Returning to the Sales Floor: Mr Retail

By Mark Miller

As I sit here and type this, I am working on finishing my sixth month back on the sales floor full-time. I had gradually reduced my hours on the floor in recent years until I was down to about 2-4 hours a week.  Then, in June, my company president left. He was also the number two salesperson.

I initially tried to hire someone to replace him and after a short time decided to slot myself back on the floor five days a week. My youngest son was now our lead salesperson and I looked forward to coming to work and spending the day with him. So, I decided to save money and be the general manager for a while. This article is to tell you the changes I have noticed in our clientele, and in what my employees are now experiencing compared to three years ago.

The first thing I realized was that the business was still there, but it felt like we were working a lot harder than in year’s past to get a client to the point of saying yes. Eventually, I saw that it wasn’t harder, just different. Sales were easy for so long during the pandemic that our sales department had grown complacent.

Now, let me say our sales have grown every year since 2019, including in 2024. This means we were still growing, but we had developed a level of dissatisfaction with having to work harder for every sale.

To me that meant I had gotten lazy and it was time to get back at it. I wrestled with this for months, but now feel like I have come out the other side. I challenge you to work with your sales team and see how they are feeling. And then, how can you improve their mindset.

The second thing I noticed was that the edginess or unrest of our clients is ongoing, but it is better than it was a couple years ago. Instead of wishing their attitudes would go back to 2019, I had to realize that this was now “normal” and I had to figure out how to not only embrace it, but actually capitalize on it.

It made me think back to the early days in car audio when we were the new kids on the block. We had to do things to get clients to trust us as we had no track record in the category. I had our team apply this strategy to all of our sales interactions.

By putting a renewed focus on building relationships and trust, our clients’ attitudes towards us improved tremendously. Which meant our average ticket amount went up and the emotional health of our employees improved.

The last thing I learned was that car audio is alive and well. It does look a lot different than five years ago, but there are still loads and loads of people out there that don’t know how good a car stereo can sound. So, it is up to us to give as many people as possible the opportunity to experience cutting edge audio. And then reap the rewards. I wish you well.

Mr Retail: Mark Miller

Mark is the CEO of Westminster Speed & Sound, an award-winning retailer in Westminster, Maryland. The company was founded in 1969, and Mark took it over in 1990 at the age of 23. He first started in the industry in 1986, so he has been at it for a while. He has served on the board of MERA, taught seminars in over a dozen different cities, and served on the SEMA New Product Awards judging team. He has been married to his wife Dawn for 33 years now and has four grown children and four grandchildren. His hobbies include being a sound engineer, doing life coaching, and being active in the local and national Porsche community.