Around 8 out of 10 people who visit a furniture or appliance store leave with out buying (according to our 2019 Benchmark Series).

Make it 7 out of 10 and you get a 50% increase to your conversion rate! Not bad, eh?

The average foot traffic conversion rate is about 27%—with a range of 16 to 38%.

I don’t know about you, but these numbers are downright unsettling. Especially if your conversion rate is at the lower end of our research.

Think about it… Going from the bottom 16% to the top 38% would be more than a 100% increase to your retail foot traffic conversion rate.

What’s the difference between the low and high number, you ask?

Well, there are many factors to consider, none more important than belief… belief that something is possible—belief not just by you but by your people as well.

I believe in what J.M. Barrie wrote in Peter Pan:

“The moment you doubt you can fly, you cease forever to be able to.” Well maybe not so much the, “…you cease for ever to be able to” part. Because I believe we can decide to believe change is possible and make it so.

The “make it so” is the key, because believing alone is not enough.

Action is required.

Constant action to make a belief a reality is what successful retailers like you do. By daring to believe, you set in motion the actions that inspire others to welcome change and encourage them to believe in what they can achieve.

You show them the routines and rituals, the steady execution of the smallest of tasks, carried out step by step. This is the daily evidence that builds momentum and encourages progress toward a desired outcome.

But there is something else…

Something much less tangible. Something way more essential than following rules-based rituals and routines.

It is the principles we choose to guide us that truly make the difference.

Equipped with the right guiding principles, your team is empowered to choose the right way. Not to mindlessly follow a set of mundane tasks, but instead, to think about the best action based on the appropriate principle.

But guiding principles are something we must choose for ourselves. They cannot be simply mandated.

So with this in mind, here are 4 guiding principles the Doorcounts team rely on to serve our customers:

What gets measured gets improved
This one is a no brainier. The problem usually is not whether to measure something, but what and how to measure it. This is why we dig into the data that leads to better results, so you don’t have to.

80% of the effect comes from 20% of the cause
You may know this as the Pareto principle (also know as the 80/20 Rule, the Law of a Vital Few, or the Principle of Factor Sparsity). The approach here is to analyze the top 20% of data samples with the understanding that herein lies best practices and the insights that lead to opportunities for greater improvement.

150 is the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships
Known as Dunbar’s number, it deals with how many relationships an individual can effectively maintain. Bottom line is, there’s a maximum number of opportunities your salespeople can effectively manage, and if they are over that limit you are losing sales.

The annual price of a product or service should yield a 10x return to the customer
Knowing how to price your product or service is always a challenge. This is why we created an ROI calculator that is designed to deliver a 10x ROI for every 1% increase you make to your retail store foot traffic conversion rate.

2019 is rapidly coming to an end. Give your team the belief they need to finish the year strong and get the jump on 2020. And if we can help, let us know.
Because, most of all, I believe what Ray Dalio , in his book, Principles, said is true:
“The greatest gift you can give someone is the power to be successful.”