Kevin Graff

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• Creating A Sustainable Sales Culture

  It’s all the rage. A Sales Culture. Everyone wants one. More importantly, everyone needs one. With the competition levels increasing, retailers need to maximize the potential of every customer visit. Instilling a sales culture, one that lives every day in the stores, is the most important task in front of retailers today. Why is this so critical? Simple. It means the difference between selling very little…and selling a lot!

  • Discover how you can build a sustainable model that becomes part of the daily culture in your business
  • Learn why most initiatives don’t work, and how successful retailers have put sales cultures into place that work
  • You’ll see how the process of integrating programs, systems and operations together creates a fool-proof web built for success
  • At the centre, you’ll find the simple but powerful system that ensures everyone in your company is maximizing the revenue potential in your stores
  • Most important, you’ll walk away with a blueprint for building a sales culture that will give you the results you need

• Get Your Sales Staff To Actually Sell

  How much money is walking out your door every day? Customers come and go, but are you really maximizing the sales potential of every transaction?

  The reality is that you can, and will, improve your sales performance when you succeed at creating a selling culture in your stores. The objective of this program is very straightforward: Increase your store sales through improved staff performance. You hired them to sell, so let’s get it done!

  We’ll introduce the 5 Foundations needed to create a high performance selling culture.

  1. Maintaining a focus on goals and expectations

  2. Tracking the right information – and sharing results

  3. Holding your staff accountable for performance

  4. Ongoing Training and Coaching

  5. Supporting / Celebrating the sales process

  Your audience will take back to their stores a powerful plan of action to that is certain to drive results. They’ll laugh, be engaged and prove to themselves that they can and will sell more.

  Get ready to sell more.

• Get Compliance...Or Get Out of the Game!

  It’s shocking! The lack of compliance on basic store standards is ruining the shopping experience for your customers. It’s also costing you thousands of dollars each year in lost sales, higher employee turnover rates and added expenses. It doesn’t have to be that way.

  Yes, this keynote will shake your audience by the lapels at times, but if you’re suffering from non-compliance, it’s time they wake up! Your team will be given a straightforward plan that will help them gain the compliance they need on standards. While achieving compliance on standards is a tactical matter, the truth is that having the right mindset is far more critical in determining whether or not you’ll get compliance or not.

  Get ready to get better performance.

• Get Your Staff Engaged...And Get Better Results!

  You can’t pick up a newspaper these days without reading about Employee Engagement. Studies say it can improve productivity in your stores by as much as 40%! So, there must be something to this ‘engagement’ thing, right? Well, hold on tight because this seminar will look at what we’ve discovered you can do to ‘engage’ your employees and in the process actually get them to care about what they’re doing, while doing a better job of it too! Best of all, our approach applies to both the ‘young kids’ you have on your sales floor and the ‘experienced hands’ too.

  You’ll walk away with a blueprint to drive employee engagement and learn what the best employers are doing to ensure their staff stay on board and stay productive.

  Get ready to get better results.

• Get on Board...The Hottest Retailing Trends

  Do you know about the hottest retail trends and which retailers are the biggest winners today? Are you prepared to not only deal with them but to profit from them as well? This seminar looks at the fastest growing and most successful retail trends in the marketplace. It also examines how you can guide your store to profit from these trends. Trends are driven by consumers, and the best retailers have learned to not only listen to them but to anticipate where they are heading. We’ll share with you countless of examples of how retailers riding the hottest trends all the way to the bank.

  Get ready to be enlightened.

• Get it Right...Executing Your Plans Flawlessly

  Welcome to the “plague” for most retailers and suppliers alike–executing those brilliant plans that get launched every month. When it comes to working together it can often seem like an “us vs. them” scenario. Whether it’s a supplier ‘battling’ the retailer or the merchandising department ‘wrestling’ store operations, this often becomes an exercise in frustration that leads to poorly executed plans. It doesn’t have to be this way.

  Here’s some of what we’ll share with you:

  1. 7 key things you need to put in place to succeed at executing your plans every time
  2. Identifying the most common reasons why plans fail … from the side of the front line, supplier or internal department
  3. A Store Manager’s “Wish List” for those designing plans that they need to execute.

