By Harry J. Friedman Founder/CEO, The Friedman Group

You may call yourself a salesperson, but you're also a businessperson. To be successful, you've got to develop client relationships and work every day on maintaining and expanding them.

Retail sales is a process as entrepreneurial as the one performed by the guy down the street who opens his own printing shop. He's got to keep track of all his current and prospective customers so that he can let them know when a new piece of printing equipment arrives or when a new stock of paper is available. His livelihood depends upon his customer outreach efforts. If he doesn't let them know he's in business, few will find out.

Although you may work in an area with a consistent flow of buyer traffic, it's never a good idea to wait for the customers to come to you.

Approaches to Help Build Personal Trade

I recommend using a variety of methods to keep your name in front of your customers. With every method, you can begin to achieve the goal of personal trade; that is, you can begin to:

1. Get to the customers you want to reach, and 2. Tell them about YOU.

It's not only the store and its merchandise you're selling; it's you and your ability and knowledge as a caring meaningful salesperson! Demonstrate your concern through as many of the following six methods as possible:

1. Send thank-you notes to all of your customers. I recommend sending personal, handwritten notes to all of your customers regardless of what they spent in your store. Make them short and sweet: "Thanks for shopping with me. I hope you are enjoying your bicycle." It's not necessary to sell anything else or invite them back to the store. So few salespeople send thank-you notes that you're going to stand out among the crowd simply by saying "Thank you." I can even recall hearing somewhere that most people can remember all of the thank-you cards they've received in the last five years and who sent them!

Start this process today! Send out thank-you notes to all the customers who purchased something from you today. Who knows, one or more of those customers may return to the store and thank you for your thank-you card!

2. Make follow-up phone calls or send follow-up notes. Get back in touch with all of your customers within three months of their last purchase (or less, if appropriate). Again, make it short and sweet. All you want to do is let the customer know about some new merchandise that has arrived in the store and merchandise that you think would complement the items that they already purchased: "Thanks for shopping with me last month. We just received the shipment of the new spring line of riding clothes you had asked me about. Just thought you would like to know."

You're offering a reminder to your customer about your services and the variety of merchandise you have in your store.

3. Send FYI correspondence. Pretend you sell water purifiers, and you recently sold a large volume of them to a developer who plans to install them in a new neighborhood of homes he's building. The next month, you're reading an article in a trade magazine about the popularity of water purifiers among homeowners. Wouldn't it be a great idea to photocopy this article and send it to the customer who recently made an investment in your store? The FYI correspondence doesn't attempt to sell anything and is therefore perceived as valuable product information.

In sending out your FYI correspondence, simply hand write a brief note in the corner of the copy or on your business card that says something like: "I thought you might be interested in this. Best wishes, Susie Salesperson."

4. Send holiday cards to your customers. You can send your customers holiday cards for a variety of occasions. It's just one more good excuse to keep in touch. All you have to do is sign your name and say hello.

However, before you rush out to buy a sleigh full of Christmas cards, think about your true purpose. You want to get someone's attention, right? So why send a customer a Christmas card when practically everyone else they know or buy from is going to be sending one, too? Yours will only get lost in the mass of others.

Instead, use your imagination; send out your holiday cards for odd occasions, such as:

" Groundhog's Day " Valentine's Day " St. Patrick's Day " Independence Day " Halloween

If you worry about appearing strange to a customer who receives a St. Patrick's Day card from you, don't. The whole point is to be different and make an impression. Be exciting and memorable; don't be dull and forgettable.

5. Send a birthday card to the merchandise. Here's another way to be creative with your follow-up techniques. Don't send a birthday card to your customer. (It will only get lost in the shuffle with all of the others they receive or seem too slick.)

Send a birthday card announcing the birthday of the merchandise your customer purchased from your store. Or rather, let the customer know that you're celebrating the anniversary of the purchase of that particular item. If you sold a customer a pair of mountain bikes, a typical birthday card might read: "Dear Mrs. Jones, I wanted to let you know that it's been a year since you purchased your mountain bike. Congratulations! Next time you're in the area, why don't you stop by the store? I'd love to see a photo of you and your husband on one of your biking trips."

Why don't you start a photo album of happy customers standing/riding with/on their bikes?

6. Send your own personal newsletter. Of my six favorite ways to build personal trade, this is probably my favorite. That's because few of your competitors will take the time to do a personal newsletter, even though it adds a special touch to your personal presentation as a salesperson and helps to establish your authority in your respective retail field.

A personal newsletter, however, does not have to be incredibly time consuming or expensive. All you have to do is prepare one 8-1/2 X 11 sheet of paper on your typewriter or computer-whatever you have available that produces decent type. Place your own photo and the name of your store in the top left hand corner of the newsletter, and use the column space to talk about trends in the business. This copy can be from your own perspective, or it can be borrowed from an article in a trade magazine that tracks such trends. (Remember to give credit if you borrow another writer's work.) You can also take this opportunity to inform your select group of customers about new merchandise the store has received.

I know one department store salesperson who not only distributed a personal newsletter to talk about what was hot and what was not, she also used the space to talk about her participation in the store's charitable activities. By doing so, this salesperson generated an incredible amount of goodwill within the community and enhanced her credibility. Customers liked her charitable efforts and always looked for her when they came into the store.

It's never too early (or too late) to begin building your own personal trade file. You can start building your own customer book today. The small effort that it takes will pay back time after time, as you develop a customer base who wouldn't think of buying from anyone but you.

SIDEBAR TO ARTICLE ON PERSONAL TRADE

A Retail Success Story

One of the most successful retail saleswomen I know once told me that she makes it a habit to follow up with every single customer who walks into her store's dress department. She said she does this by keeping track of every customer's visit and writing it all down in what she calls a "client book." In this book, she records the following information on the customer:

o Date of visit o Name and address o Home and business phone o Occupation o Preferred method of payment o Preferred vendors and fabric colors o Purchase activity o Birthday or other special events

This saleswoman told me that by recording all of this information (which may seem tedious and time-consuming), she is able to establish person-to-person relationships with all of her customers. "People come in to see me, not to see what's behind the window display in our store," she said.

Once a relationship has been established with a particular customer, this saleswoman makes a point to call or send personal notes. She even encourages "appointment shopping" for many of her clients, a process whereby the client calls ahead to make an appointment and the saleswoman then arranges her schedule so that she can spend up to 30 minutes alone with that particular customer.

During this time, she may show the customer new merchandise or help the customer select new accessories for a previously purchased item. This service, the saleswoman said, is ideal for customers with busy schedules.

If you find that one of your customers regularly needs special attention or has limited time to shop, offer to be accommodating. If you were a customer, wouldn't you be impressed if someone took a special interest in you? And wouldn't you buy more from this person? Or course you would.