Sales Managers Top 7 Mistakes

Managing a sales team effectively is difficult. Many sales managers find themselves promoted to the position directly from sales because of their outstanding individual sales performance. They often have no previous management experience and are given little training to develop leadership skills. In the absence of direction and development they're usually compelled to take control of their sales force rather than develop and lead it. Here is a list of the top 7 mistakes made by sales managers, and how to overcome them: Micromanaging. While delegation is an exceptional tool for experienced leaders, it is extremely difficult for inexperienced managers to grasp. In the absence of confidence and self-awareness they frequently attempt to control every facet of a salespersons work day. They often base these instructions on what worked well for them in their own sales careers without taking into account individual strengths, personalities, habits and learning styles. Instead of removing roadblocks they create them, making a salespersons job more difficult and less rewarding. Efficiency, effectiveness and moral all suffer as a result. Creating blanket policies. Issues that arise in management are often specific to an individual salesperson(s) rather than the team as a whole. Individual conversations take time however, and can be uncomfortable. Sales managers tend to avoid confrontation by issuing blanket policies and communications that negatively impact the entire team. The team doesn't understand the reason for the policy/communication and as a result, feels unjustly suppressed. Mean while the individual(s) that was the cause never has the benefit of a direct conversation enabling them to understand the root issue and participate in the discovery of a solution. Requiring excessive paperwork & reporting. Insisting that all team members produce exhaustive reports about their daily activities is both inefficient and ineffective. While call activity might be an important coaching opportunity for a new salesperson, it probably isn't a good use of time for your top performer(s). "What's good for one is good for all" is nonsense. Team members should be assessed on an individual basis and asked to report on information that can positively impact them. Make sure the information tracked is relevant and important to their success and give them access to any tools and technology that can increase the efficiency of their reporting. Allowing mediocrity. There are almost always people on a sales team that will never perform at a high level, regardless of how much training and technology is invested in them. Evaluate people fairly but if it's clear that they aren't going to cut it, get rid of them. Putting off the inevitable is not good for them or the company. Not providing enough 1-on-1 time. We all have different strengths, personalities, learning styles, and needs. For sales people to grow they need individual attention and help. Figure out a way to get time alone with every member of your team regularly and consistently. Review the information you intend to discuss a day in advance - this will help you do a better job of listening and discovering areas of need. It's no different than selling; if you don't understand their needs, you can't show them how you can be a benefit to them. Not spending enough time on the street. To really understand how a sales team is performing managers need to get out on the street with them. There isn't a coach in the world that shows up for practice but skips the game. The field is where we see theory put into practice, and it's where true coachable moments appear. Not listening. Telling team members how to perform better isn't the same as teaching them how. We have to listen to fully understand issues, roadblocks, and what the solutions might be. There is always something to learn, even for managers. Not giving credit. Sales managers too often assume that they have to prove their worth by demonstrating the effectiveness of their own efforts. The reality is that managements effectiveness is reflected in the performance of the team. Give credit where credit is do. Promote the successes of individuals and of the team. It boosts their confidence and moral, and shows that you are more concerned with the success of the company than with your own success. It's difficult to manage a sales team effectively, but by identifying common mistakes and working hard to correct them, over the course of time, sales managers will find themselves capable of elevating individuals and teams to a new level of success. I am a certified professional coach, management and sales trainer, using the science of personality traits and communication, strengths and learning styles to help organizations develop elite teams, and help individuals realize unparalleled success. For additional discussions and insights, please visit my blog at http://trevinwecks.com/blog. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevin_Bensko-Wecks

