How does one increase sales?
It’s a question that every retailer asks themselves, and one which seems
to have as many answers as there are retailers.
But one of the best ways to answer that question is to look at people
who are doing it right. People like
Lululemon.
Lululemon was recently listed number 3 on RetailSails list
of the 10 retailers with the highest sales per square foot, right behind Apple
and Tiffany. A yoga-inspired fitness
apparel company, Lululemon’s employees follow a rather unique profile. Not only are they encouraged to live a
healthy lifestyle, but type A personalities and strong team players are also
aggressively sought out.
But more than that, Lululemon encourages employees to own
their brand. Store managers are
responsible for almost every decision regarding their individual store,
including store layout, color coordination, and community involvement,
effectively encouraging them to think of it as their own small business. And given that seventy percent of managers
are internal hires, retail store employees (known internally as “educators”)
know that they have the ability to reach that level.
Internally, educators are heavily trained. No matter what their level of skill, all new
hires work the floor for three weeks and receive thirty hours of in-house
training. They are taken to spin and
yoga classes to make sure that they understand the culture, and they try on all
of the products to help grasp just what it is that a customer is looking for
when shopping for fitness brands.
These employees know the product and, because of their
training, have the confidence necessary to communicate the value of those
products to customers. They are the most
effective kind of employee advocates, with the coaching and information needed
to answer every question- and the empathy to want to help the customer in their
goals.
And it’s that kind of employee that helps a little fitness
brand expand into a multi-national empire.
