TRADING PLACES: Top executives working the retail floors may produce insights and eradicate misconceptions

One of my hunches is most top furniture executives — manufacturers and retailers — could benefit significantly from working the retail floor.

Walking and talking a mile in a furniture counselor’s shoes would be a marvelous, revelation-bearing experience.

Furniture counselor, not sales person? Yes, because people want to be satisfied not sold anything, in much the same way a professional (medical, legal, financial) provides a service or counseling. Think about the attitude difference between selling and counseling and you’ll  discover the answer.

Learning to satisfy people on a retail floor? Yup, I would like to do it, too. The experience would be enriching, rewarding and exhilarating, but I’m not so sure my optimistic fervor is widely shared.

To those executives who work the retail floors, hearty congratulations. More of you need be out there in full satisfaction mode. Terrifying, maybe, but wonderful.

How do I know such an experience would prove to be beneficial? Just my intuition and normal curiosity tells me in profound ways that learning is always productive in ways never contemplated.

If only more top executives would prick their comfort bubbles and courageously insert themselves on retail floors to discover what they didn’t know.

Undoubtedly, they would glean new insights that could only benefit them in commanding the tiller of their mercantile ships. Conversely, confronting and overcoming the fear and risk would identify misconceptions, too.

Oh, my other hunch? Most top executives, many of them purposely detached, would be too fearful to march into the retail trenches and encounter people wanting to live better with furniture.

I’ll extend a palpable fear of some top executives. Many of them know they couldn’t do what they want, demand and command of a ”sales” force (as opposed to counseling team) does everyday.

Working the retail floor would introduce those daring executives how important a well-educated, informed and trained counseling staff needs to be.

A manufacturer and retailer are only as good as the caliber of their front line people.

Go find out. Enjoy life with a little floorplay. Good counseling, y'all.

Comments

[Rob]

Bassett retail doesn't have this problem any more.

[TK]

This really does seem like a great idea, and one that got shot down a number of times when I brought it up as a manager (back in my furniture days).

While our CEO is too recognizeable locally and would have been too distracting on the floor, some of his buyers and assistants could have gained a lot from it if you ask me. It would have changed some minds I believe.

Like you, though, I don't think most want to give up the power or the possiblity of being right all the time

[Calidad]

Ivan, although it is a good refresher for leaders to periodically work other jobs, my experience was that when they did work the sales floor, it didn't teach them anything.

They had the authority to make deals that the average salesperson doesn't have and then they were very arrogant about how easy it is to make the sale.

They were also not driven by the commission schemes that cause sales people to do things that are not best for the company or the customer.

If executives really want to understand customers and employees, they should go out on deliveries and service calls for a few days.