Improving Sales Force Effectiveness Using Six Sigma

Abstract For effective sales, companies need to differentiate how they allocate their limited sales resources among existing customers, customer service and new business development (prospects). When ranking Customers and Prospects, the common metric is usually either sales or profits. This paper will show how you can blend multiple desirable sales characteristics including Sales Growth, Close Rate, Payment History, Unit Volume, Repeat Business, along with Sales and Profit, to create an "Overall Performance Factor" for each Customer or Prospect. This Overall Performance Factor can easily be sorted to create an objective ranking of best to lowest performance in which you can prioritize and assign the appropriate sales resources to meet the company's objectives. Background Sales Process / Performance Improvement Project Customer Ranking - Shortcomings of the 80/20 Rule Multi-Measure Approach Needed Created a New Customer Ranking System This Property & Casualty Insurance company needed to evaluate their Sales Process. While they were profitable, earnings were flat for the last 3 years and their investors were punishing them with a low stock price. The analysis led to an evaluation of their Independent Sales Force. They sold insurance through independent agencies. These could be sole proprietors who sell one company's insurance products exclusively or larger multi-agent firms that sell multiple, and even competing lines. At the time of this project they had about 2400 independent insurance agencies. These agencies were their "business-to-business" customers. Ranking their independent agencies based on Sales (traditional method) quickly showed itself as being an incomplete view. They were concerned about multiple measures including Sales Growth, Consumer Retention and Profitability. The company needed to do great in all of these measures, plus Sales/Revenue, to meet the earnings growth expectations their investors were demanding. A Multi-Variable-Pareto calculation tool was used to develop a single customer (or independent agency) ranking. This tool used the principles of Pareto Analysis but allowed them to calculate an Overall Performance Indicator based on multiple performance factors. Multi-Variable Pareto Method Pareto Charts were developed in the late 1800's by an Italian Economist, Vilfredo Pareto. He used this analysis to determine that wealth was skewed to a small portion of the population. In his time, 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the families in Italy. From Vilfredo we derived the Pareto Principal or 80/20 rule. This is commonly used in sales, with 80% of sales generated by only 20% of customers. Pareto Analysis is a great business tool, but there is more to increasing profit than focusing on just sales, or even just profit. There are leading and lagging indicators of profit growth from the customer base. Measures The first step was to determine what measures defined great customers (or great independent agencies). A cross functional Six Sigma Sales team was formed representing Sales Executives, Sales Representatives, Marketing, Finance and Operations. The Insurance Company Six Sigma Sales Team defined great agencies as having: High Sales $ High Gross Profit % High Consumer Retention High Year-Over-Year Sales Growth By defining Sales Growth as important a measure as Sales $ they were signaling to their Account Executives that focusing on smaller but growing agencies was just as important as focusing on larger, low growth agencies. As you will see in the data below, many high-sales agencies had flat to declining sales. Forced Ranking Force Ranking mathematically equates these different measures for the overall calculation. This process simply makes the largest number equal to a 10. Then all other customers are proportioned with respect to the largest. This Factor is used in the Overall Performance calculation. Overall Performance Factor The Overall Performance Factor is a combination of each measure's factor. You can also weight each measure and use this to calculate the overall performance factor. The last step is to sort the customer list based on the Overall Performance Factor. Then you can make prioritization decisions about how to allocate Sales and Customer-Service time. Top Customers - Get them the most focus, time and service Average Customers - How can we move them up? Below Average Customers - Can use multiple strategies such as using an inside customer service rep versus field rep to service this customer, or remediate them Insurance Company - Customer (Independent Agency) Ranking (Note; the data below is an approximation of the 2400 agents) Agent - Revenue - GP% - Retention - Sales Growth - Ranking Factor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ustomer Differentiators The next step was to determine what characteristics statistically differentiated the best customers from all others. The team brainstormed all possible ways to segment customers. There were 72 different possible classifications. Three characteristics were common (based on statistical testing) amongst the best. These were: Did not already sell insurance Had a Business Plan Were in business for 5 - 10 years Results Instead of treating all customers equally, or rewarding sales agencies with high sales, but no growth, this company differentiated how they allocated sales resources to existing customers and prospects. Sales strategies were developed based on the ranking. Different ranks required different action plans to achieve improvement. Following the analysis, they recruited insurance agencies that were similar to the high performers, trained them to match the business techniques that were used by the high performers and provided marketing support that was most highly utilized by the high performers. Six months following the implementation of this project, this Insurance Company's earnings grew by over 26%. For more detailed information about this subject go to http://www.supplyvelocity.com/ for our white papers. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mitch_Millstein

