Many of us might think that the hard part about merchandising a pro shop is the budgeting and buying, and the easy part is the selling aspect. But it is that it is quite the opposite. What is the philosophy that is the basis of his lucrative business? Service, and more importantly relationships, is what sells. Providing exemplary service by going above and beyond is hard to come by. And that can be confusing when all it takes is a mustard seed of initiative to "wow" a member or guest. Most think the deeper your level of service, the more money you have to spend to attain that service and that just isn’t accurate.
Service is not a product that you have to purchase. Service is not a tangible object or something you can touch and feel. Service is a way. It is an approach. It is even a decision that does not cost anything if you are thinking “outside the box”. Being well staffed does not amount to great service. You can be very well staffed and the service might still be less than impressive. Your ability to serve your members and guests can certainly correlate to the QUANTITY of staff, but it most definitely does not hinge on it. Ultimately, the be all and end all of the degree of service you provide is found within the QUALITY of your staff.
“Being good at anything usually involves being confident. Being confident in sales begins with knowing what you are talking about. Training staffs to be better at retail involves planning product knowledge seminars with your vendors and having round table discussions about service and sales
It all really begins with understanding the service aspect of retail and realizing that anyone walking into a retail space deserves to be acknowledged and provided quality assistance. The challenge in each shop should be to know three things about any item in inventory that aren’t readily apparent so as to be able to strike up an interesting conversation.”
You really can’t be good at something unless you are knowledgeable of it. Confidence comes from having knowledge in a particular field or career path. If you think back to your early days, you may have or are probably lacking some degree of confidence because you don't have the stripes on your shoulder that come with experience. If you are not knowledgeable of the product in your shop, it will be difficult for you to sell it and sell it with confidence. However with time, patience, and proactive effort on your part to educate yourself, that confidence will arrive
You must understand that you are in a service industry wrapped around a great game. you should know how important it is to anticipate customer needs and recognize how it correlates to their success and the success of their club or facility. They are genuinely empathetic and make everyone feel at home and they develop the skills to become good at teaching and inspiring others to do the same.Pro shops must realize that the most important qualifier is the ability to produce a winning culture and believe that exemplary service creates sales and word of mouth marketing.”
It speaks volumes to think about what the root of what we do really is and what makes us successful. Being a great player is certainly helpful, being able to teach is no doubt critical to our success as professionals. We can have all of these strengths, but if our weakness is anticipating customer needs, or our ability to serve others, or of lacking empathy and making people feel at home, or if our weakness is in teaching and inspiring others to do all of these things. If these aren’t strengths, then we will continue to miss the boat and struggle to rise to the success we might hope for in this business. The best and most engaging professionals are the ones that embrace the servant-mentality and put the customer first at all times.
(As operators,we always seem to be asking our reps for something, i.e. product, orders, ship date leeway, free-bees, etc. At some point, the sooner the better, we need to stop and ask our rep/consultant, what can we do for you? )
“Pro’s should understand that the vendors want to get the staff educated as much as the leader should. Every vendor should be given the time, space, audience and opportunity to make professionals aware of their product. Consultants should be leading the way with this process and their knowledge of retail and service should be given full co-operation.”
Service is people, service is not a product and it is not something that is tangible, or something you can hold. If you give a member a gift as an expression of appreciation for their loyalty to the pro shop, it is not the gift that is the service rather it is the gesture that represents the service. Not the gift...the gesture. Service is people and relationships and without a great staff that genuinely lives this mantra, then you may always be fighting a very uphill battle.
