Sell Outside. Literally – Forget your Retail Store. Outside is the new Inside

We staff the street corners, not just our store

A sales initiative that is largely overlooked and a huge opportunity for retailers is in outside sales.

Typically, most retailers, will set up a nice store, staff it, advertise it and then serve the customers who walk through the front door and sell them products. However, what opportunities lie outside your doors if your team actually went out and hit the streets trying to sell your products?

This was part of a new initiative for us this year at Green Village Home & Garden. For the first time we hired a sales person at each store and gave them a directive to spend approximately 50% of their time on the sales floor during busy days, and the other 50% of their time outside the store trying to drum up commercial sales.

Even though this is a new initiative and we still have a lot of room for improvement in our approach, early results are very encouraging. For instance, during our month of November, sales were up approximately 22% over last year in our Moncton store. Approximately 70% of this increase came directly from our outside sales initiative. Our staff member did an amazing job and managed to secure several commercial decorating contracts for the Christmas season to restaurants, hotels, office buildings and more.

So when you’re thinking about sales, don’t limit yourself to in-store sales. There are huge opportunities all around you. Think outside the box to find new markets… or in this case, outside the store.