Growing Your Business Profits

Grow your business profits using dollars you have already spent on inventory! Today is a great time to revisit the idea of bartering! With organized barter more automated and efficient, it is a terrific time to take advantage of the increased buying and spending power in addition to the cost savings to operate your business. Many retail stores are closing their doors due to the lack of business and cash flow. Most retail stores believe that by slashing their prices they will cause more customers and traffic to the store. This might be true for that moment, but isn€™t the real objective to gain NEW customers and LOYAL customers? If a store has the inventory and capacity to increase sales without it affecting their hard cost of doing business, barter is a win/win situation. Barter customers bring other cash customers when they talk about the experience. While barter can drive new customers to your store, the new customers can tell their friends and family about their experience and you can gain cash business at the same time you are moving that inventory or filling excess capacity. Example: A business or retail store owns inventory and it is moving slower then expected or needed. Meanwhile the business owner has some immediate business needs that are critical to their business. If the business owner can market their inventory through an online barter website and attract new customers to purchase some of the items for full retail using barter credits, the business owner can then purchase the items for the business using that revenue rather than spending new money! Some examples might be new store signage or printing and advertising! The idea situation is the use the new barter revenue to advertise and bring in additional cash paying customers. Don€™t forget that your new barter clients will be loyal to you and also help promote your business as long as they continue to feel like valued customers and receive excellent value and service from your staff! Barter clients should be a welcome addition to your business and treated as friends. Remember they are also business owners and understand why you are bartering and want to help you grow and prosper in your business also. Cost of Barter: You might wonder what joining a barter organization might cost and also the fees associated with bartering. The fees to join or membership costs vary from each trade exchange. Most exchanges charge anywhere from $195.00 €" $495.00 and up as a membership application fee and monthly fees range from 0-$20.00 per month. Trade service fees on transactions vary from 10% trade or 5%- 8% cash on each transaction. The thing to remember is that you are paying only a transaction fee on what you purchase or sell. In addition consider that many times you can apply for a line of barter credit and spend into the system before you even make your first barter sale! Your local trade broker will also assist you by bringing you new customers to pay the trade credit line back! What credit card company or bank will do all that for you? In fact a great trade exchange will establish a barter budget for you to follow so that you aren€™t taking too many trade credits above what you will be spending in the system. In the barter economy your products and services are more important than your credit score. You can use your inventory to secure a barter loan and make improvements to your business! Consider how leveraging money you have already spent into advertising or maintenance or other ongoing expenses like printing, or landscaping, repairs or equipment maintenance or even purchasing new equipment can add additional profit and cutting costs to your bottom line. Consider how leveraging money you have already spent into advertising or maintenance or other ongoing expenses. Increase sales and profits with money you already spent! Whether you are a service related business or retail store you can benefit by increasing your customer base by up to 10 €" 15% and reducing overhead costs by spending that new found revenue back into your business and YES even consider giving yourself a raise in barter revenue to spend on personal needs. Turn that downtime or excess inventory into what you need or want for yourself and your business. I encourage any business that has a vanishing commodity such as advertising space, hotel rooms, empty seats or room in a cafe or restaurant to use barter to capture that potential lost revenue and turn it into future purchases and increased sales! Need more information on how Bartering can add to your bottom line profits? Ask The Barter Coach! Kathleen (Kathy) Smart is the President and CEO of SmarterIdeas Inc. http://smarterideas.com, and one of the founding principals with the International Business Academies Limited, http://ibalnet.com, an Atlanta Georgia based LLC Kathleen has had over 26 years of experience in helping business owners succeed. Kathleen hosts her own internet based radio programs where she interviews local business owners and individuals who can bring inspiration, information and education to entrepreneurs and business owners. Over the past year she has interviewed, teacher of the year, Ron Clark, Blue Man Group and many others. Her show is designed and dedicated to educate and inform entrepreneurs and business owners with information that can give them the tools that can help them turn that corner in their life or business. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathleen_Smart

