Adam Hankinson, Managing Director at Furniture Sales Solutions, talks about why it’s important to reflect and set new goals, with the new year the ideal time for both.

Like many of you, I take time before the new year to reflect on the previous year, setting personal goals such as spending more time with family, tackling home projects, and planning dream holidays.

Similarly, our business goals tend to remain consistent, yet throughout the year, it’s easy for these goals to get buried beneath a pile of day-to-day tasks.

To counteract this, I use seven key areas to guide our delegates in filtering out distractions and pinpointing their professional priorities.

Attitude

Do we maintain a consistently positive approach at work, stay resilient when faced with challenges from customers, and approach every customer with the mindset that they are potential buyers?

Approach

Do we engage with every customer, know how to effectively handle those who are “just looking,” and utilize tone, body language, and words to build trust?

Questions

Do we have a bank of effective questions for customers, avoid asking ineffective ones, and know how to use questions to identify and address customer priorities?

Listening

Do we know how to demonstrate active listening through body language, utilize tools like paraphrasing to show genuine attentiveness, and fully commit to each customer, providing undivided attention?

Selling the solution

Do we possess in-depth product knowledge, especially about bestsellers, and tailor product features and benefits to fulfil specific customer needs?

Conclude

Do we know how to nail-down key decisions throughout the sale, identify the three must-haves for each customer, and tailor the close accordingly while consistently asking for the order?

Referrals and Recommendations

Do we make every customer feel special, accompany them to the store entrance after the sale, and distribute business cards with the clear intention of generating referrals from satisfied customers?

Working through this list you’ll instantly recognise where you are strongest and where you have room to improve. Perhaps you’re already a very positive person, but find it difficult to ask for the order or maybe you’re good at opening up the customer with some great questions, but are lacking when it comes to product knowledge.

You should end up with a list of things that you’re going to stop, start and continue. For example;

I’m going to stop asking bad opening questions, like “are you ok there?”

I’m going to start providing undivided attention to every customer

I’m going to continue backing up every product feature with a benefit that is relevant to the customer.

We all let our new year’s resolutions slip now and again, but by really drilling down and focusing on a few key areas for improvement you’ll be able to refer to these throughout the year just to remind yourself of your intention and keep yourself on track to achieving your professional goals.