Jeweller - May 2021

BUSINESS
Selling
BUSINESS
Management
The virtues that business leaders should use
to inform their sales strategy right now
SUE BARRETT explains how sales performance and management can be improved by implementing
a new strategy that is driven by three key values of trustworthiness, co-operation, and gratitude.
Relying on gut instinct is not enough
when building your retail strategy
BRIAN WALKER explores the powers – and limitations – of intuition when
it comes to managing a retail business and how experience interacts with data.
In September 2019, I wrote an article
advising of the strategies business
leaders could implement immediately
to improve their sales results in a
challenging market.
Given the advent of COVID-19 and the many
lessons learnt since, it is now important to
revisit that advice while emphasising three
extra virtues as guiding principles.
These virtues are trustworthiness,
co-operation, and gratitude, which all
underpin good business.
Many people’s perspectives and priorities
have shifted in the last year beyond the
mere matter of making money; they are
closely examining their relationship to
work, career, others, and themselves.
They are focusing on what really matters
to our ongoing collective wellbeing
and prosperity.
As a result, trustworthiness, co-operation,
and gratitude are particularly relevant to
business leaders’ interactions with them
as customers – and staff.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is the foundation
of both business agreements and
personal promises.
When trustworthy people give their
word, they stand by it and through their
actions they keep their promises and
commitments. They display consistency,
constancy, and loyalty.
When a person or a business is worthy of
trust, they attract abundance and create
lasting success.
Co-operation
Co-operation means working together
for the good of all. Co-operators seek
common goals in service of a unified vision
and combine their abilities with other team
members to create something none could
achieve alone.
Particularly in times of difficulty, cooperation
is critical as it allows groups
to share the load. Co-operative people
Build your sales strategy on a solid foundation of virtuous values.
willingly do tasks others ask of them and
look for ways to be helpful, as well as
asking for help when it is needed.
This quality is the one that can turn a
dream or vision into a reality and is as
essential for business leaders as it is
for individual staff members within a
business.
As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast,
go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
Gratitude
Gratitude is a constant attitude and
expression of thankfulness and
appreciation for life as it unfolds.
Operating from a basis of gratitude
allows business owners to notice the
small graces and blessings that take place
each day and to understand, accept, and
learn freely.
Gratitude is the essence of happiness and
a continual celebration of life; it makes
business leaders more resilient and
resourceful, improves morale, and creates
stronger relationships with customers.
Applying values to sales
Taking into account these three virtues,
as well as the experience of COVID-19,
here are seven strategies to improve sales
operations immediately:
• Define a clear, relevant, and compelling
reason for customers to buy from your
business, rather than a competitor
In times of
difficulty,
co-operation
is critical as it
allows groups to
share the load.
Co-operative
people willingly
do tasks others
ask of them and
look for ways
to be helpful, as
well as asking
for help when it
is needed
• Link each staff member’s role to service
• Shift away from the attitude that sales
are solely for achieving financial goals, and
instead view sales as providing a solution
to customers’ problems or a method to
help them achieve their goals
• Reward salespeople by removing nonsales
related activities from their role
• Automate any critical non-revenue
generating activities in sales
• Employ and develop salespeople with
the right character and attitude, rather
than hiring purely on sales or technical
experience
• Give sales managers the freedom to be
leaders and coaches rather than simply
increasing their sales targets.
In implementing these steps, reviewing,
and developing the existing sales strategy
is essential.
Start by analysing the target market,
undertaking targeted segmentation to find
viable market segments, sub segments
and even micro segments.
Next, audit sales processes and protocols.
When it comes to existing staff members,
assess the knowledge, skills, and mindset
of the sales team so they are able improve
specific areas of their performance.
It’s also important to train managers
and salespeople regularly, focusing on
‘bite-sized’ learning – easy to understand,
simple, and short – that is relevant
and has clear applications to everyday
situations.
Instead of falling into the old trap of relying
on a ‘point solution’ – the panacea that
promises to fix everything and sounds
too good to be true, because it is – take a
more holistic approach to managing your
sales team.
SUE BARRETT is founder and CEO of
innovative and forward-thinking sales
advisory and education firm Barrett.