Increase Business With Existing Customers

Most small companies have limited resources of personnel and time. Salespeople go where their pockets take them, owners are spread out doing a gamut of things and customer service is trained to take and turn over calls quickly. So how do you get more business from companies you are currently doing business with? The whole focus should be on sales and not just how salespeople are doing but how to generate more business. The second should be on incentives and sharing the wealth with staff. No one would hesitate to pay a plumber top dollar for his services but these same people won't go for spit to expand their businesses by sharing the wealth with the people who are lining their pockets in the first place. I have seen it so often. Small companies will hire one of their loser relatives and pay them instead of the real achievers on their staff. Let's say you have worked with your staff and have things in place that the incentives will allow them to get more business. Painstakingly as is sounds repeated phone calls must be made to existing companies to screen them for potential new business. Try doing this in the off months when your customers may not be as busy and might welcome the opportunity to talk. Here are some other ways: 1. Don't just send out new items or literature without highlighting the contents of the envelopes, such as, Enclosed Literature Requested or offer a time incentive to purchase. 2. Streamline the enclosed information to be easily read and digested in a matter of minutes. 3. Make sure key companies are assigned to your sales' staff so they can develop more business and have customer service work with sales with training on when to turn the call over to sales. 4. Have sales search the Internet and check out every customers' websites to see the items they carry. Then call the customer stating you have seen such and such on their website and did you know we offer this? Most customers don't have the time to find out what YOU sell. YOU have to tell them. 5. Offer a bundle package if the customer starts to buy other items not previously bought from you. 6. Make sure your mailers have more pictures than words. 7. Do a test mailing with a survey. 8. Add to your mailing that a $50 coupon offer is enclosed if your online survey is completed or some other offer. 9. When talking to customers ask the right questions to maximize your information gathering and not waste their time. What you want is to keep getting information out to your customer so they don't have to research what you do. Then make sure that they know you can offer same or similar services/products that they are getting from your competition. Remember, generally, no one gives all their business to one vendor but what you are trying to do is get the lion's share. Even if you don't now, some reason might be don't have or aren't able to offer what the other guy at this time but this might be indication of where to grow your own business when expanding. Knowledge might be power but information helps you decide where to spend your time and money. Instead of trying to always get new business try getting more from the customers you have. Guess what they will be glad you did! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charlotte_Sorrentino

