4 Sustainability Trends Among Retailers
Retailers face major challenges when it comes to sustainability. They source products made all over the world. They use lots of energy to keep stores well lit and comfortable. They sells products that could one day end up in landfills.
But a new report from the Retail Industry Leaders Association says many retailers are taking bold steps to reduce their environmental footprints. It looks at some of the green trends and points to some success stories. While the report drew its findings from interviews with 20 major retailers – from IKEA to PetSmart – these practices are likely to affect smaller retailers as well.
Here’s a look at four trends:
1. Looking closer at supply chains. More retailers are evaluating the sustainability of their suppliers, including energy use, hazardous material, greenhouse gas emissions and water use. Some even require manufacturers to produce an annual report, so they can better gauge their total environmental footprint and be more transparent with their customers. Many big retailers are relying on third-party organizations, including The Sustainability Consortium and the Fair Factories Clearinghouse, to help them conduct supplier reviews.
2. Focusing on end of life. Some retailers are getting more active in help consumers responsibly dispose of their products — and that’s because if they don’t, it’s very likely the items will end up in landfills. Target Corp. offers recycling centers in its stores for plastic bags and aluminum, among other materials. The Gap in 2010 collected 360,000 units of denim to be repurposed into home insulation.
3. Educating consumers. Retailers have to be careful not to inundate consumers with sustainability information – especially in stores. But they’re finding ways to make it more engaging and transparent. WalMart’s Love, Earth Jewelry collection, for instance, allows people to trace their jewelry’s journey “from mine to market.” Whole Foods and IKEA created their own green labels.
4. Engaging employees. Retailers are actively asking their employees to help them lower their environmental footprint – and that’s tough: Retailers tend to have high turnover rates, which means employees don’t feel quite as engaged in the business. But some have been quite successful. Some, like Walgreen, are forming green teams of employees passionate about sustainability or hosting volunteer drives to help with local environmental nonprofit efforts.
What other sustainability measures are you seeing among retailers?
Footprint Photo via Shutterstock
4 Sustainability Trends Among Retailers
John Locke Shares His Strategies for Selling a Million Books on Amazon
In 2011 I wrote a few business book reviews based on a couple of Kindle purchases. In addition to the business books, I picked up one of those $.99 Kindle Singles written by John Locke about a savvy CIA assassin named Donovan Creed. I got hooked on his engaging and entertaining stories and before I knew it, I had read through all nine of them and there were no more! (sniff). When I check bed a few months later, at the end of the list of nine was How I Sold a Million Books on Amazon in Five Months.” I picked it up without even thinking about it.
Now that it’s a nominated best business book for 2012, I asked John Locke to share some of his secrets for writing, promoting and selling ebooks.
Ivana Taylor: What was the tipping point that took your novels to the 1 million mark?
John Locke: This is a very difficult question to answer and had you asked it six months ago I would have given you a different response. Back then I would have said it was a combination of the blog posts I’d written, emails I’d answered, Twitter contacts I’d made, and the Amazon sales engine that links similar books and identifies the categories readers search, such as Movers and Shakers, Top 100, and so forth.
But today I have a different answer because, while my last two books were best sellers, neither did as well as my flagship books, Saving Rachel and Wish List. Those books drove my sales into the stratosphere. These days my blog is still effective, I have ten times as many subscribers as I did when Saving Rachel came out, four times as many contacts, and twice as many Twitter followers. And the Amazon sales engine is as effective as ever.
My recent book, Call Me! got no higher than #20 overall. I look around and see other authors setting all sorts of sales records with a first book, and realize there are many roads to the top. But the tipping point to that top level of sales seems to be the book itself. Saving Rachel and Wish List caught the public’s imagination, and the sales were breathtaking.
For an entire month I sold more than 12,000 units a day. At one point Saving Rachel and Wish List were #1 and #2 overall. On my best day I sold 30,000 ebooks. All the marketing methods helped, and the Amazon sales engine was a huge factor. But these days I’m convinced the major factor, or tipping point, is the book itself. Writing that type of book is like catching lightning in a bottle. And when you write one of those, you know it. But everything you write is not going to have that type of effect on the public.
