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Have you ever had one of those weeks where sales are quiet and you
immediately start questioning everything?
Maybe you wonder if people have stopped buying, if your marketing isn't working,
or you've somehow lost your touch.
The reality is that most independent retailers get this all the time.
They have quiet times and busy times, and it can feel really random.
The issue is if you don't have a plan, every day can feel like a roller coaster.
Today, I want to share a simple framework I've used with hundreds
of retailers to move from reactive to proactive when it comes to sales.
So sales genuinely can feel really unpredictable, and every single
retailer that I've worked with, including ones all the way up to the
multi-billion-dollar businesses, they all have quiet days versus busy days.
The only difference really is that in the really big retailers, they
have so many stores and so many different sales channels that the
inconsistency tends to get smoothed out.
But if it's just you and you have one store or one website or just a
handful of sales channels, it can feel really difficult, and it can be one
of the biggest confidence killers.
It can be a real emotional roller coaster.
If you've got a good week, you feel like you've cracked it, and
if you've got a bad week, you feel like everything is falling apart.
So having a sales strategy, it doesn't eliminate quiet periods entirely.
But what it does do is help you understand what's happening and what to do next.
So I'm going to walk you through in this episode the four steps that you need to
take in order to create your sales plan.
So step number one is to set an actual sales goal.
Imagine if you were entering into an archery competition or maybe
you were just messing around and trying out for the first time.
Could you hit your target if nobody told you where it was or what it was?
Yet that's exactly how many retailers approach sales.
If you were looking at an actual, real, physical target, you of course would want
to know what it was and where it was.
But many people go into running their business without an actual plan.
People sometimes don't want to set targets because they're worried
about missing them, but a target isn't there to make you feel bad.
It's there to help you make decisions.
In terms of how you actually set yourself a sales target, you can start by
looking at your last 12 months of sales and then review your recent run rate.
So your run rate is how you're currently performing against the year, usually
by looking about the last 12 weeks versus the same period last year.
So for example, if you took £40,000 last year and you're currently 20% up
on the year, you might expect to end up taking £48,000 this year because
that is your historical data plus your run rate combined together at 20% up
to give you £48,000. So this can help you start with a realistic forecast.
Important note, this number doesn't have to be perfect.
I just quickly pulled that example together.
You may feel like you really need to delve in and spend ages and ages
setting this number in your business, but the truth is you probably don't.
You just need to get a sense of what seems realistic.
It's just there to help give you a guide, an idea to understand where it's
likely that your business is going.
And the number should feel exciting, but achievable.
Some people do this exercise, and they realise that their number against
the year means that if they apply it to last year's, it seems like a huge
number that they couldn't possibly hit, and it feels overwhelming.
For other people, they realise that their current run rate against the year
is not so good, and if they want to really hit their goals for the year,
they have to see a big improvement.
So both of those examples, you may decide not to just do that simple
calculation by looking at your sales last year plus your run rate.
You may actually decide to pick a different number that feels more
in line with what you want to do.
It feels exciting, but not unachievable.
So most retailers tend to either set themselves wildly optimistic goals that
they don't actually have any concrete plan in order to how to hit them, or
alternatively, many of them end up not setting goals at all.
So the sweet spot sits somewhere in the middle.
Set yourself a goal.
Don't spend forever coming up with it.
Set something that seems realistic that you feel excited about going for, but
doesn't feel completely unachievable.
Once you've set yourself a yearly goal, and obviously we're partly through the
year here, so you can look at the next 12 months, or you could just look at
what you think you're going to take for the rest of this year, including what
you've already taken in the first six months.
The yearly target, it can feel too big and too far away, and it's often better
if you break it down into milestones.
This could be as simple as breaking it down to what you think
you're going to take every month.
But ultimately, for me, the best sales plan, if I'm working
with a client, is to end up with a sales plan by month, by channel.
So that is what do you think you're going to take on your website?
What do you think you're going to take on your store, or per
store if you have more than one?
What do you think you're going to take on Etsy?
What wholesale sales do you think you're going to sell?
How much do you think you're going to take through markets and events?