4 Essentials to Business Success

Attracting Prospects, Converting to Customers, Leveraging for referrals and Retaining as clients. Attracting prospects. Attracting Prospects is vitally important to the life blood of any business success. Whatever means you use to attract prospects, don't be boring and like everyone else. Be creative, bold, unique and exciting. What makes you business different and more appealing than your competition in the market place? When you answer this quesion you have the beginning of a great marketing campaign. The number one way of attracting new prospects is "word of mouth" from your present happy, satisfied and loyal customers. This is why the most important thing you you do in your business is to make sure your employees, your product and service are excellent. The Stew Leonards Grocery Store in Norwalk Ct has a sign etched in stone that reads, OUR POLICY Rule #1. The customer is always right. Rule # 2. When the customer is wrong, refer to Rule # 1. His employees are well trained, have a positive attitude, helpful and live by this rule. Go to his web site and see how he started and what taking care of customers can do for your business. Some ways of attracting prospects: Today you have to have a good Web Site. Targeted Direct Mail for your business and web site. Targeted E-mail campaigns. Newspaper, Magazine advertising. Radio and TV advertising. Coupons. Good Signage. Networking groups as well as internet social networking. Cold calling and it can be fun if done in the right frame of mind. Always, always and always capture and build a data base of your prospects, customers, clients or patients contact information including e-mail address. Converting - Prospects to Customers is the art helping them buy. Jeffery Gitomer, speaker and author of many books on sales says, and I agree, "People Hate to be Sold but Love to Buy". Sign up for his free ezine at gitomer.com. Most business owners don't like this part of the business, but this is so important to your success and you have to be constantly converting prospects to Customers ( Clients or Patients). Train all your employees in sales and excellent customer service. A great example of this is the Apple store. You can go into any Apple store and everyone is helpful, friendly, with up energy. They don't try to sell you anything but you want to buy. If you and your employees are helpful, friendly, have a yes attitude and believe in your product or service then this shouldn't be that difficult. When you think about it everything we do requires some form of persuasion, whether it's trying to persuade someone to your point of view, your suppliers/vendors for better terms or the Banker for a line of credit. Learn the art of persuasion or fail, so get good at it. And it begins with a great attitude. Leveraging - Customers for referrals. Once you have converted the prospect then the next step is to make sure your customers get what you promised when you persuaded them to buy or use your services. If their experience with you business is as good or better than you promised and you go the extra mile to make sure they are blown away, then they will be delighted to recommend your business to others. Don't shy away from asking customers for referrals even testimonials. Here is where the art of persuasion is important to your business again. Retaining - Customers, Clients or Patients. Stay in touch with them. "Out of sight, out of mind". Develop a survey form and send out or put in every package to find out how you did in their eyes. Give some incentive for them to return the survey. This is so important to the success of your business that it is amazing how few businesses do it. You will be surprised how many customers will returned them. Always call and thank them. If they had a great experience and tell you about it, you have the makings of a testimonial or referral. This is a good time to ask if you can use their comments in your marketing material. If the experience was bad then you have an opportunity to correct the problem, apologize, tell them how you corrected the problem and how much you appreciate their business. You might want to make an adjustment in their purchase or next order. Bill Glass is a Certified Business and Personal Development Coach and a Commercial Real Estate Consultant He was a manager with UPS, owned two very successful businesses and served three terms as an elected public official. He can be reached at bill@consultbillglass.com / http://www.small-business-resource.com/ Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Bill_F_Glass

How Can Smaller Retailers Find Better Replacements For Their Point of Sale Software?

Technology changes so often that businesses often have difficulty deciding when to replace their technology. This is especially true for growing retail businesses that use point of sale software packages to process such things as customer transactions and inventory. Here is a brief guide that can help smaller retailers find better replacements for their POS software applications. It includes suggestions that can help small and medium-sized retailers find ways to improve their efficiency, customer service experience and their bottom lines by choosing point of sale packages that are more appropriate for their needs. Here are some suggestions for small retailers. --Don't buy more POS software than you need. Many small retailers tend to overspend on point of sale software packages because they think they can use the extra features when they expand operations. This isn't always a good idea because most small retailers don't have enough inventory or sales volume to justify using more complicated POS software packages. As a result, it might be a good idea to find point of sale software applications that can be customized to fit the needs of a smaller business. Doing this can save the smaller retailer money and frustration because they won't to need to worry about features that aren't needed to effectively run their business. --In addition, look for point of sale software that is easy to use. Many small retailers have trouble growing their businesses because they have a hard time managing their inventories and how they provide customer service to their clients. Using POS software that is easy to use can solve most of these problems because it makes it easier to doing things such as interacting with customers and keeping physical inventory counts. In addition, it can also help smaller retailers establish better habits that can improve the way they manage their store's overall operations. As a result, using point of sale software that is easy to use can help a smaller retailer grow its loyal customer base and improves its overall efficiency. Here are some suggestions for medium-sized retailers. --Look for point of sale software that can help you control inventory "shrinkage" and improve the overall experience for your customers. Most medium-sized retailers who would like to grow into bigger entities have trouble controlling inventory shrinkage. Furthermore, they also tend to suffer from customer service growing pains that result from making the leap from a tiny store to a bigger store. These problems can be corrected if medium-sized retailers look for point of sale software that helps employees control inventory "shrinkage" and improve overall store efficiency. There are many fantastic point of sale software packages that can help medium-sized retailers control inventory shrinkage, price integrity and the customer's over-all experience. This makes it a good idea to look into these packages because they can provide very good long-term value for a medium-sized retailer. --Furthermore, a medium-sized retailer should also consider point of sale software that is fully compatible with its pre-existing technology. Many cashiers have first-hand knowledge of the nightmares that happen because a cash register has failed them in the middle of a transaction. These nightmares happen because most medium-sized retailers don't consider thinking about the compatibility of its point of sale software with its pre-existing technology. This makes it important for a medium-sized retailer to ask their vendor for technologically compatible point of sale software. Doing this will make your cashiers' jobs easier. It will also make many of your customers willing to shop more often at your store. As a result, finding technologically compatible point of sale software might be the best way for a medium-sized retailer to improve its bottom line. To buy POS software and to find out more information, please visit pos cash registers and restaurant software. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_J_Thomas

