IMPROVING SALES MODULE 4

KNOW YOUR PRODUCT It’s worth spending some time reading the magazine to see what is in there. It can help your sales pitch as you know what you can draw people in with. For example an article about a children’s book could be advertised to parents, shout out about a Rugby interview on match day, yell at students about jobs.

KNOW YOUR PITCH What are the busiest times on your pitch? If you don’t have the same pitch all day, try and think what would be the best order to go. For example, Queen Street station is very good at rush hours such as 8-9am and 4-5pm with people coming back and forth from work. Somewhere central in town is good during the day where there will be lots of people shopping. Use your initiative and learn by experience as to what works. Be aware of events in town, for example, is there a book signing in HMV? There will be lots of people so try and get a nearby pitch.

REGULAR CUSTOMERS Regular customers are people who buy the magazine every week, regardless of weather, cover images, etc. Many people like to buy off the same vendor, especially if it’s someone they see often, for example on the route to work, or where they get the bus. For you as a vendor, you want to aim to get as many regular customers as you can, this then guarantees you a set amount of sales every week. A good way to ensure this is to aim to earn yourself a blue badge, then you know you’ll be at the same place at a certain time of day and won’t have the misfortune of getting frustrated by someone else choosing a pitch that you want. This means you can tell your customers where you will be at what time, so if your pitch does change, they’ll know where to find you

TIME MANAGEMENT Treat this as any other job. Could you go home early or have loads of breaks in any other job? Why not set your own time of work and stick to it. You know the office opening hours and remember that every hour is different, so if your having a slow hour stay where you are. The next hour may be similar but its not your time to finish.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED SALES TRAINING! YOU WILL RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING CERTIFICATE AFTER YOUR HAVE SOLD YOUR FIRST 100 MAGAZINES.