And then what other channels apply to your business?
I've worked with people who have up to 15 or 16 different
channels if they're selling across lots of different marketplaces
and in lots of different ways.
Or you might just have one, you might just sell in your store, or
you might just sell on your website.
It is going to be as simple or as complex as your business is.
But if you do sell across multiple channels, I do recommend that you set
yourself targets per channel because that will help you really understand
what's going on, what's doing better than expected, and what's maybe not doing as
well. The hidden benefit of looking at your sales by month is that you start
to see the rhythm of your business.
You see how cyclical it is.
Retail, it varies a lot from month to month.
It varies a lot by season.
But you should start seeing year on year, the longer you run your business, that
these patterns will actually repeat.
So for example, February is a month where a lot of people end up feeling the pinch.
They feel panicked.
They've come off the back of busy sales all the way through the fourth quarter,
sometimes into January, especially if you've got a clearance sale going on.
But then in February you get that quiet time.
So many retailers think that there's something wrong, think that they've done
something wrong, feel like they've really messed up, where in fact February is just
a quiet month for many, many businesses.
So understanding that seasonality reduces your stress dramatically and
you can instead think about what kind of big tasks you could do in February
to move the business forward for the rest of the year instead of stressing
about the fact that the business is quiet. So then the third step. So first
step is to set your goal for the year.
Second step is to set your goal by your month and by your channel.
Step three is to create a trading calendar.
And so a trading calendar is something that helps you break down what
activities you need to do to support your targets once you have them.
Otherwise, you're just hoping that sales happen.
So you build yourself your 12-month sales view by channel and by month,
and then you need to look at what's actually going to support that.
So the best trading calendar combines everything that's happening in your
business from external events to product launches, to your own promotions
to understand what's going on.
And the way that I would suggest that you do it, you can either
do it by week or by month.
You would go through and for each one you would ask yourself,
what are the key retail events that are happening in this month?
So in other words, that could be something like Valentine's Day or
Mother's Day, it could be Christmas.
But what are the key holidays or purchasing reasons that your customers
will have in this particular month?
What are your seasonal moments?
What seasonal things would you expect?
For example, do you always get a big spike in the summer because everyone's
getting ready to go to festivals?
When are you going to do promotions?
So do you always do a Black Friday deal, for example, or do you run
your sale in specific months?
And what product launches might you have?
So an example might be in January, you know that the key driver's
going to be your clearance sale.
In February, you have got Valentine's Day coming up.
In March, in the UK, you have Mother's Day, and then Easter in April, a summer
launch in May, and so on and so forth.
Once you have mapped out your 12 months like this, you are able to
start seeing where there are gaps.
Where are you overloaded with lots of different messages?
Do you have times where you're doing a sale, but it's also a key
selling period for your customer?
Are you celebrating your business birthday with a discount, but it's
also the launch of brand-new products?
The mapping out of your trading calendar across the entire year allows you to
see where there are too many messages, but then equally, where are there gaps?
Are there months where there are no real reasons for customers to buy?
And if that is the case, then you need to make up your own campaigns.
I think one of my least favourite terms is the term picky
bits, but I was admiring the fact that M&S decided that the 27th of June or something
like that was National Picky Bits Day, which they've totally made up, but it's
given them a reason and something to talk about with their customer and something
to hang their promotions together around.
So if M&S can make up National Picky Bits Day, you can make
something up for your business too.
So have a think about what it might be and what message you want
to pass on to your customer to get them to think about buying.
And there may be other ones that are really relevant for your business.
It could be Fairtrade Fortnight.
It could be National Independent Bookshop Day.
Who knows what it is?
But look for those reasons for you to tie into something
topical in your calendar or some reason for people to buy from you.
Your sales strategy and your marketing strategy should be connected.
The trading calendar becomes the bridge between those two things.
You may also, for example, see that you have got product launches, key
product launches, that that really becomes your entire marketing strategy.
If you have enough new product coming in, you don't need to invent these
other reasons for people to buy.
The reason that they'll buy is that you've got something new to offer them.
