Jason Roussous, VP of marketing and ecommerce at Unites States Gold Bureau had a few key takeaways. First, if you make dramatic changes to the IT/Marketing structure and responsibilities, there will be resistance and turnover, but you will have promoted better people, and created a more transparent and unified growth strategy.

Second, look beyond skill set – look for problem solvers. The challenges are too diverse. Adaptable, intuitive people are an absolute must. Three, old tech roles that don’t look at the bottom line, will become obsolete. The mindset at high-performing organizations is changing from functional expectations to efficiency expectations.

Lastly, if you need to find your champion, look for the most progressive person, and forget the marketing or IT preference. Who’s the bigger risk taker? Big organizations that don’t unify digital have a bigger chance of failure now more than ever.

People-Power Your Website to Fuel Conversion

The role of the person in the Store hasn’t changed. Imagine the role of a sales Associate. There are millions of people who do that job. Oscar Sachs, CEO and Co-founder of Salesfloor, is passionate about allowing sales associates to do more, and to do a much more interesting job. If you had a vision and the opportunity to improve the daily lives of millions of people, wouldn’t you? Tools like Salesfloor are enabling associates to sell more, sell better, and reap the rewards of company success, not just personal wins. Today, his company works with Saks Fifth Avenue to create “omnichannel associates.”

Here’s the problem: The omnichannel experience has focused on inventory and logistics, but not capitalizing on the 45 minutes your floor person spends with a customer is like losing customer data. Today, the traditional clienteling model is limited: sales associates will have some customer history on hand, so when they are in store, they can serve them better. But according to Sachs, it doesn’t work that way. Associates are too busy to look at data when they have a customer in front of them. Plus, there’s a low incentive to reach out. An associate might create a need in the buyer’s mind only to have them buy online. They’re limited to generating revenue when they are physically on the sales floor.

It doesn’t make sense that, with today’s technology, we exclude associates from digital arsenal. In our speaker’s words, “They should be able to sell anytime anywhere.” Salesfloor strategy and technology has accomplished a few things for Saks Fifth Avenue:

• Give an online presence to associates.
• Allow customers to shop online with an associate from a local store. Saks’ storefront allows customers to shop online directly with their favorite style advisor. Today, people say “I feel like I was cheating on my associate.” That goes beyond brand loyalty.
• Integrate associates directly on the commerce site. Many Brazilian tourists buy in the Miami store, and continue to buy online from associates in that store.
• Clienteling. Associates can take pictures of outfits and send them right to a client with a link. The customer doesn’t have to look it up or remember the name. Customer can crowd source recommendations from all Saks associates.

Wrapping up

I attended an interesting and valuable session on expanding abroad, which will be the subject of it’s own article in the coming weeks. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss it. Also, make sure to check back tomorrow for our Thursday recap.

• Read more about IRCE 2017 with our ongoing coverage.

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