Not a Retailer-You’re a Coach with Products

Posted on June 18, 2008

Though small retailers struggle to compete with mega-stores, they have the potential to provide services their large competitors can never match. A changed mindset may transform the traditional retail relationship.

It’s not what you have on your shelves, it’s what the customer needs that counts. Traditionally, retailers made educated guesses about what they should stock, so when the shoppers came, they could choose from that which they saw. Then came mail order and the internet, and a culture of unlimited choices. So if they don’t get what they want from you, they get it elsewhere.

The old model of retailing still works, but not as well as it used to. Here’s a new model that won’t work in all cases, but the new model plus the old model will produce improved results.

Imagine yourself as a coach who sells products. You identify certain existing customers, and search for new customers who:

1. Love their hobbies/personal activities and have the money to spend on them consistently.
2. Who value service and convenience, and are willing to pay a little bit more for it.

You get much closer to this special subset of customers, spending time and money on them. That’s why it’s important to carefully select them– you won’t have enough time or money to treat all clients at this level.

For example, the parent that comes in and makes a purchase for Johnny’s school project probably isn’t in this group. The person seeing if you can beat an internet price isn’t either. The customer that sucked up an hour of your time three times running but found the item elsewhere isn’t your target for coaching.

Once you’ve identified the customers you plan to coach, you’re going to do things like:

1. Keep notes on them in their file (just like the doctor keeps notes on your health), writing down what hobby activities they are working on now, when you last called them, saw them, when you plan on interacting with them again, the names of their kids/spouses/pets, and what is going on in their life.
2. You’re going to interact with them in a meaningful way at least once per month. That doesn’t mean taking their money and saying thank you. That means a ten minute or more chat, in person or by phone, getting an update on their hobby and their life. And during that time you’re going to coach them on their hobby. This means you’ll make helpful suggestions about what to watch out for, make connections with other customers with the same interest, identify new products coming out soon, or provide a copy of an article on their hobby that you thought they’d be interested in.
3. After the contact, if you can, wait a week or two and touch them again– maybe with a new article you read, or a reminder.

All in all, you’re going to be their hobby coach, supporting them and helping them get the most enjoyment out of the time they devote to their hobbies. You’re also going to volunteer to be their hobby servant, finding and buying for them the products they need for them if they’re not in your store, getting answers to frustrations they have related to their hobbies, and getting them satisfaction with manufacturers when a product problem is discovered.

But for your coaching services, you require loyalty. And after you start coaching a new client for a bit, you should gently tell them that– that you only coach a small percentage of your customers who are loyal to you and buy from you consistently even though they might save a few bucks on the internet. They do that because your coaching services save them headaches, increases their overall enjoyment of their hobby, and that they probably save money over time because you’ll steer them away from bad products or overpriced merchandise. And you need the income from their purchases to be able to coaching them.

When you detect that their interest in a hobby is lagging, you’ll share that concern with them and help them get re-interested, or to find a new hobby to dive into. You’re their hobby coach.

Just try this with ten customers to start — the ideal ten customers for this approach.

I wish I could tell you how to under price everyone on the internet, the chains, and the manufacturers that sell direct, but I don’t think you can. So a low price strategy isn’t going to work. I wish I could tell you how to have a broader selection than the internet, but I can’t. So a product breadth strategy won’t work.

Your edge over the big players lies in customer intimacy and service. It requires a small, local hobby expert to do it, and that’s you. Find the subset of hobby enthusiasts that appreciate it and are willing to pay for it, then buy and resell to them whatever they need.

Say it three times so you can get used to it. “I’m a hobby consultant with products”. It’s a new mindset that will help you compete much more effectively in today’s retail environment.