It's not about being more creative, it's often about just being more prepared.
And if the idea of planning your year out in advance makes you feel absolutely
sick to your stomach, and for some people they can't bear it, even if you just put
the skeleton into place without trying to put too much detail, it allows you to
be spontaneous and to come up with new ideas and different perspectives closer
to the time, even though you haven't…
You don't have to map it all out.
You don't have to get all of the detail right.
But you just have to know each month, and ideally each week, what it is
that you're going to be talking about.
It also won't take as long as you think to map out a whole year.
It sounds like such a long job, but once you sit down, you could probably
do it in an hour to an hour and a half.
And the other really important thing to remember is that although retailers,
as I said, retail is very seasonal, it shifts a lot throughout the year,
then year on year it should be similar.
So if you've done it once, then you can no doubt whip the same trading
calendar out each year and just update the months instead of having to start
from scratch each time. And then the fourth part is to track what matters.
So as I spoke about in last week's podcast, there's already more information
in Shopify than you will ever use.
So it's not about creating more reports or getting more analytic tools.
It's just about tracking on a regular basis how your sales are doing.
On a weekly basis, you could track your sales by channel, your
year-on-year performance, your progress against your target.
You can also make yourself a note, this is really useful, to understand what was
happening in your business at the time.
For example, depending on the retailer that I worked for, we would find that
the World Cup could either be a sales driver because people wanting to go
out and escape from the football, or it could, for some retailers, it was
a real sales impact because everyone was just too absorbed in the football
to think about going shopping.
So depending on the year, depending on the tournament, depending on
the type of retailer that you are, something as big as the World Cup
may have impact on your sales.
So make sure you're making a note of that on a weekly basis because this
time next year when you come back and look at your sales, you'll wonder
what happened, what was different.
And if you don't have that noted down, then it can be hard to piece it back
together because we do forget a lot.
Yes, you can look back at your diary, at your calendar, but it's much easier
to just simply make a note of your sales each week and to note anything major,
whether that's weather-related or big events happening in the world, or simply
something that you did in your business so that you've got context for
what your sales performance was when you're looking at it in the future.
And then on a monthly basis, have a look at your sales versus your target.
Take a look at your sales versus last year.
Take a look at things like your conversion rate, your average order value, and your
returning customer rate to help you keep an idea of how your sales are doing
each month. Future you will be grateful for having these notes and this context.
And looking at these things on a monthly basis can make sure that
you keep moving it in the right direction.
So for example, if you're keeping an eye on something like your average order
value and you're doing work to improve that, you're trying different things
to increase your average order value, if you track it once a month,
you'll be able to really understand whether or not it's
working, whether you're actually making progress towards your goal.
So retail will never be completely predictable.
There will always be peaks and troughs.
The goal isn't about having better forecasting.
It's about making better decisions.
So in terms of your four-step plan to setting yourself a sales strategy,
create a sales plan, number one.
Number two, create monthly targets by channel.
Number three, build yourself a trading calendar.
Number four, track and review consistently.
So a lot of the time people think there is a magic answer when it comes to growing
sales, but usually what moves the needle is having a simple repeatable system.
And then also if you have it all mapped out like this, it will help you when
your confidence does take a knock.
If you're having a wobble, if you've got it all mapped out, you know what
your next steps are, then you're able to move forward and do what needs to
be done as opposed to feeling stuck and not knowing what to do or feeling very
reactive thinking, "Right, well, sales weren't great this week, so maybe I'm
just terrible at this," instead of being able to say, "Okay, well, I've got a plan.
I've got a new campaign coming up next week.
I've got new products that I'm launching.
I know what I'm talking about," and having that real clarity of vision in
terms of what you need to do, where you need to go, and the actions that
you need to take to get yourself there.
So ask yourself now which of these four steps is missing from
your business right now, and pick one and implement it this week.
And if you want a clear, simple guide to creating a simple sales
strategy for your business,
head over to resilientretailclub.com/strategy
and download our free guide today.
That is resilientretailclub.com/strategy, and get our little simple guide to setting
up a sales strategy for your business.
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