Visit: barrett.com.au
The late economist, businessman, and
governor of the US Federal Reserve
Robert Heller had a saying, “Never
ignore a gut feeling, but never believe
that it’s enough.”
Recently, I witnessed a senior retail
business leader talking through their
business’ strategy, its positioning and
product deployment, describing how this
had been conceived from the ‘gut’ – this
individual’s intuition.
In other words, it was their experience
and instincts that led them to deliver such
a well–crafted set of opinions, as well as
the company’s operating strategy over a
three–year timespan.
The comment made me wonder about how
reliable gut instinct really is in decisionmaking
– and, in this retail business
leader’s case, very important decisions!
These decisions often require investment
capital, intensive use of resources, and
more often than not, radical approaches.
How could a company’s board of directors
endorse a strategy formed without
independent insights, research and
counterbalance? I wasn’t sure, although
many have and still do.
Over the years, retail CEOs have had to
navigate a minefield of critical decisions;
many of them ‘felt’ right, but were
strategically flammable.
Think of the department store that
expanded its bricks-and-mortar presence
when the world was fast discovering
internet, or the retail group that spent too
much on acquisitions of other businesses
and exploded its balance sheet.
Naturally, what comes next is to ask, in this
rapidly changing landscape, how we can
rely on our ‘gut’ to predict the future.
Searching for a strategy
In his book Intuition At Work, author
Gary Klein expresses the common – and
probably flawed – wisdom that intuition
is “at the centre of the decision-making
process” and that analysis is, at best,
A decision may ‘feel’ right, but it can’t be made without a factual basis.
“a supporting tool for making intuitive
decisions.”
Detached from rigorous analysis, intuition
is a fickle and undependable guide; it is as
likely to lead to disaster as to success.
And while some have argued that intuition
becomes more valuable in highly complex
and changeable environments, the
opposite is actually true.
Making great decisions ‘from the gut’ has
been emblematic of leaders in the past
– there are business fables assigned to
these moments – yet the reality is that they
are very much few and far between.
In fact, exceptional instinct is a superpower
that only superheroes truly possess.
As Ralph Lauren, former CEO
of international pharmaceutical
conglomerate Johnson & Johnson, said,
“Very often, people will do a brilliant job up
through the middle management levels,
where it’s very heavily quantitative in terms
of the decision-making.
“But then they reach senior management,
where the problems get more complex
and ambiguous, and we discover that
their judgment or intuition is not what it
should be.”
Complexity and ambiguity are absolutely
the hallmarks of the environment we live in
today, and the human brain is “wired to see
patterns in the information our senses take
The reason
successful,
creative
entrepreneurs,
particularly
those that have
been in their
industries for a
long time, are
often known
to have great
instincts is
because they
simply have a
deeper well of
experience to
draw from
in,” explains US biology professor
Jeanne Hardy.
Hardy observes that most of this takes
place in the subconscious, which forms
“95 per cent of our brain activity”.
“When we subconsciously process
patterns, our body produces
neurochemicals that trigger both the
brain and gut. This is how our intuition is
formed and why we get the sensation that
something ‘feels’ right or wrong,” she says.
According to Hardy, intuition is formed
from two aspects – current senses, or
the information our brain is processing
when the ‘gut feeling’ kicks in, as well as
memories stored in the brain.
She posits that the reason successful,
creative entrepreneurs, particularly those
that have been in their industries for a
long time, are often known to have great
instincts is because they simply have a
deeper well of experience to draw from.
This sums up determining the role of
the ‘limbic’ – or instinctive – approach to
strategy formation and the insights that
years of experience bring to the table.
Similarly, on the consumer side, intuition
isn’t just a random collection of feelings
that happen when you’re exposed to a
particular product or brand.
Often, these emotional responses are
informed by previous experiences, ideas,
and memories.
In summary, a seasoned executive who
has worked in the same sector for many
years, and has therefore acquired ingrained
learnings, experiences and relevant
thinking, can largely rely on their instincts –
so long as this is supported by data.
Trust me, I have an intuition for these
matters!
BRIAN WALKER is the founder and
managing director of Retail Doctor
Group, a retail consulting company.
Visit: retaildoctor.com.au
51 | May 2021
May 2021 | 52