Part 2 – Field Guide

Guide to Building Better Buy-In  
By ENS Media

Much of the success of special sales and events is dependent upon the attitude of your staff. The way customers are greeted and treated has a direct bearing on sales, referrals, and repeat business.

All too often the role of front-line staff and salespeople is underestimated by businesses that only share the workload, not the success. Here are guidelines to help you win the buy-in, participation, and passion of your people for your next marketing event.

1. Involve your key players and staff from the outset. Explain the problems or opportunities as you see them and discuss their ideas and your proposed strategies with them. Employees who feel like part of the plan will work harder to execute the plan.
2. Expose them to the advertising campaign before the public is exposed to it. Make them feel like insiders and like they had a special sneak preview of what was about to happen.
3. Where warranted, run a special pre-event for employees, their friends, and their families. Your staff and their sphere of friends and family can be your best customers if you have won their hearts.
4. Get a supplier to contribute products or prizes to the staff members who reach certain sales targets of that supplier’s advertised goods or services.
5. Train, train, train. Make sure your staff understands the products, services, and special offers you are presenting during your marketing event. Staff that is caught off guard or who do not feel confident or knowledgeable about what they are selling will suffer low self-esteem and will not be passionate about working with you.
6. Have some fun launching the event with a staff barbecue or pizza lunch. Employees who are having fun will be more likely to greet your customers with a smile.
7. Recognize extra effort. Offering a day off, a special award or trophy, and publicly acknowledging your front-line people creates a much more positive environment for them and your customers. 
8. Set overall and individual goals. It’s hard to feel successful if you don’t know what your employer’s definition of success is. When setting goals, make sure they are realistic but challenging.
9. Put mechanisms in place to measure intangibles beyond sales. A customer service survey gives customers the opportunity to acknowledge certain employees and also helps you to understand customer expectations.
10. Announce the campaign results.  After your people put in extra hours or get excited about the launch of a particular campaign, they need to know the results; what worked and what didn’t work.
11. Don’t just rely on advertising and staff incentives to create excitement for the event. Make sure the theme and the advertised products or services are front and center in your merchandising.