  You’ll leave with greater confidence in your ability to execute plans and with a game plan for ensuring you can implement them flawlessly, every time.

  Get ready to get it right.

• Get Serious About Service...Your Customers Are!

  There’s one very simple, but challenging thing that differentiates good retailers from great retailers: service.

  And if you think customers are demanding now, just wait! When it comes to the customer’s shopping experience, their expectations keep getting higher and higher. Life for your front line staff is about to get more difficult – and more demanding.

  Learn the essential rules of the game, from the customer’s perspective. Then, listen and discover seven practical steps you can take right NOW to make a tangible and sustainable difference in your stores. This isn’t rocket science … but the results are just as amazing!

  Filled with many funny stories and real life examples, you’ll laugh and discover what you should have been doing all along.

  Get ready to WOW a few more customers every day.

• The Retailer's Guide To A Successful Christmas

  This seminar is jam packed with practical ideas that focus on increasing your sales and profits during the Christmas season. By simply combining five or more of these ideas, you are guaranteed to increase your sales and profits.

  Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

  • Maximizing Your Sales Through Personal Selling: A detailed look at selling strategies specifically designed for the hectic Christmas season and how you can sell more to every customer!
  • Getting The Most Out Of Your Staff: Learn how to motivate your staff through the use of goals and the right work environment. Plus, discover how to get maximum benefit from your staff schedules.
  • Driving Sales Through Your Inventory: We’ll examine the critical techniques necessary to manage your inventory at Christmas. Successful retailers are masters at planning and managing their product. Learn how to get more revenue and margin from your inventory decisions.
  • Bringing Customers To Your Doorstep: Simple, effective marketing techniques that are designed to get you the traffic you want.
  • Strategic Visual Display: Discover how to maximize your sales by merchandising your store for top results.
  • Building Your Action Plan: Create a list of results driven ideas that will work for your business and then committing to them so you’ll have your most successful Christmas ever!

• Workshop: Coaching and Sales Management Skills

  Duration: Two Day
  Target Audiences: Store Managers

   

  You can significantly improve every employee’s sales performance by designing and implementing an effective Sales Management and Accountability System – monthly, weekly, daily and hourly. Learn to identify and reward your stars, and pinpoint those employees whose performance requires specific coaching. By clearly defining expectations for all employees and holding them accountable for achieving success, you can improve every employee’s effort on the sales floor.

  Get Graff to work with you to design and implement an effective sales management and accountability system. We will provide your organization with the systems and skills to significantly improve every employee’s sales performance.

  You’ll first learn to identify and reward your stars. Then, you’ll pinpoint those employees whose performance requires specific coaching so that long-term performance problems don’t “slip through the cracks”. You can improve every employee’s effort on the sales floor.

  This system focuses on:

  • Implementing and managing an effective sales goal process – monthly, weekly, daily and hourly.
  • Objective evaluation of both individual and team performance, based on key retail sales statistics that are available for every store.
  • Clearly defining expectations for all employees and holding them accountable for achieving success.
  • Strategies for identifying individual training needs.
  • Solutions for poor sales performance.
  • We’ve proven time and again that by tracking the right metrics and integrating them into the store’s coaching systems, that you can drive results.

  If you want to be in the game, you need a proper coaching and sales management and accountability system.

• Workshop: Territory Management

  Duration: 2-3 Days
  Target Audiences: Territory Managers

   

  Territory Management is a customized training program that aims to give Territory Managers the edge they need to properly manage their territories. It is built on the fundamental belief that driving sales and developing staff is the core responsibility of each supervisor. Territory Managers build on their skills and experience by participating in modules on influence strategies, establishing standards and achieving compliance, learning how to conduct effective store visits, recruiting management teams, and more.

  Managing a retail territory is not for the feint of heart. Territory Managers are continually faced with challenges that test not only their skills and experience, but also their resolve to succeed.

