You Need A Wood to Sell A Tree
In all my years of lessons learnt in retail, one in particular always used to stay at the front of my mind, kindly passed on to me by one of my first store managers, Kenny Donaldson. During an exercise teaching me about the finer points of store merchandising (a task which he never enjoyed as it was never one of my fortes!!) he would say “… if you want to sell more of any particular product, you need to surround it with others, you need the wood to sell the tree …” and this was always followed very closely by ” … and don’t forget eye level is buy level“.
It has been a few years since I worked in a retail environment, but this last week found me working closely with the owners of a business in the catering industry, where these rules very clearly applied. This particular business had 3 core products that they made the most of their revenue from, of these 3 products, one was very unique and gave the business a very real opportunity to grow well beyond their traditional competition. The problem was this unique product was not selling.
They had done their market research, there was very definitely a need, so what was the reason why these unique products were not selling? The answer was staring them in the face or should I say more accurately wasn’t!! When a customer walked into their premises the other two products could be seen very clearly, there was no mistaking what they had and the price that they were selling them at. The unique product on the other hand, was very difficult to find, there was no pricing and because if it’s unique nature nobody even asked about them.
Taking both the staff and the owners through their premises soon highlighted to them what was needed, where it was needed and in what quantities to ensure their customers could not miss the opportunity to purchase this unique product. All they needed to do, was to display all three variations of the product, have sufficient quantities of each and have them displayed in THE most prominent area on the premises. The very next morning they sold 3 unique products within the first half an hour, more than they had sold in the previous couple of months and sales continue to grow.
The lesson here is very simple, whether you are a retailer or own a cafe, you must keep your displays full of product, ensure anything that you want to sell quickly or in good quantities is displayed in a prominent location and is easily accessed by your customers. This is especially true for this time of year where less than vigilant staff will not be so diligent in stocking up displays of products, but let that slip at your pearl.
Remember you always need the wood to sell a tree!