Ivana Taylor: You said, “Don’t let the things you don’t have prevent you from using what you do have.” Do you have an example of this principle in action around marketing your books?
John Locke: Here’s one: I had no formal training as a writer. I never took a writing course, never attended a seminar or workshop. In other words, I had no experience. But I didn’t let that prevent me from using what I did have: imagination, drive, determination. As for marketing, I did have money to spend on ads and so forth, but the money I spent didn’t help. Cost-free marketing is the only type that generated sales for me. So if you don’t have money to invest, don’t let that stop you from using what you do have: enthusiasm, empathy, people skills.
What I’m saying, there’s always a way to compensate for what you don’t have. If I’m not as smart as you, I’ll have to work harder. If another woman is prettier than you, you might have to be more charming. There’s always a way to compensate.
Ivana Taylor: What do you mean when you say you don’t set sales goals, you set project goals. How does that work? What’s a project goal that a small business author might set and how would they track it?
John Locke: I always tell people that goals should be low enough to hit and high enough to matter. A wonderful project goal for a starting author would be to get five, 5-star reviews for his or her book. That’s a significant goal when you’re starting out. Without a specific goal like this, you won’t do the necessary things it takes to achieve it. In other words, if you set a goal to get five 5-star reviews, you’ll be able to create a plan for hitting it. You’ll ask friends to review your book. You’ll read reviews others have gotten and it will dawn on you to contact the reviewers and see if they’ll review your book.
These are simple things, but without the goal, you’ll never draw up the plan. Without the plan, you’ll never take the action.
Ivana Taylor: You say that you should have a quotable quote for each encounter and interview. Why? How does this help your marketing?
John Locke: Quotes are sound bites. People remember sound bites. If you listen to the evening news, it’s all sound bites. When someone tells you about a movie or TV show or comedy act they enjoyed, they’ll quote dialog or jokes, which are nothing more than sound bites. Monday I did an interview and got this quote in: “Wish List is half rocket ship, half roller coaster.” I spoke to the interviewer a full hour, but that’s the comment she remembered. Yesterday I got this quote in:
“It’s amazing how everything comes together when you put the reader first.”
I could have pontificated on the subject for an hour, but people appreciate the economy of words a sound bite offers. I believe authors should set a plan for each interview. In the past three days I’ve done five interviews, and had a specific plan for each. I went to each site and became familiar with the type of interviews they’ve done in the past. I tried to figure out the best way to approach the upcoming interview. I’ve heard authors say they’ve done so many interviews they could do one in their sleep.
Don’t worry, they say, they’re good on their feet, they’ll just wing it. “Just winging it” is another way of saying you didn’t bother to prepare (that’s my sound bite for you!)
Ivana Taylor: This quote was a whack on the side of the head for me, “My work isn’t 10x worse and theirs isn’t 10x better for the price.” How did you set the pricing for your book? What advice would you give other business authors about pricing their book?
John Locke: You should always have a reason for your actions. I set my prices low because I wanted to make buying my books an afterthought. Also, I was writing day and night at the time, so I figured to make volume sales. So those were my reasons for the 99-cent price point. But circumstances change.
On February 1st, Wish List will be available in mass-market paperback in every bookstore and retail outlet in America. I set the price extremely low for a paperback book: $4.99, because I’m trying to get noticed in a new market. But I don’t want to self-compete against my ebooks, so for the first time, I’m raising the prices of my Donovan Creed series.
Am I abandoning my core readers? No. All future Creed books will still debut at 99 cents for a period of time that allows my loyal readers to download them at my “friendship” price of 99 cents. After that, I’ll raise the price so as not to hurt sales of the paperback versions. My Emmett Love and Dani Ripper series will continue to be sold for 99 cents unless the circumstances for those books change. So my advice is to have a reason for your pricing. It can be based on experimenting with different price points, or some other factor that makes sense to you.
John Locke Shares His Strategies for Selling a Million Books on Amazon
Selling In A Skirt Elevates Training for Saleswomen and Salesmen
The highlight of my mailbox a few weeks ago was a review copy of Selling In A Skirt: The Secrets Women Don’t Know They Know About Sales (And What Men Should Know, Too) by Judy Hoberman. When I opened the first pages, the highlight to bring me further into the text was a paragraph regarding a significant challenge that saleswomen face.
