Furniture Showrooms Run on Morale

Furniture Showrooms Run on Morale

When traffic slows, leaders set the mood. The best ones take market share.

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This is our Sunday editorial, running a couple of days late this week.

There are stretches when business starts to feel soft, the floor gets quiet and my mind starts to wander. I'm in one of those stretches right now, and I think a lot of us probably are. But slow stretches are also when the best operators quietly take customers from our competitors.

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Since Labor Day, sales have felt off. One slow weekend becomes two, and I catch myself doing what I always do when business feels slow. I go back and look at the numbers. I pull up last week, then last month, then compare it to the same month last year and the year before that. I'm looking for a gut check on how things are really going. I've been in this business long enough to know these stretches always come back around, but I still find the need to compare.

It's important to dig into the numbers and see if I can figure out where the slowdown is coming from. If there's something I can fix, I want to find it. But usually it's a combination of factors outside my control. That's where leadership shows up, in the leader who changes the story in their store and wins when others aren't.

The customer has plenty on their mind right now. Gas prices, freight and tariffs are squeezing budgets, and it's election season. We see it every cycle. In the weeks before a competitive election the news spins up, confidence dips, and people start asking whether now is the right time to spend a lot of money on furniture.

Black Friday can be a welcome shot in the arm, but one strong weekend won't tell us this lull is over. A slow week before it won't mean the customer is gone either. The danger in a soft season is reading too much into last weekend.

None of that is in our control. What is in our control is what happens inside our four walls. When the numbers are soft, the mood on the floor can slip right along with them, and that's when the real damage starts.

A store team usually looks to a small group of leaders. When worry starts to rise in their minds, it spreads fast. Energy spreads just as fast. If nothing breaks the cycle, the slow season stretches longer than it has to.

That's on me, and on every leader in this business. We have to be the cheerleaders.

Some days your people need encouragement and perspective. Other days they need a push, because the worry is showing up in their effort, their follow-up or how they greet the next customer. Sometimes that takes a carrot and sometimes a stick. The key is reading which one they need that day. If every slow day gets treated as an attitude problem, you'll lose their trust. But if every slow day gets blamed on the economy, you teach them their effort doesn't matter.

There are also simple ways to bring energy back to the floor that we tend to forget about. A spiff on a key category or product, a sales contest between teams, or a small daily goal with a reward attached can change the mood fast. People rally around a game they can win, and a little friendly competition gives everyone something to focus on besides the traffic count.

It’s important that everyone remember that every customer who walks in the showroom right now is there on purpose. Maybe there are fewer of them, but they came for a mattress, a living room or a bedroom. Many of them are tired of listening to what's going on in the world, and they want something good in their life. If the first person they meet isn't bringing positive energy, that store isn't getting the sale.

So make every up count. No customer should meet only one person. Every guest must be greeted, introduced to a manager, and never leaves with an unanswered question. Work through every objection, whether it's financing, delivery timing, size or fabric. Delivery, customer service, financing and the warehouse all need to be buttoned up too. With fewer customers, every mistake costs more and everything we get right counts for more.

If you're a good operator, this is your time. Keep morale up, keep your team on their game, and make sure the basics get done every day. You'll gain market share now and keep it long after this season.

Customers who always shopped somewhere else may not get the same energy there when they walk in this time, so they'll try someone new (your store). That customer walking in today might be coming into your store for the first time. Make it the visit that makes your store their new fist stop for future purchases.

The season will turn, like it always does. Until then, let's make sure every customer who chose to walk through our doors leaves with a receipt in hand.

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