The 7 Shoe Dog Mindsets for Transformation – #4 Guard Your Time
Guard Your Time! In business, the best ROI is time. So you have to be wise to invest it in actions that create money, whether it is New Customer Acquisition or Client Retention. How do you invest your time? As a Shoe Dog your whole focus should be Driving Traffic, Selling Shoes and Getting Those Same Customers to Return To Buy More…That’s It! There’s no pay off in wasting time on Tasking, Chatting and BS.
The 7 Shoe Dog Mindsets for Transformation – #3 Closer
There are salespeople and then there are Closers…I get it service is important and suggesting merchandise is great but if you don’t close the client, all that goes to waste. Either you close the client or your competition will. It’s that simple, at the end First To Close Wins. Top Closers are Confident, Study Sales, Master Objections and have No Fear in the words No Thank You, Closers don’t accept No or I’ll Be Back, Closers Ask Questions to find out the Why. Are you a Closer or an Order Taker?
The 7 Shoe Dog Mindsets for Transformation – #2 Marketer
Rule #1- You’re Not A Shoe Salesperson, You Are A Marketer. Your number one job is to market You, Your Services and Your Product. 95% of people that sell footwear just work on the sales floor waiting for a customer to walk through the doors and collect checks, over paid mannequins that eat up payroll. Your function is to drive traffic in the store, to ask for you so you can sell them shoes in order to make money. The way you do this is to become the Go To Person when someone needs a pair of shoes, you need to Get Attention and Get Out and Create Your Business. “You are either Waiting for Business or Creating Business.”
The 7 Shoe Dog Mindsets for Transformation – #1 You’re An Entreprenuer
Entrepreneurship definition, a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. Now do you understand that you are an Entreprenuer? You are building your business and your brand, you are the Frontline and CEO of You…Believe in what you are doing, Stay Hungry and Go All In.
So you’ve probably received a 100 postcards the last few days from me, right? Well there’s a good reason but first let me introduce myself.
My name is George Valdez a footwear rep here in the southeast, so most retailers know me as the guy who gives the funny presentations but very few know that I’m a Marketer.
I’ve been in the shoe business over 25 years studying and researching independent footwear retail businesses, ten of those years I’ve been working in the wholesale part of it but this has allowed me to travel all over visiting retail stores seeing what works and what doesn’t work.
I see the difference between why one retailer Thrives and the others just Survive so oneday I said to myself, What more can I do to help my retailers business?
Well look, I learned onething about trying to help retailers “Its Not Easy” and for a shoe rep to give business advice to a footwear retail owner who started their business from scratch and made it successful, Who Am I To Give Advice?
Well lucky for you I’m not a retail owner because I would have never learned and been mentored by the best marketers of response marketing in the world, Yes The Best In The World!
So for those that know me, when I was asking all those questions about your business and marketing I was trying to see the strategies and tactics you were using to drive traffic to sell more shoes, so I saw your newspaper ads, your websites, radio ads, mailers you mailed, Valpak Ads and now your Facebook Fanpages.
Now here is what I found, 99% of all my retailers were doing the exact samething including the layout of their ads, mailers and even Facebook Fanpages. Now what this says, most retailers just copy what the other guy is doing…so they end up getting about the same results.
So I started working with a few marketers that have generated millions of dollars to help me with my situation, and they all said take what we have and develop something for my footwear retailers. So the last couple of years I’ve been working like crazy studying, writing, testing ads and trying to launch a couple of footwear retail programs, every night up till 3:00am…Its been a tough road but I know God is telling me to do it.
I’m partnering with these same top marketers to bring you resources to help you generate more traffic and sales to your business, now that I promise. You can do two things, you can take it or leave it.
Infact everyone has told me, dont take it personal if someone you know doesnt take what you have to offer because most people dont want to be helped. Most business owners are content in how their business is running, they are statisfied with the results they are getting and most of my retailers will always see me as a shoe rep.
