Keeping a Scorecard Increases Team Morale and Sales

Challenge: Decrease in Foot Traffic, Sales, and Team Morale

In retail, sales associates have a few seconds to establish a relationship and build rapport with customers.

First impressions are everything.

Grabbing the attention of patrons and asking the right questions when they walk into your store are critical actions to take when landing your next sale.

Our client, a Northeast Ohio manufacturing company that also has a retail division, experienced a decrease in foot traffic at their shop and consequently, a decrease in sales. 

With fewer customers, team morale dropped, adding to the business owner’s predicament.

Something needed to be done, but our client didn’t know where to start. 

He wondered if he should find new associates, work on improving team morale, or increase his marketing investment. 

With all this uncertainty, he consulted with ActionCOACH’s Rick Phelps for coaching and sales training.

Solution: Tracked Performance, Implemented a Scorecard System, and Adjusted Sales Pitch

During the initial conversation, Rick asked the client if he tracked his and his team’s sales performance. 

“We learned from the metrics that there was a noticeable difference between how much business the owner could generate in a couple of hours [on the floor] versus some of his team,” said Rick. 

The business owner produced significantly more sales than his employees. He was extremely passionate about his product, but his enthusiasm was not always shared by his team.

So Rick encouraged the owner to begin keeping a scorecard for his entire company. 

Our client took Rick’s advice and began tracking his and his team’s sales performance.

The scorecard initiative ignited a competition among the team members on who could secure the most sales. The sales associates were also challenged to surpass their own personal records.

As a result of this strategy, the team became more excited about their jobs, the product, and interacting with customers. 

“We engaged the entire sales team, and they began trying to outperform each other’s best sales performance for a given set of hours or days,” said Rick.

Additionally, because the business owner was also tracking his own sales performance, he was able to identify an additional, unique quality about his interactions with customers that differed from his associates’ interactions – storytelling.

“The owner was a very good storyteller,” said Rick. “They had a very important social value to their business, which the business owner conveyed through stories.”

After discovering the value of storytelling, the owner then taught his sales team how to tell stories when interacting with customers.

This new approach to sales did two things for the employees.

First, the stories engaged the people that they were talking to, and secondly, it helped fuel the sales team.

“People love to hear a good story,” said Rick. “And when you tell stories, you become emotional and energized.”

Results: Improved Employee Morale and Sales Increased by 27%

With the new scorecard system and sales pitch in place, the team’s engagement and excitement went through the roof. 

And the company’s sales? 

Almost immediately, the business owner’s sales increased by 27%.

“Sales training has a lot of dimensions to it. It really is: how do you develop rapport and how do you know if it’s working? Tell stories, ask questions, and then run the numbers behind the scenes to see what is working and what isn’t working,” said Rick. 

By working with a coach and learning to test, measure, and take action, our client saw a huge spike in his sales in a short period of time, which made all the difference in the world to his employees and to his business.