Sales associates, if you haven’t read the popular book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I recommend that you do.  In the chapter Be Proactive there is one concept that I think can be particularly helpful to you at this time of “challenge” we face in the current economic climate.

It is this: we all have Areas of Concern (things we care about) and Areas of Influence (things we can do something about).  In a nutshell, there are things we can control and things we can’t.  The author, Steven Covey suggests that to be effective, you should spend your time in your AREA OF INFLUENCE. While obvious, he sold millions of books because so many people do just the opposite. They sit around and worry, feel badly, or complain about all the things they have no potential to solve.

A great analogy that Covey gives is having a concern about World Hunger.  One could spend time feeling bad, and frustrated and accomplish nothing. He suggests the proactive approach of helping a local charity that deals with hunger in your own community.

How does this apply to retail mattress sales?  It’s only normal to have concerns about business being slow and even worry that it may get worse.   But what individual control do you have over the economy? What you can control is how effectively you do your job when a shopper does grace your store.   A proactive approach would be spending down time learning new information and practicing using it, to better prepare you for closing as many sales as possible.  The next would be to take advantage of being able to slow down the selling process and developing relationships with your customers and help them select a top quality bed that is just right for them.

Another proactive approach would be to start a “follow up” file with email addresses and notes about your customers so that you can maintain and develop those relationships.

I know things may be slow now, but what better product to sell than mattresses?  Imagine, every living person is a potential bedding customer, everyone sleeps on a mattress every night and mattresses do wear out!  People will never settle for not being able to sleep.  If gas prices stay high and people start staying at home, their focus will be on their homes and improving their quality of life.   What better way to do just that – than to get a great night sleep on a quality mattress?

With the cyclical nature of business, it is only a matter of time until business picks up again.

Spend time in your Area of Influence so that you can be prepared for when it does!