Well yes, I’m a shoe rep and I plan to sell shoes all my life…I love selling shoes, I love footwear retail and I love Marketing.
So Who Am I?
I’m just a Shoe Dog who wants to help independent footwear retail owners Get More Customers, Sell More Shoes and Make More Money, so the next time you see me at a shoe show I just want to know that I helped make a difference in your business by putting lots of money in your cash register.
While all the other footwear reps are out trying to sell you shoes and their new collections, I’ve been working on strategies and systems to help you drive pairs out the door.
By the way, the #1 Strategy you should be doing and having in your business, I’m giving a Free Online Seminar May 11th…Register Now!
To Your Footwear Success,
Remember its the experience you provide to your customers that makes your store memorable. If your service sucks, your merchandise is boring and there's no excitement in shopping with you, Why should your customers come back?
You are not exclusive to any brand, your customers now have more choices and the market place is creating price focused consumers...but the one thing you are able to compete with and win is creating a Service Experience.
I traveled to Disney World to research if people were spending money, Disney World is not a necessity like food or gas so when I arrived right in front of the famous Disney Castle I saw hundreds and hundreds of people walking around eating, drinking, shopping, buying and it was non-stop.
I was greeted with smiles, I even received a pin that said First Time and everywhere I stopped Disney staff would say "Welcome To Disney World since it's your first time could I answer any questions or assist you in any way?" Whoa, I felt special!
I did not see people in a recession, I saw people having fun and spending all their money.
What did you offer your customers besides shoes? How did your customers feel when they shopped with you? How did the staff engage your customers? What type of experience do you give?
If you think you are in the shoe business then your business philosphy is totally wrong.
You are in the business of providing an experience, you are in the customer care business and once you understand that you will see your profits grow.
If You're Not Creating An Experience Then You're Not Creating Customers.
George Valdez- Shoe Dog Guru
Recession Kills The Clutter
If you weren’t creating clients and making money in your footwear business in 2009, you were just creating clutter.
Welcome to the new economy and the new consumer, if you’re not Rethinking, Revamping your retail business…Good Luck!
Here is the retail reality, you have no excuses for not having customers running to your business, pounding on your windows and yelling “Let Me In”.
The recession closed down half of your competition, over 300,000 retail stores closed…Poof! What have you done to grab some of this market share?
Thank God for the recession! I don’t feel bad about retailers that were in business for the last twenty five to fifty years and woke up in 2009 to see their business crushed.
Retail Business Differentiation
The footwear retail business has caught the plague of commoditization.
Shoe stores are all starting to look alike, the same footwear brands, same brand assortment and even the same customer service.
Most footwear retailers went into panic mode during the recession because no one was walking into their store, every owner and buyer would say “No one is buying right now” but people were buying shoes…They just weren’t buying their shoes from you.
You can’t expect for customers to get excited to spend their money if you’re not supplying the excitement, what did you do to WOW the people that walked into your store? Hmmm…most likely you started with “Can I Help You?”.
What did you change in your footwear retail business to attract new customers and bring back your current clients? If you didn’t invest to stand out and grab attention, then you didn’t earn or deserve to get the people’s money.
Footwear retail has become exciting as an aisle of toilet paper at your local grocery store, no matter how different the packaging may be the product is still the same and still being used for the same purpose.
You have to be different whether it is your customer service, your footwear assortment, your store design and most important how you communicate with your customers.
If you don’t invest to transform your business, you end up looking like every other shoe store on the block…Just like every other roll of toilet paper on the shelf. You can’t allow people to percieve your shoe business as just another shoe store.
Consumers can wipe their butts with any type of retail business because they have choices, you’re not exclusive to the majority of footwear brands in the market place and you can’t beat the department stores in pricing so it’s time to flush your competition away and make your shoe business, TOILET PROOF!
Here are Seven Ways to Make Your Shoe Business toilet Proof
“Little things don’t mean a lot, they mean everything.”