Driving Sales from the Floor

Retail businesses in the Winchester, Frederick County, Shenandoah County, Warren County and Clarke County region will be able to get training on how to “Drive Sales from the Floor” on April 7, 2010. The Lord Fairfax Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is teaming with the Top of Virginia Regional Chamber and the Old Town Development Board to bring retail sales training assistance to the business of the area at the George Washington Hotel.

In a recent study conducted in a mystery shopping by the SBDC it became evident that shop owners need assistance in training themselves and their staff on how to interact positively and productively with shoppers and potential customers. To address this need the SBDC is bringing in a retail specialist on the state SBDC staff. Marc Willson has developed a program that shares retail sales methods with businesses owners. Some of it will be philosophy and some of it will be techniques. The content comes from Marc’s rich retail background and corporate training programs he has come into contact with over the years.

Marc Willson brings 35 years of experience to bear helping retail, restaurant and tourism-related small businesses refine and promote their concepts to the public. In 1975 Willson started his retail career as co-owner of the largest distributor of Earth Shoes in the U.S. Since then he has held executive positions with retailers such as Britches of Georgetown, Crown Books, Circuit City, The Bicycle Exchange, Ecampus.com and Storetrax, Inc. Most recently he traveled to Dallas, Texas to open the world’s first energy efficiency store for Current Energy, LLC, a company funded by Ross Perot, Jr.

Bill Sirbaugh, Director of the Lord Fairfax Small Business Development Center, said “Shop owners have been dealt a double blow. The economy combined with the feet of snow we have had this winter has presented a great challenge to our shops. We want to help them recover as much as possible and to do that they need to Drive Sales from the Floor.”

Sirbaugh added, “Local shops do a great job of greeting customers but they then become unsure of what to do next. They each want to help the shopper and provide a great service but they’re not sure how to go about it. We want to bring in Marc to give the shop owners the benefit of his experience. He has accumulated an arsenal of effective sales techniques.”

M. Willson said, “Each person that comes in the door is a potential buyer and we have to learn how to convert that browser to a buyer and to make them thank you for it.”

The Top of Virginia Regional Chamber and the Old Town Development Board also both recognize the challenge facing their retail membership this year and they want to become part of the solution for them. They are working with the SBDC to provide the venue for the program and the George Washington Hotel is volunteering their site to assist the area businesses in this training.

If you have a business that depends on meeting the public and selling something to the public you can benefit from this program. You can get registration information by calling the SBDC at 540 868 7093. An early bird rate is available until March 30 for chamber members, OTDB members and SBDC clients of $45, for all others the cost is $65. After March 30 the cost is $75.

Speaker(s): Marc Willson

Co-Sponsor(s): TOV Chamber; Old Town Development Board

Please call the SBDC office (540-868-7093) to pay by credit card.

Fee: $ 65.00

Location