> Page 28 Notes & Cents > Page 30 AI in MI > Page 32 NAMM YP
IN THE TRENCHES I BY CYPH SHAH THE BARREL & BAYONET L ife in the retail trenches can be messy. It’s mud on your boots. It’s equipment failures at the worst times. Occa-
sionally, it’s a trudge instead of a gallop. It’s constantly ensur- ing your troops stay fed, focused and at-the-ready for when the action’s thick. As the ranking leader in your organization, your job is to make sure your team has what they need to get the job done — day in and day out. Lacking a squared-away sup- port structure means you risk your sales funnel collapsing in- wards just as it nears the point of conversion. It can be daunting to speculate on the many potential reasons as to why that failure may be occurring. It makes it cumbersome to pinpoint the hemorrhaging and some may be reluctant to even try. As a retail manager, attending to the needs of many can make it difficult to know how and when to make the right form of aid actionable. Here, in the trenches at Astro AVL in Glendale, California, I’ll simplify the approach and frame the perspective by referencing the two components that com- prise the business-end of a tool from a different trade entirely. In time, it’s possible you can uncover some discrepancies in your own barracks that could be quietly wreaking havoc on your revenue.
“As a retail manager, attending to the needs of many can make it difficult to know how and when to make the right form of aid actionable.”
community, we humans operate in a parallel fashion. Therefore, navigating your team off that path with the implementation of new procedures requires some finesse. Old habits die hard (yippie-ki-yay, Mr. Fal- con) and if these new routines generate any environmental re- sistance that procedural step will likely be silently skipped over by your staff in subse- quent sales. Understand that anything not performing at a speed conducive to the sales
interaction will be avoided or, at best, cause unnecessary frustra- tions. This challenge manifests in all sorts of mechanics, like offering clients funding options with a new financing partner — which requires finding those allusive credentials and learning to navigate a new portal — or a malfunctioning P.A. speaker wall that stifles a timely demo. For us at Astro AVL, it could be as simple as the absence of key DJ or pro-audio equipment demos entirely. When a dealer’s
THE BARREL: GUIDE YOUR SALES The barrel of a combat instru- ment plays a fundamental role in directing and controlling the path of the matter in motion. The design, functional integrity and continuity of performance is crucial. Unlike the consistency of manufactured steel, Mother Nature and human nature pay no attention to our target acquisition models. Nature’s path is one of convenience. So, as a member of that ecological
26 I MUSIC INC. I AUGUST 2024
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