Mattress Retail and the Naming Conspiracy - How to Shop and Compare

Unlike most branded retail products, the mattress retail business uses model names without numbers and, because of the totally unrelated names, it is almost impossible to compare and shop models from one store to the next. This "conspiracy" makes it very difficult for the consumer to take advantage of the price guarantees offered at virtually every mattress retailer. The most common question heard by salespeople in the business is, "How can I compare models and shop for best price when the names are different everywhere I go?" The complaint that usually follows is "The price guarantee I see everywhere is worthless. It's a joke. Comparisons are impossible." Accurate comparisons of like models are essential to the effective utilization of the price guarantee advertised by most mattress retail dealers. A typical price guarantee might read, "We'll beat anyone's price by at least 10%." Some retailers will specify that it must be the same brand and model. With the model names being different everywhere, those retailers are able to exempt themselves from ever honoring their advertised guarantee. Some retailers require that the price be an advertised price, but most retailers don't advertise the model names in their ads, and that pretty much let's them off the hook. Consumers cannot shop ads if the model names are not in them, and shopping the competition is extremely difficult in person when the names are different everywhere. It doesn't take long for the consumer to realize that there is a "conspiracy" in place to defeat the use of the "advertised gimmick" called the "price guarantee." The frustration turns quickly to irritation and the consumer is left with nothing but mistrust for the mattress retailer and his sales staff. I don't know how many times a day I had customers tell me, "you guys are just like used car salesmen." The mattress manufacturers would love to have the model names standardized amongst retailers, but the retailers will never let them do that. The manufacturers would save a lot of money, since they have to pay people to come up with new names for every model, every year, for every retailer. They have to tweak the different models in very minor ways in order to keep them slightly different. Those minor differences cost the manufacturers a lot of extra money in modifying the production runs. The retailers want to keep the consumer confused. They want as many different specifications, different fabrics, different tape edges, different stitching patterns, and, most certainly, the different names. The confusion virtually negates the price guarantee because the salesperson can say that the models are different. "This one has a foam encased edge and the one you saw at the department store does not. I can't beat the price, but I can match it." The retailer I spent most of my career with allowed us to beat prices "as long as the models were fairly close." We had to spend a lot of time shopping the competitors to become extremely familiar with the similarities and the differences between the brands and the models in our market area. Unfortunately, that is not the norm for mattress retailers and their staff. Most retailers do not require their staff to shop the competition. The poorly educated staff is forced to "wing it" or to lie to the consumer in order to protect the price points. Some lies can be detected by the consumer and the salesperson loses. Some are so well camouflaged that the consumer cannot detect them and, in that case, the consumer loses. When the consumer loses and discovers the truth later (and he or she usually does) the retailer loses, the salesperson loses, and the industry develops a bad reputation. Trust presents a huge obstacle to overcome. The customer becomes afraid to make that purchase in the future, and the salesperson has a very difficult time getting past the inherent mistrust now permanently entrenched in the customer's psyche. Retailers wonder why the consumer usually takes three years to make that purchase...three years after he knows his mattress is no longer providing a "good night's rest"? The simple answer for mattress retailers would be to modify their game plan and