My original work with teams was with sales teams and how to make them more productive. It’s an area that I’ve always enjoyed so perhaps it’s not surprising that I’m being asked to advise on this area of business more and more.

The last few weeks I’ve been talking to a very enthusiastic team about to open a couple of retail stores. A brave thing in these times but their product and their enthusiasm is such that you can’t fail be be drawn into the excitement.

Who will go topless?
One of the things we did is to visit other stores and websites to experience the “Buzz”, customer experience and see what can be replicated and what should be avoided.

A favourite visit, as voted by the group, was to the Abercrombie and Fitch store in London where I suspect the main attraction was the very fit looking topless male that greeted the girls and guys at the door. As you can imagine there was a lot of discussion and even a vote on which male member of the team should walk around the new stores topless. (Before you ask…I wasn’t even included in the list of candidates!)

Whilst the group agreed that the A&F visit was a great customer experience most stores failed to live up to the same standard and some didn’t even come off the starting blocks. So I’m being encouraged and helped by the group to make a couple short film for this blog on the topic and this should be completed this week. So keep an eye out on this blog

Last night I was at a business networking event and thoroughly enjoying myself when an old contact approached me and started to moan about “how slow business is”. His main misfortune was that companies weren’t buying his product and his pitches seemed to fall on stony ground.

He was downbeat, defeatist and depressed and after spending five minutes trying to motivate him to think more positively suggested that he was not going to improve his situation by spending time me. I was, after all, a friend who was never going to buy from him because I’m not his market and that he needed to be making new contacts, working the room, and not sticking with the familiar.

“Well thank you for being sympathetic!” He said with a growl
I ignored the veiled criticism, smiled and introduced him to the people I had been talking to earlier and who I thought might be in a position to need his expertise. Within a few minutes I saw that he was on his own again.

This morning I hear that retail sales had their worst ever December and thought of my friend. Could we in the UK be, unnecessarily, talking ourselves into another downturn, worried about inflation, afraid of the future, terrified of Government spending cuts and generally making ourselves depressed?

Probably!