How to trick your children into eating more vegetables
(or better yet, how to stimulate the sales staff by using commissions
and bonuses and they won’t even know it’s good for them!)


Most jewelers pay a straight wage with no commission or bonus plan or
if they do they pay so little amount that it’s not an incentive.


Why do many jewelers opt not to pay commission?

• They are just plain scared of the sales staff killing each other over a customer. (rules are needed to be set in place.

• Some say it affects how the staff handles customers.

• Many jewelers believe it might cost them too much to pay commission.

But I know you don’t want to eat your vegetables (try commission).

As a youngster the kids in our family had to have a ‘thank you helping”. Just a bite to try it. If you didn’t like it you didn’t have to east anything past the first taste. Now I like spinach.

Give the sales staff a thank you helping of commissions or bonuses. Cover it up with ketchup!

Here’s how to start a healthy diet while increasing sales. Most jewelers have too much old inventory and you know you do as well. Take a large sampling of jewelry that’s over 18 months old, clean them and place them in a special case just for them. Place a pretty sign in the case:

Give discounts to customer of 25 to 60% off. The older the item, the greater the discount. Give the sales staff 7% of the selling price. Look at it as a deeper discount. You’ve got to make the pie sweet enough to make it worth their while.

I’ve seen many jewelers be so cheap, they give 2%. If the staff sells a $500 item, 2% is ten bucks. It costs ten bucks to eat at Subway, with chips and a drink. It’s just not an incentive.

At 7% that’s $35 and that’s an incentive. Again, look at the $35 as an added discount. Just do this on old items only if you’re not paying commission now. They’ll look at this as a ‘bonus”, free money.

If possible, have the bookkeeper issue separate payroll checks and hand out just these checks at a sales meeting. You’ll find the staff will start showing the extreme values we have for our customers more often.

Don’t worry about not selling the new items, they’ll sell. They’re pretty, they always sell, just get out money back out of old inventory.

Want to have more fun? Spring the green beans on them at the last minute. Setup the showcases as described, Don’t tell them there’s a commission or bonus. On pay day add up their commissions at 7%. Then at a meeting tell them you’ve been secretly watching them sell and here are some rewards for doing such a good job. “In fact, you’re doing so well, through the end of the year I’m paying you 7% of everything you sell in our extreme value case”.

They’ll love eating their vegetables!


Later when you’re comfortable with it, you can expand it.

How? Add extra incentives:

• You get 7% of everything sold in the extreme value case.

• Anyone who sells $10,000 (you decide on your number) in total sales from the case in a month will get an extra $500 bonus check (that’s only an extra 5% for such a great feat).

• End of the month, the single largest sale from the case, we’ll give you 10% commission on that sale rather than 7% (you’ll give them an extra 3%).
  
  
• The person with the most quantity of sales from the case (units sold, no matter the price) gets dinner at Longhorn Steak House.

• You could even try this one, which requires some attention on your end. Keep track of everyone showing an item from that extreme value case, whether they sell it or not. Give the staff a $1 every time they show a piece and the customer tries it on. Pay this out once a week in cash, especially at a meeting. It makes a bigger hit with non vegetable eaters.

So sneak them so many. Soon they’ll love vegetables, then later you can start serving “vegetable casserole”. That would be trying a heavier commission or bonus system. In fact, want to increase sales a LOT this Christmas? Would you spend $900 to increase sales this season by 20%?

Go out and buy TWO flat screen TV’s. One for $600 and another for $300. The $600 one would be a good sized one, the $300 one would work in the kitchen. Put these in your back area for the staff to see. Put a sign on the T.V>’s:

Big T.V.: Awarded to the staff member with the highest total sales during the season.
Smaller T.V. Awarded to the staff member with the second highest sales.

Some people don’t look at money the same way they’d look at “Oh wow! A TV!”