Christmas Tips For Retailers

How to use

How to use the magic of Christmas to transform '52 Terrific Tips For Christmas Workbook' from a collection of Christmas tips into an idea-generating, motivational tool for your business.

These Christmas Tips are not just to be read, they are to be used.

If you have the e-book version of this publication here is a way that you can bring the content
alive and turn it into a useful idea-generating tool for your business.

1. Give each member of your team a copy of Parts One and Two of this workbook. Ask them to read Part One and jot down their thoughts for both questions under each heading in Part Two.
2. Schedule a meeting or training session to prepare for Christmas. Call it a ‘How to make
   this Christmas the best ever’ session.
3. Get people into small groups, ideally not more than fi ve people per group so that everyone gets an opportunity to participate. Allocate each group one of the seven topics.
4. Give them a big sheet of chart paper and some felt tip pens and ask them to share their responses to their topic. Allow around 15 minutes for this.
5. Get a spokesperson from each group to present their fi ndings. After each presentation ask
   participants from other groups to contribute any additional examples or ideas and ensure
   these are also recorded on the sheets.
6. Arrange for all the points gathered to be typed up. Ask for volunteers to work further on each topic and come up with at least three (or 33) points that they recommend for action for each topic in the lead up to Christmas. Set a deadline for this.
7. After Christmas ensure that there is a gathering of your team to review how customers reacted, what worked well, what didn’t, what should be repeated next year and what
   should be done differently.

The individual articles in Part Three can be used in company newsletters to help stimulate interest or be handed out one per week to employees from the beginning of October. This helps to keep people thinking about how to make this the best ever Christmas for themselves, their customers and their store.

If you need any advice on this please email me at info@terrifictrading.com

Good luck and good trading.

Jurek Leon
Terrific Trading Pty Ltd

A Message from Santa

My first job in retail was as a professional Father Christmas for a group of retail stores…at the age of 17. On leaving school, I’d come out to Australia with my parents on holiday from Scotland and decided to stay for a couple of years to work and study. It was getting close to Christmas and I needed some money to pay the rent. It was also the beginning of summer.

Five small stores in a shopping strip in the Perth suburb of Midland had banded together to hire a Father Christmas but hadn’t had much luck in attracting a retired pensioner, their preferred candidate. The physical nature of the job wasn’t appealing to the candidates. You see, they were expecting ‘Father Christmas’ to march up and down the pavement in his Santa Suit carrying two bags, one filled with balloons with the names of the stores printed on them and the other with lollies. This would be in the heat of summer. No seat to sit on, no air-conditioning, and six hours a day on your feet.

The idea was that children would see Father Christmas and be keen to know what he had for them in his sacks; and then parents might be attracted to go into the stores. There was a chemist, a jewellers, a bike shop, a toyshop and one other that I can’t recall.

I was young, fit and ready to give it a go, so the retailers gave me a go. A couple of years later I studied child psychology but I learnt more about child psychology, and parent psychology, that week than I ever learned through formal study.

These days it’s a passion of mine to help retailers make the most of Christmas. Not just from a gross profit and sales perspective but also making sure it is an enjoyable, entertaining, uplifting experience for customers and the people serving them.

'52 Terrific Tips For Christmas Workbook' brings together many of the ideas gleaned from retailers who have attended our “How To Make This Christmas Your Best Ever” seminars in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. It covers seven key areas:

• Motivation
• Management
• Training
• Spectacular Service
• Promotion
• Display and Atmosphere
• Special Selling Tips

It includes worksheets to help you and your team focus on these areas and come up with specific steps to enable you to make this the best ever Christmas for your business.

Jurek Leon