The emotional tone of your store

Recently, I sat in on a couple of sales and marketing seminars where both speakers mentioned "selling is all about emotion." Apparently, 75 per cent of retail purchasing decisions are based on emotion. If you want to have positive sales, you need to focus on creating an emotionally positive experience for your customers.

We all shop. Well, not we so much as women. Did you know women do 80 per cent of the shopping? And I would venture they have a say on the other 20 per cent. Women also make 75 per cent of the health decisions in a family. So, it only makes sense if you create a positive shopping experience for your women customers, you probably will have a business that pays the bills and then some.

John Gray – author of Mars on Ice, Venus on Fire – explains when women have a positive emotional experience, they create oxytocin – the hormone of desire. This is very healthy for women. As a side benefit to her having a positive shopping experience, you also help her become healthier and happier.

One of the best ways to create a long-term customer and a positive shopping experience is to build TRUST. In other words, only sell a product you would buy if you were in your customer's shoes.

Here are a few of the other golden rules:

Compliments. Look for ways to compliment your women shoppers. It may be as simple as noticing what she is wearing to admiring her for going on a detox program. I have found if you compliment a woman on her shoes, it tends to raise happy hormones!

Women are visual. The store must be squeaky clean. According to Paaco Underhill (author of Why We Buy), fresh flowers create a positive emotion in women so they have an overall view of the store as fresh and clean.

According to women's marketing guru Faith Popcorn, women want a relationship, men just want a transaction. So it makes sense if your staff knows how to build emotionally-positive relationships with your woman shoppers. There are many books, speakers, audio courses, and websites, all helping you to understand how to create a positive relationship with your customer. And never argue with a customer: they are always right....well, at least until they leave the store.

The emotional connection

Recent studies by the Gallup Group have proven there is a direct correlation between the emotional connection the management and staff share and the emotional connection you have with your customers. This is so important it needs repeating. If you have happy staff, there is a very good chance you will have happy customers.

So, how do you build a positive emotionally engaged staff? Of everything, appreciation is far and away the most important. The main reason people leave their job is they do not feel appreciated. A basic premise to realize is – if you need more than yourself to run the business, you better appreciate the other people or you will have challenges in all areas of running your business. I suggest you read Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina's Follow This Path for great insight on how to create an emotionally engaged staff.

The acid-alkaline balance is often seen by some health practitioners as the way to create healthy balance in our body. Of all the things we can do to become more alkaline and eliminate acid is laughter. Laughter is really good medicine for yourself, your staff and your customers. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh is a great book if you want to appreciate how fun does equal a very profitable business. It's a must-read in today's economy!

The area that leaves the last impression is the checkout counter, which Underhill says is the best place to create customer satisfaction. If she has a bad experience at the checkout, she will forget anything positive that happened prior. It is vital the people working behind the checkout counter are well trained and understand the importance of their position as cashier. Women are time-starved. They may be in the store for 30 minutes before they realize they have to leave the store. Believe me: when she's ready to leave the store, she is ready to leave. Staff must always be aware that if a lineup at the cash begins to form, it's time to drop everything until the lineup is gone. This is vital to creating a positive emotional shopping experience.

The emotional tone of your store is determined by the words, thoughts, actions and feelings of all employees. The more love, gratitude and appreciation shared during the 'regular' workday will result in a healthier, more vibrant and enjoyable place to work and shop. Each of us is personally responsible for the emotional tone we bring to work each day. Personal accountability is vital to the emotional tone!

These are just a few ways to create a healthier, happier emotionally engaged staff and customers which is vital to having a sustainable business in these economic times.

Take action to ensure our future

On a completely different topic, I think each of us needs to take responsibility to ensure we maintain our basic human right to choose the natural health products we have relied on for our personal and business health. Do not rely on someone else to protect your rights for you, especially in the coming year! With an easy Google search, you can see how safe, effective natural health products are being restricted and threatened worldwide. I understand it seems crazy, but it is true. Please do what you are able to do to become informed. There are many groups working with the hope they will protect our right to choose safe, effective natural health products. Go to their websites – CHFA, NHF, NHPPA, HANS and others. Find the group that resonates with you and show support. We must not sit back relying on these groups to do it alone. Your support is needed! Please take some time to find out what you can do to become involved!

I see the current regulatory process as not only a threat to the sale of safe, effective natural products, but as a violation of my human rights. Canadians have a choice to smoke, take proven deadly prescription drugs, proven unsafe OTC drugs and to eat whatever artificial cocktail or ingredients under the disguise of food. Yet safe, effective natural health products are being put through a very costly and needless process. Last year, there was not one death worldwide from a NHP according to Colin Carrie, Secretary to the Minister of Health.

Remember – the greatest evil is for a few good people to stand around and do nothing! The health of future generations is being determined by so called people in power positions who do not have the best interests of those Canadians who choose a natural health lifestyle in mind. •