to explore three ways that you can significantly increase your holiday sales.

So the holidays are a time of amazing opportunity. You don’t need to be told that. But let’s focus on in on three pretty easy ways that you can put into action pretty quickly that will make a big impact on your overall sales. So the first thing to explore is training the basics.

This is, so important. And so what do you wanna train and what do you wanna talk about? I’m suggesting that at the basic, at the most fundamental level, you need to make sure that everybody on your current team, and especially if you bring in part time seasonal, help, that they know about best sellers. And they know about new arrivals.

And when I say know about, here’s what you want to share with them. You wanna share who it’s for, features and benefits, and maybe a couple tips on selling that item. You know, people, your team members need to feel comfortable and confident talking about your merchandise when they’re on the floor. You don’t need to spend an enormous amount of time.

You don’t have to go through all of your SKUs, but do make a point of sitting down, writing down, perhaps making a video. I recommend a video. But make sure that everybody gets the information about bestsellers so that they can do a good job with your customers on the floor. If they don’t know about it, they have a hard time selling it.

You’re going to leave money on the table if you don’t do this basic training. Now here’s a little bonus tip. A bonus tip is to identify and also share the appropriate add ons for every item. So I’m just gonna use an example.

If you’re in women’s clothing and cashmere sweaters are going to be the hot item this year. I don’t know anything about what’s gonna be hot this year in women’s clothing. You know, teach your people to recommend earrings, necklaces, scarves, hats, whatever it is. But if your people, again, are comfortable and confident recommending appropriate add ons, they’re going to do it more readily.

They’re going to sell more of it, you know, and it’s just going to make a difference. All of these little things add up. So basic product training, number one. Number two, signage.

Signage is so important, and signage does two really important things. First of all, it’s a silent salesperson that, you know, I mean, you are you do not have as many people on your team on the floor as you have customers most of the time, which means that people aren’t being helped, which means they’re wandering around looking at things. And if there is really good quality signage, especially on your most popular items, it will increase the sales. Now here’s another little trick of the trade or a little nuance, is that signage does something else that’s really important, and it slows people down.

So going back to this idea, you have more customers and you have employees. One of the secrets is to get people to stay in your store longer so your team members have a chance to get to them. And signage, you know, it just slows people down. If there’s no signs, they walk through quickly.

They look. They get an impression, and they leave. If there’s signs, they slow down, they look, they read in a way that, you know, they stay there longer. Greater chance your team will have an opportunity to sell to them.

Here’s how a good sign looks. Three parts. You you know, do it as you see fit, but here’s the fundamentals. First of all, the first part is what is it?

What is this item? The second part is a little bit of a story, a sentence or two about what it is, who it’s for, you know, sell it. Make it sound exciting. Don’t make it sound boring.

Make it sound exciting. Use some great language to, you know, to to jazz it up. Chat GPT is great for that. I would like some enthusiastic language about x, y, and z.

And then the final thing is the price. For crying out loud, if you can’t put together a good one on your computer with Canva or whatever, Don’t put lousy signs on on the wall. I’ve seen this too often. Handwritten is okay, but it needs to be nicely handwritten.

No bad signs. You with me? No bad signs.

And, the third tip that’s going to make you a lot of money, and I do mean thousands of dollars, is to have impulse items at the counter and to make it a nonnegotiable standard that every single customer is shown an item every single time at checkout. Every customer, every time. Let me tell you a quick story. Years ago, I spoke in Holland, Michigan. Holland is a town south of us.

And, I did a holiday program, and I gave this tip. You know, an impulse item at the counter every time. And in February, I ran into one of the people who was in the room. Her name’s Kate Moynihan.

She owned Moynihan Galleries. And she said, Bob, I did that add on thing. And I said, well, great. Tell me more.

And she said, well, I found these beautiful, red and green candles, and it would became a nonnegotiable standard that everybody would be asked. Hey, have you seen these beautiful candles? We just brought them in for the holidays. And I said, so how did that work for you?

And she thought about it. She said, well, I sell I sold through two orders and I don’t remember the exact number, but it was seven, eight, nine, ten thousand dollars. It was many thousands of dollars. These are thousands of dollars that would not have been in her register if she had not taken advantage of that tip that you just learned.

You know, you can do things with stocking stuffers. You can do things with impulse items. Make the items fun. Make them easy to demonstrate and show.

Make sure that your team understands about them, knows about them, and is enthusiastic about them. So there it is. Three tips that will make you a lot of money this holiday season. Train to the basics, lots of signage, impulse items at the counter.

There’s lots more than that, but those are three that will absolutely do great things for you.

So if you, like to make money and you like to save money, keep an eye on your inbox because Whizbang Training has got some, has an absolutely fantastic black holiday offer, Black Friday, not Black Holiday. Black Friday offer coming your way. You’re not gonna wanna miss it. It’s a great, great money making program, and it’s going to be on sale at a significant discount. So keep your eye on your inbox. And, yeah. I’m Bob Nagin, and we’ll see you next week.