It’s a issue that is sometimes debated when discussing diversity and professional development – being provided outdated tools while setting objectives to be successful.
“The traditional sales approach focuses on overcoming objections to achieve a quick close, but modern cultural trends point to a new paradigm…. use “softer” collaborative and relational selling techniques. Although many women have tried to incorporate this strategy into their own customer communications, they are often told by trainers and managers to avoid “experimentation” and to stick with time-honored tactics, however ineffectual….”
More women are entering the sales ranks. But some of the glass ceiling issues that occur in corporate America exists for professional sales as well. Hoberman, a sales strategy consultant based near Houston, Texas, crafted a short book meant to challenge those notions through accessible suggestions. It speaks to managers looking to expand their communication style to saleswomen, as well as to saleswomen looking to leverage their skillset.
Selling In A Skirt has the same size and scope as Dive In, a concise human resources book for specific issues with disabled people. Its concise approach means inserting skirt tips – notes in each chapter meant to crystalize the point – and chapters grouped into three segments on culture, understanding the differences, and professional development beyond sales into management. The reminders are light but serious notes regarding how to train women to their strengths. One example notes how competition is approached, leading to better ways to train salespeople.
Skirt Tip: Research shows that men tend to be competitive, whereas women are collaborative. Sales leaders should develop training and motivational strategies that speak to both genders for the best results.
As you read Hoberman words, you’ll gain more insight as to how her tips lead to bottom line impact. Her goal for your organization is to create processes that enhance strengths for all.
“To compete in the modern economy, companies need a training program tailored to women’s strengths. That does not mean each company needs a separate training program for women, nor does it mean changing the entire program to focus on woman as sales professionals and as buyers. Companies must do it to ensure that the training program explains and embraces both styles of communication…this will empower sales professionals to work within their strengths rather than employ a cookie-cutter approach with every client.”
It’s the author’s approach that closes the deal for this book’s capacity to aid your sales team. She wants you to understand why “Male-centric sales techniques usually fall flat with female customers, who want the process to be more personal.” When suggesting open-ended questions, Hoberman notes a few examples: “What are your biggest concerns?” “What features are on your must-have list?” Then she reviews the nuances of listening needed to make open-ended questions an opportunity to connect with leads.
“To a woman, good listening includes making eye contact and reacting visually to whoever is speaking. To a man, listening can take place with a minimum of eye contact and almost no non-verbal feedback….restating what a prospect just said demonstrates that you are actively listening and summarizes your understanding of their situation, which in turn, will highlight the prospect’s motive for considering your products.”
Who Will Benefit From Selling In A Skirt?
- Managers who need to consider gender nuances in professionalism and how they differ versus anecdotal suggestions.
- Starter road warriors – new inducted sales people who need a reminder as they travel from client to client.
- Women looking to rise into sales-related managerial roles, particularly when confronted with a male-dominated culture.
Those who love deep research won’t find a ton of stats and footnotes, although a few chapters like “New Era” offer sources for notes regarding women’s financial clout in the marketplace. The stats do help to raise the points Hoberman notes on communication style as well as what is at stake economically for businesses to survive. The stats mentioned are used wisely, with no sense of overselling or blatant bias just to make a point. Hoberman’s insight and professional wisdom comes through on the pages, yet deftly avoids overdone claims of self-success that plaque overhyped guru books.
This book focuses on sales, but let’s face it. If you call yourself an entrepreneur, “sales” is the invisible syllable in that word. You will find Selling In a Skirt a terrific guide that makes sales feel more real to entrepreneurs as much as it does for experienced sales teams. It is not a deep psychology study on gender communication differences, nor was it meant to be. It is a serious, no-nonsense guide that reminds you of important hindrances for women in sales activity. It will compliment books like Selling to the C-Suite with ease. Keep this guide at your ready access, and with each read you will see how your sales will become meaningful activity.
Selling In A Skirt Elevates Training for Saleswomen and Salesmen
