One of the most difficult things to do is to manage the sales floor of a large box store, especially when the corporate office keeps cutting your staff, apparently to cut costs and increase profits. Yet when a Box Store is understaffed you need to work a lot harder and this is not always as easy as it seems. Why? Well it is human nature when one person is talking to a sales clerk asking a question, that someone else will think to themselves; Maybe they can answer my questions too, I have been looking around for over 5 minutes.

Of course this means that the sales clerk must work twice as hard and they soon learn this and some of them go into hiding, looking busy stocking shelves or re-arranging shelves in order to do less work, without over taxing their brains. It is therefore smart to do two things you may not have considered as a Sales Manager; Hire only really personable and quick thinking sales staff for your floor; those with a little approachability and constant helpful nature and smile. Secondly, do not rely on the Secret Shopper Program to see if your sales people are up to snuff. If the company is cutting back your sales staff they are most likely cutting costs on the Secret Shopper Program too.

It is therefore recommended to have your friends volunteer to come into the store and report back to you. Most friends will do this and you can see if the sales floor staff is on top of things and knows what they are doing. If not please do yourself a favor and get rid of them, as they are doing your store no good and costing you a promotion for missing same store increases in your sales goals. Consider all this in 2006.