As shoppers grow increasingly knowledgeable about the products they buy, the demands placed on store managers continue to pile. With a quick search on their phone, shoppers can find the best prices, the flavors/colors/sizes, and the local sellers of any product they want. Heck, they can even have it on their doorstep free of charge in under 48 hours.
Of course, the work of being a store manager has never been more demanding than it is today! Store managers must be technologically-adept to an extent that their predecessors even a decade ago would never have dreamed. They have to be as aware of the competitive landscape as their customers are. They have to work efficiently, seamlessly leveraging the multitude of tools at their disposable for maximum impact.
Despite the acceleration of the digital tools available to them, today’s sales training techniques for store managers are far from fully digitized. Built to deliver swift ROI by recovering lost sales opportunities, CB4 was not designed as a sales training tool. Yet, our interface is lauded by store managers as user-friendly and simple. More excitingly, it helps store staff hone their skills to meet the needs of their shoppers. Read on to learn how.
CB4 Managers Are More Effective
Until now, best sellers lists were the way to advise store managers on the products they should prioritize. Visual directives and planograms are other widely used methods of ensuring floor teams are up-to-speed on the most important products. But these methods are far from comprehensive. In a grocery store, for example, which stocks over 40,000 items on average, even a list of 100 top sellers leaves important SKUs unaccounted for. Even in a convenience setting, where SKUS total about 3,000, a best sellers list isn’t going to cut it. How do you know your stores are minding the thousands of SKUs that don’t appear on your best-sellers list? Are your stores accounting for seasonal changes that affect demand? Do they have sales training techniques to understand environmental factors and local consumer preferences that affect their stores?
In any retail chain, planograms roughly group stores, but fail to account for variations within stores such as fixtures layout, vendor compliance, and beyond. As a result, planogram compliance is an enduring challenge. Beyond this, your selling floor might look like it’s perfectly aligned with the corporate directive: fixtures are filled and products appear to be facing the right way. But how do you know at a glance whether a popular size of hanging tee shirts is missing? Or whether a single copy of the first volume in a book series is piled atop a whopping stack of volume two?
CB4 discovers hidden patterns in each of your stores’ POS data that indicate when issues like these hinder sales of SKUs with predicted high demand. Instead of using your chainwide bestsellers list to assume which products are in high demand, we actually crunch the POS data from stores in your chain to discover demand patterns unique to every store.
CB4 only sends alerts for the SKUs that are in high demand, but persistently failing to sell to expectation. That means our alerts have a tangible monetary value. Say a store manager has only 10 minutes to devote to taking a critical look at his selling floor. How do you know he’s spending his time correcting the most costly problems? Instead of searching his floor at random or automatically heading to chain-wide bestsellers that may or may not be experiencing issues, CB4 tells him exactly what to fix. In this way, enabled with one of the most advanced sales training techniques, CB4 store managers are more effective than their counterparts. They have the sales training techniques that enable them to investigate the most costly issues and correct them to drive same-store sales.
CB4 Store Managers Are More Efficient
As the linchpins of their doors, store managers have a lot on their plates. They’re responsible for the everyday operations of their stores. They’re the cheerleaders of every sales associate and the advocates of every customer who walks through the door.
Each of your store managers should have the autonomy to be master of his or her store, and a litany of sales training techniques at his or her disposal. CB4’s tasks don’t take away from that. Typically requiring less than an hour of time each week, your store managers aren’t working on CB4 at the expense of other important tasks that warrant their attention. In fact, we’ve learned that some of the most successful CB4 store managers use the tool to give them the power to delegate.
You see, CB4 recommendations are small but powerful calls to action. Rather than tell a sales associate to go and have a look at the denim section, for example, a CB4 manager can tell the person in charge of that area to go find 36×38 in the mid rise indigo skinny jean. Beyond making store managers more efficient by helping them delegate, CB4 creates easier actions for lower level employees.
We often hear that CB4 fits seamlessly into store manager’s daily routine. A lot of in-store work is very regimented. Because CB4 recommendations arrive at the same time each week, it easily fits into store managers’ weekly routines. They complete the tasks quickly and then move on to conquering the next item on their agenda.
CB4 Managers Feel More Empowered
Sometimes, store managers see opportunities to drive sales but feel unable to affect change. The issue that most frequently vexes store managers is out-of-stocks. Across our clients in fashion retail, specialty retail, food retail, and more, everyone is frustrated when desired goods aren’t on hand and there seems to be little to be done about it.
Store managers often feel alone in the battle to sufficiently stock their stores. Those who interact with vendors directly may have little success getting them to listen to their concerns. Other managers may notify merchandisers and category managers, but corporate players are hustling to stock the chain for a whole season, not just a single store from week-to-week.
We can’t wave a magic wand and fix all your out-of-stock problems. We can, however, rise above the noise to keep the most persistent, costly outages on your store managers’ radar. More than that, CB4 provides ample evidence that store managers concerns over important SKU outages are valid and need to be elevated and resolved. As a result, their concerns get more traction as they float higher up the chain. If you’re searching for sales training techniques to empower teams to elevate and resolve costly operational issues, then CB4’s got your back.
CB4 Managers Love CB4
Each visit to a CB4-enabled store reinforces our value. Time and time again, we hear things like:
- “How can I get more CB4 recommendations?”
- “It teaches me about pain points on the floor and helps me to take ownership.”
- “CB4 make me look good! It shows my boss how I’m contributing to the bottom line.”
In a recent survey of CB4 store-level users, 79.4% were happy with the program. That’s a number we’re super proud of given how tough it is to implement new technology across an entire chain.
Why do they love the program? We make it easy to complete tasks on their mobile devices or on back office computers. Then, we sing store managers’ praises to regionals and DMs, who receive alerts when tasks are completed. In fact, our ROI dashboard shows just how much money store managers’ CB4 accomplishments have contributed to sales goals. Who doesn’t love a good pat-on-the-back, especially when there’s a dollar amount attached? And don’t forget the dollars earned thanks to CB4 are usually reflected in their bonuses.
The Bottom Line
CB4 enhances your store managers performance by delivering the 3 E’s: Efficiency, Effectiveness, & Empowerment. It’s no surprise that our retail partners are incorporating CB4 into their sales training techniques. Learn how CB4 can capture the enthusiasm of your floor teams and drive in-store sales.
