You are a Sales Organization

by Tech Support | Feb 27, 2014 | Sales

Is Your Front Line Team Selling or  Un-Selling Your Center?

You know we work with many clients all around the globe… OK mostly in North America. People ask us every day, “What should we be charging for our parties, group events, or attractions in general?”

There is a ton of discussion about value. I personally focus on “integrity” in pricing. What I mean is, that if you feel like you need to discount all the time, have you’ve charged the right prices to begin with?

Anyway, I don’t want to get off track with the message today. I want to share a concept that I think is pretty simple. I read this “sales guy’s” stuff weekly. I really like him. His name is Anthony Iannarino and I found him on linkedin.com. He runs a group called the sales blog and you can also find him at http://thesalesblog.com/. This week’s newsletter had such a profound statement that I thought it would be great to share with you.

“It doesn’t matter how much value you can create. You cannot create that value until your dream client says yes.”

His overall point for the article was that companies continue to position themselves as… “my words”, the Fun Center, the Entertainment Complex, the Skating Rink or Bowling Center… when in fact you are a SALES ORGANIZATION that has bowling or skating or laser tag.

I thought that was a wonderful positioning statement. I’m completely aware that we have to be GREAT at operations first and then sell the facility second. I also believe strongly that everyone in the organization is either selling or un-selling your facility all the time.

The obsession with value and pricing is the wrong focus. Teaching our teams how to communicate with the guest must be the new obsession. You CAN’T sell on price long term. You CAN’T discount your way to profit.

You CAN get your team on board and teach them how to be nice to people. Teach them how to find out what the customer wants so you can sell them that! Here’s a great example:

Guest comes up to the counter…

Your team member smiles and speaks to the guest first! “Hello, and welcome to ABC Fun Center. I’m Beth, how may I serve you today?”

Guest Says, “Well hello. I’m here with my family and we would like to see what specials you have.”

Your team member says, “AWESOME-everything we do is special! How long can you all stay at our center today?”

Guest Says, “I think we’ve got 2-3 hours.”

Your Team Member, “That’s great. Seems like that will be long enough that you are going to want eat as well. I’m going to recommend our Pizza Bowl. It comes complete with Pizza, a pitcher of soda, and all you can bowl for 2 hours. I would also encourage you to get everyone in your party a $10 game card so that after you’re finished with bowling you could play games in our arcade or even use the card for laser tag or go karts. How’s that sound?”

Guest says, “That sounds great… let’s get going.”

Many times a guest won’t even ask for “the special”. On Friday and Saturdays you shouldn’t have specials! They are coming those days anyway.

Listen, I hope you’ll print the dialogue part of this newsletter out and have a 15-minute training with your team. It’s time to start teaching your team that you are a “sales organization.” If you aren’t selling you are un-selling. Keep that in mind.

If you would like to dive deeper we have a wonderful FEC Sales Bootcamp that lives in our IOL (Interactive Online Learning) portal at http://www.trainertainmentonline.net. This is a great class with training that we can do for you; and you can access online it right away.

Let us know if you worked with your team. I’d love to hear how that goes.

That’s Not What I Wanted

by Tech Support | Feb 20, 2014 | Sales

I was in the hair salon yesterday and I overheard another customer talking with her stylist.  (I wasn’t REALLY eavesdropping, there simply was nothing else going at the time.) The stylist asked her what she was looking for to make her style perfect. The woman began to explain about the length and cut and mentioned the color blend she had received the last visit. The stylist exclaimed, “oh yes yes, I know just what to do. I got it.” I thought to myself, wow, they must have a great relationship (and a fair amount of trust between them) to be able to have ‘perfect’ in such a short conversation.

The customer went on to get clipped and colored and steamed and washed and right before she was presented with mirror, the stylist (and I, ok now I was being nosy) noticed the woman’s look of horror. The stylist said nervously, “oh…I…I mixed your colors with a little more brown. Last time we had too much red, right?” The woman swallowed and replied, “well it was the red that I really liked, and the brown that I wanted less of.” OH NO!! A qualifying fail!

I could SO relate to that stylist and I felt for her, and for her customer. I thought back to the number one rule of selling, “find out what the customer wants and sell them that” and reflected on all the times I’ve mixed up the what I thought was the perfect solutions for someone based on what I thought they wanted. It’s so easy in sales to think you have asked the right questions, to think you know exactly the right product or service or event to present to your customer, when really, you’ve just got to slow down…ask more, powerful questions…and find out what they really want to make their experience perfect. They’ll tell you every time.

In our business, we need to ask those important qualifying questions like: if your event (or party or experience) were perfect, what would it look like?  What have you done in the past? What did you like about it? What do you wish you’d had more of? What could have been different?  What would like you to have happen at an event like this? These are amazing questions that will tell you what it will take to color their event perfect!  You’ll find out not only what kind of activities they’ll most likely like, but where they’ve gone and who might be competing for their business, but you will also get you an idea about their previous budget. And asking about what they hope to achieve, well that little gem will give you an idea of what will motivates them to buy! Bottom line, you’ll get everything you need to know to be able to present the perfect event they’re dying to book.

I have to stop and tell myself so often, that I have to remember to listen twice as much as I speak. If we do that, and we take the time to ask some of those powerful qualifying questions, we will find out that perfect blend of service, food and fun to make our customers’ experiences picture perfect.

Click here and tell us about a time you had a really bad dye job….or any experience you have had when a sales person that didn’t qualify you.

Keep Calm and Carry On

by Tech Support | Feb 13, 2014 | Sales

I like this message. I keep seeing these words on t-shirts, in emails, and on signs. I guess it’s a message that I’m meant to see. Calm is not an easy concept for me. Don’t get me wrong. I can be calm. There have been times in the midst of chaos I’ve been able to keep it together.

My normal mode of operation though is busy and energetic. That seems like the opposite of calm. However, I see the value of calm, cool, and collected. The ability to stay calm for instance when you are with an angry guest is paramount to solving the problem. Staying calm during a confrontation with a team member, a friend, or a spouse, could help you resolve a negative situation in a really positive way.

You might want to join me in practicing being calm. I know it sounds silly; but I don’t think any of us get better at anything without a whole lot of practice. Oh I know, some people are just more naturally laid back. I’m married to the “calmest” man on earth! If I try to rile him up and interrupt his calmness, he usually just laughs at me. That does not help my calm by the way! He does make me laugh though-(most of the time).

Here’s my suggestion to practicing calm. You see I think that if I can practice when I don’t need it then I’ll be able to access in the trying moments. So the first thing I’m working on is to just noticing when I’m not calm. What’s happening? How could I respond in a different way? This speaks to really adopting the habit of acting rather than reacting. I think my mom explained it as, “look before you leap.”

I think the second thing I’m doing is very cool. I get the benefit of exercise and practice in being calm. You see, I don’t run all that well. That’s not really true. I don’t breathe well when I run (really jog). You can imagine that if breathing is an issue it’s easy to panic (way opposite of calm). In those moments I want to stop running and walk instead. I’ve never hit that moment of the “runners high” because I always stop running in order to catch my breath. So it’s a great practice for me to physically work on calming my breath so that I can run easier. I believe this practice 4 or 5 days a week will make a great difference in the long run (pun intended!)

Thanks for checking in with us today. It’s always a delight to me to see how many of you seem to enjoy our newsletter. If you’ve got any hot tips about how to stay calm under pressure, post them on our Facebook. I know I would appreciate any advice!