to allow for easier comparisons through the naming process. That change will probably never come. The consumer needs to take charge. Comparisons are actually easier than you might expect. Once you have found a mattress you feel comfortable in and one which supports your spine properly, take notes on the following ten items: 1. Brand name 2. Model name 3. Basic Appearance (firm or tight-top, plush or softer top, or pillow-top) 4. Coil count (queen is the standard used now for quoting purposes) 5. Independent coils or tied together coils 6. Wire gauge (the lower the number, the heavier the wire) 7. Special foams (memory foam or latex foam) 8. Edge support (heavier gauge on the edge or foam-encased) 9. Regular price 10. Sale price These ten items, once noted, and taken with you when you shop the competition, will give you everything you need to find the "comparable" model at other retailers. The "cold white sea" of mattresses staring at you as you enter the store adds to the confusion. They all look pretty much the same, but items 1, 3, and 9 on your list will lead you directly to the correct area. The brand name will match, the basic appearance should be very similar (tight-top, plush, or pillow-top), and the regular price should be pretty close or within two to three hundred dollars (in most cases). The mattresses are usually displayed with the most expensive in the front of the store and the least expensive to the rear of the store. Brands are almost always grouped together. By the time you have approached the correct area, a salesperson will probably have arrived to greet and assist you. If you haven't already noticed signage announcing a price guarantee, ask your salesperson whether they have one and how it works. Bring your notes out and tell your representative that you are looking for ______ brand and ______ model that you saw at _____ store. Indicate the one that looks most similar to the one you selected at the other store and detail the specifications from your notes. Ask which one most closely matches the one you are looking for. If your salesperson tries to deflect you toward other product at this point be wary. Take charge and keep him or her on track. Don't be afraid to say that you are "locked in" to that particular brand. Ask your salesperson to check the specs to make sure that you have matched items 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Lie down to make sure that this mattress feels comparable to the one that you liked in the other store. If it feels the same after spending at least 15 minutes on it, then ask your salesperson to beat the price as guaranteed in their advertising or printed policies. Be sure to utilize the "apples to apples" final price including delivery, set-up, pick-up of the old set, and tax in your price beat. Be careful of high pressure add-ons to recoup the retailer's lost margin dollars. If your mattress retailer does not honor the price guarantee for one reason or another, you should ask for the manager to do it for you, or move on to another mattress retailer who will gladly accept your business. Unfortunately, mattress retail dealers are not likely to change their embedded (excuse the pun) naming "conspiracy." Nor are they likely to alter their "loss leader" advertising that is damaging their image, integrity, and standing in the eye of the consumer. The only solution to this dilemma is a more informed, a more detail-conscious, and a more demanding consumer. Shop with confidence, take charge, take notes, make the comparisons, and claim the price guarantee. Your shop for sleep is easier than your fear expects. Ronald Czarnecki, EzineArticles.com contributor and recently published author of "Shop for Sleep and Survive the Bite" offers consumers the first "how to" guide for mattress shopping. The career veteran of the retail mattress world breaks the "code of silence" and uncovers the map to the "good night's rest" we all deserve. For more information visit Ron at: http://www.shopforsleep.com or join him on his blog site at: http://www.sleeplessandtired.com Good night, sleep tight, and survive the bite! Copyright 2010. All rights reserved to Ronald Czarnecki. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ronald_Czarnecki