  Territory Management is a customized training program that aims to gives your Territory Managers the edge they need to properly manage their territories. It is built on the fundamental belief that driving sales and developing staff is the core responsibility of each supervisor. Fully customized to the realities of your business, the program often includes the following modules:

  Fully customized to the realities of your business, the program often includes the following modules:

  • Priority Management
  • Influence Strategies That Work
  • Conducting Effective Store Visits
  • Establishing Standards and Achieving Compliance
  • Recruiting your Management Teams
  • Performance Coaching
  • Executing Plans Effectively
  • Leading for Passion
  • Your Personal Brand

  This is typically offered as a two or three day workshop. District Managers everywhere are always amazed and delighted when they attend this program. Our knowledge and experience, paired with our in-depth research into the realities of your business, make this a winning program every time.

• Workshop: Sales Training Systems

  Duration: Two Day
  Target Audiences: Store Managers

   

  This is a Selling System, not a selling program. In the past you have probably offered a lot of training ‘programs’ that changed behaviours for about 48 hours, and then reverted back to what they were in the first place. This system will have the heart of the ‘program’ that teaches staff the right behaviours, but more importantly, this system will integrates the Selling program into daily store operations and into every other significant training initiative that already exists in your company.

  The worlds of ‘selling’ and ‘customer service’ almost always intersect and collide, resulting in a combined approach to training that drives both revenue and customer satisfaction.

  A Selling System is very, very different. Of course you will have the heart of the ‘program’ that teaches staff the right behaviours but more importantly, you will have a system that integrates the Selling program into daily store operations and into every other significant training initiative that already exists in your company. Your new selling system will become a way of life in your stores that never, ever fades away.

  This sales and service training system works because:

  The program content (the “how to” sell and serve) is always customized to your products, service model, and culture. Your staff will discover an approach to selling and service that is non-threatening, easy to use, and highly enjoyable to put into practice.

  The Implementation Strategy (the process for actually training your front line staff) will fit the realities of their world. Since classroom training isn’t always the best or most realistic approach for training your full and part time staff, a manager led, self-directed, online or blended model are all possible. You will get a practical process for training your new and existing staff that will work both today and in the future.

  Your training isn’t a ‘one shot deal’. You will receive a customized Reinforcement Strategy that will keep your sales and service program alive in your stores for months and years to come. It will become part of the daily fabric of your store operations.

  This is a Selling System – not a selling program. What’s the difference? It’s simple. In the past you have probably offered a lot of training ‘programs’ that produced what we call the “48 hour effect”. Meaning, behaviours changed for about 48 hours, and then reverted back to what they were in the first place. A program is a one shot deal, a flavour of the month initiative that rarely gets results.

• Workshop: Smart Orientation

  Duration: Two Day
  Target Audiences: Store Managers

   

  Employees who receive the proper training from the very beginning are far more likely to succeed in their new position, and stay with your organization. This customized step-by-step training plan and certification process ensures every employee is provided with all the knowledge required to perform her job successfully. It also provides the basis for all employee development and advancement, and it allows your employees the necessary knowledge and skills to assume greater levels of responsibility.

  It’s a fact: Employees who receive the proper training from the very beginning are far more likely to succeed in their new position, and stay with your organization.

  Our Smart Orientation programs are built from the ground up … inside your company. No two retailers are the same. As a result, the knowledge required by Sales Associates, MIT’s, Assistant Managers and Store Managers is completely different from one retailer to the next.

  Our fully customized Smart Orientation Programs provide:

  • A Certification Process for each position within your stores.
  • A step by step Training Plan that ensures every employee is provided with all the knowledge required to perform her job successfully.
  • Comprehensive Training Checklists that detail every area of Responsibility.
  • Multiple Assessments to validate “proof of learning”.
  • An in-store training process customized to each employee’s personal learning style.
  • A tracking system to ensure compliance.
  • An On-the-Job Training Manual to guide the leader through the Orientation Program, and provide her with the required skills.
  • Qualification Interviews to determine the ability of each employee.
  • In addition, our Smart Orientation Programs provide the basis for all employee development and advancement. Imagine never having to go outside your company to hire a new Store Manager or Assistant Manager. Developed internally through the Smart Orientation Program, your employees will have the necessary knowledge and skills to assume greater levels of responsibility … when you need them to!