Page 88 - Lighting Magazine December 2017

on the Mark
Mark Okun is Business Contributor to enLIGHTenment Magazine and President of Mark Okun Consulting & Performance Group. He has more than 30 years of hands- on retail experience training and coaching sales associates in the lighting and furniture industries. Mark@bravo businessmedia.com
Many seem to think that branding is about making a sale, but it is not. Branding is about the long-term. Branding can be about promoting trust, your status as lighting experts, and how current and future clients perceive you in the marketplace. Your showroom or personal brand is the narrative that will focus on the unique and positive experiences provided while continually developing the legacy of the brand.
4. IdenTIfy your prImaL cLIenT
The new world of marketing and sales must be built around a “Primal Client.” This is the customer who is the foundational persona of your speci c business. It may be a retail client, a designer or speci er base, electricians, or builders. While we all can – and will – work with each of these various clients, only one is primal, and it will take some investigation and number-crunching to nd out which one is.
The “Primal Client” is the customer that every process, policy, and interaction in the business is tailored around. The days of being a middle-of-the- road generalist are over. This is the realm of the big box retailers and their digital counterparts. There is an old saying that applies here: “You can’t be every- thing to everybody, so stop trying!”
The changes that happen will a ect both pro- cesses and policies. The modi cations to these client-impact areas are predicated on the expecta- tions and behaviors of the empowered shoppers that you have targeted.
No ma er which persona you have identi ed as your “Primal Client,” they will all continually be in uenced by the ongoing digital acclimation they experience, including the transparency that the Internet provides.
5. Less fooT TraffIc = beTTer seLLInG
Only the ostrich believes that in-store tra c has not changed or will bounce back. With about 10 percent of all retail being conducted online now and about 15 percent predicted for 2020, you must have and also express tremendous gratitude and appreciation for the people who walk into your showroom.
To succeed, we must believe that the digitally in- clined customer is in the showroom only to validate the research they have done online, and only then they will determine if we are a credible resource and what the buying experience would be like from this salesperson and showroom. It is our job to do all we can to sell this customer on working with us and not making a purchase elsewhere.
More than ever before, the success of a show- room goes beyond price-matching the digital discounters and is the result of superior sales talent. Preparing our sales teams for success is a blend of cu ing-edge product knowledge and interpersonal selling skills, sprinkled with digital pro ciency.
If you do not have a formal process for develop- ing and coaching your team’s skills, it is time to put one in place. This will be critical to both the sales team’s and the showroom’s continued success. The objective is about maximizing the client experience while reinforcing creditability ─ and all of that is done by the salesperson who is in front of them.
fInaL THouGHT
All in all, digital formats let us enter the market most e ciently against our competition and places showrooms on the same playing eld as all of their opponents. Communicating our uniqueness is the imperative ante that is a requirement for a racting customers into the showroom, not just screaming about product, discount, or a sale.
When the hard work is fruitful and the client ar- rives, the showroom team must exceed the digital expectations in a way only a human-to-human inter- action can. While exceptional product knowledge and customer service will do a lot to help increase sales, the sales team must also utilize these e ec- tive skills in order to close sales and be the winners in 2018. 
86 enLIGHTenment magazine | december 2017
www.enlightenmentmag.com