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Jewelers and Jewelry Manufacturers: Healthy holiday sales numbers depend on a new approach to sales training now
Top-Of-The-Line Sales & Marketing Workshops for Jewelry Marketers and their Jewelry Retailing Partners
Pam Danziger, luxury marketing expert, and Greg Winston, sales guru, team to help marketers generate top-of-the-line growth by turning sales professionals into marketers and marketers into sales professionals
Stevens, PA September 17, 2009 -- The Census Department just released its advanced monthly report on retail sales for August 2009, and the news is particularly grim for jewelers and jewelry marketers.
Going into the vital fourth quarter holiday shopping season, America's jewelry retailers are facing year-to-date declines of 11.6 percent, according to the Monthly Retail Trade Survey.
In more bad news for retailers, consultancy Grant Thornton predicted that over 10,000 retail establishments will close their doors in 2009. Among those jewelers affected are Zale Corporation which will shutter nearly 200 stores; Signet Jewelers plans to close 75 stores; Finlay announced 40 stores will be shut, not to mention hundreds of small independent jewelers that will close because they can no longer compete effectively.
Jewelry's luxury sector especially hard hit
Unique in the current recession is how deeply the luxury sector has been impacted. In the most recent financial update, Tiffany & Company reported that net sales have declined 19 percent in the first half of 2009. Tiffany's U.S. business has been especially hard hit, with first half sales declining 30 percent from last year.
Tiffany is not alone in the pain in the luxury jewelry business. Harry Winston's retail division reported declines of 35 percent in sales for the six-months ended July 31, 2009 compared to previous year. LVMH's watch and jewelry sales are off 17 percent and Birks & Mayor's are down 25 percent for the first half 2009.
Bulgari's CEO Francesco Trapani reported that the U.S. market was a special challenge for the company in an interview with Bloomberg.com this past summer. The company has plans to close 10-12 Bulgari-owned stores.
Jewelers that sell and producers that make fine gold jewelry are facing challenges, as the World Gold Council reported consumer demand for gold jewelry fell 22 percent in the second quarter of 2009. While De Beer's diamond business posted positive results in 2008, the company cut diamond output by 91 percent in the first half of 2009 in anticipation of weak demand.
Retailers this shopping season need new strategies and tactics to turn lookers into buyers and build momentum for 2010
"Hard-hit jewelers can't afford to wait another minute. They have to take action now to pull out of this year's sales slump and build momentum for next year," says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience.
"On the plus side, jewelry retailers can finally expect to see shoppers in their stores with the holiday gift buying season. But this year, more than in any other, they have to make every customer contact count. Just putting a warm body on the retail floor to work the cash register will prove deadly this year. Retailers need to invest in new and improved sales techniques that will generate more sales from of each customer contact. In this climate, every member of the team needs to be a sales expert," Danziger says.
To help retailers learn about the 'new normal' shopping environment and what they need to do to grow sales and build business, marketing and consumer insights expert Pam Danziger has teamed with Greg Winston, expert in high-performance sales training, and author of Opting for Opulence: 14 Proven Strategies to Master Selling in the Luxury Market, to launch a new idea in sales and marketing training.
In their Top-Of-The-Line Workshops Danziger and Winston offer intensive hands-on training that will deliver to retail marketing and sales teams new understanding and powerful techniques that will maximize each customer contact.
Commenting on the critical role of sales training in the new normal economy, Winston says, "The time when Luxury and Quality items were sold without sales skills has passed. With a reduced number of customers, retailers can't gamble on outdated -- or non-existent -- sales skills. Each customer contact today is worth easily 50 percent more than it was two years ago. Selling the customer, not just presenting merchandise, is what is needed today."
Top-Of-The-Line Workshops are designed to teach sales professionals to think and act like marketers and to transform marketers into sales executives
Each customized Top-Of-The-Line Workshop packs a powerful one-two punch combining research-based marketing strategies with proven high performance sales tactics. Our client promise?
- Custom solutions.
- Innovation, energy, and change all accomplished in the Luxury Market.
- New sales and marketing team alignment.
- Actions with real impact.
- Great leadership.
- High-performing professionals and business teams.
- New ways to connect with customers based upon consumer insights.
- Engaged people who embrace change.
Winston explains, "I founded my sales consulting and training firm back in 1998. Since that time, there have been profound changes in the luxury market which require fundamental changes in the way we sell to the affluent. Our Top-Of-The-Line Workshops are based upon our understanding that higher economic buyers think differently, so sellers targeting the market must think differently too. In our training program we apply one or more of our core strategies to a specific affluent business context to create quicker, more reliable sales success. Our style is simple: provocative, high-energy, research-based with a strong bias for action!"
Danziger concludes, "It is exciting to be working with Greg to bring not just keen strategic marketing insights, but to translate those ideas into sales tactics that work on the selling floor. Our unique advantage is the ability to research and discover consumer behaviors and translate those into sales and marketing strategies. From 'shops that pop' to 'people that shop', our curriculum will deliver results."
To learn more about the Top-Of-The-Line Workshops, click this link Or call Pam Danziger at 717.336.1600 or Greg Winston at 949.388.2545.
(For media: Danziger and Winston available for interviews.)
About Greg Winston, the Sales Innovator
Greg Winston is a pioneer in the study of high-performance in the area of sales. His innovative ideas and methods have had a lasting positive impact on the careers of many hundreds of marketing professionals. Companies at all levels use his seminars and training programs with proven tools for increased personal and professional success. Greg has been referred to as being the best there is for enhancing motivation and creating achievement. That keeps him busy speaking at company, association and volunteer meetings.
In his early years Greg began a sales career with the Xerox Corporation and became one of their lead sales professionals. At one point in his year-to-date sales figures were 10 times more than the average sales representatives. While most sales representatives averaged 125% of budget, Winston set a branch record of 1003%. Immediately following that success he was then promoted to work with new hires. He used those same concepts during stints with CBS Television and Radio then Warner Bros. And now Greg brings those skills and more to your organization.
Greg is one of the few speakers guaranteed to receive a standing ovation with his interactive motivational speeches and sales training.
Greg is the author of Opting for Opulence: 14 Proven Strategies for Master Selling in the Luxury Market. Meet Greg at www.GregWinston.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @GregWinston1
About Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing
Pamela N. Danziger is an internationally recognized expert specializing in consumer insights, especially for marketers and retailers that sell luxury goods and experiences to the masses or the 'classes.' She is president of Unity Marketing, a marketing consulting firm she founded in 1992.
Advising such clients as PPR-Gucci, Diageo, Google, Luxottica Group, Tempur-Pedic, Waterford/Wedgwood, Lenox, Prudential Fine Homes, Moen, Orient-Express Hotels, Marie Claire magazine, Meredith, The World Gold Council and The Conference Board, Danziger taps consumer psychology to help clients navigate and master the changing luxury consumer marketplace.
Follow Pam on Twitter @PamDanziger
In recognition of her ground-breaking work in the luxury consumer market, Pam received the Global Luxury Award presented by Harper's Bazaar for top luxury industry achievers in 2007.
Her latest book is Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, published by Kaplan Publishing in October 2006. Her other books include Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses -- as well as the Classes, (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $27, hardcover) and Why People Buy Things They Don't Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004).
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