Veteran salespeople share insights on sales success

To sell Aireloom bedding at Sit 'n Sleep, sales associate Emil Dobrescu talks about Earl Kluft, the bedding veteran who makes the line.

"I wouldn't be able to sell Aireloom without telling Earl Kluft's story," Dobrescu said. "I emphasize this is a family owned business with tradition and craftsmanship."

One of the keys to selling bedding, says Dobrescu, who has been doing so for six years, is to tell stories. "To create an emotional connection with the consumer," he said, "you need to tell stories."

But those stories, like the one about Earl Kluft and his history of making fine bedding, must be believable, Dobrescu said. Consumers will see through stories that are made up simply to impress them, he said. "If a story is fake, it won't stick," he said. "You can't make up fairy tales. The consumer will cancel the sale and they won't come back to you. I don't want to compromise my integrity."

Integrity is a key word at Sit 'n Sleep. The retailer prides itself on a sales force that operates professionally at all times.

Mattress Retailing 101Dobrescu shared several of his keys to success in an interview at the retailer's store here. The process starts, significantly, with a friendly greeting. "It would be a lack of respect not to greet them," he says of his customers. He aims to greet them within seconds of their entrance into the store. "I say 'hi' and welcome them to Sit 'n Sleep," he said.

One of the most important parts of the selling process is the ability to listen, according to Dobrescu. "I listen a lot," he said. "I try to come up with the best solution based on comfort and price. I don't push them over the edge. I'm not always going for the most expensive bed unless they give me an indication they can afford it."

Consumers shopping at Sit 'n Sleep can be overwhelmed by the vast selection of beds: the retailer has about 140 beds on a typical sales floor. Dobrescu determines his customers' comfort preference by having them try three beds. Then he knows where to focus.

When showing beds, he talks about the benefits a new mattress provides. For example, he noted that foam provides pressure relief and offers comfort. He's had good success selling Tempur-Pedic in that arena, he said.

Dobrescu said it's important to remain current on the latest mattress constructions. "You need to know the mattresses inside and out," he said. "You need to be up on the newest trends. We are ahead of the game here. We are educating the market."

Arthur: Humor puts the customer at ease

Laguna Hills, Calif. — Roger Arthur, store manager and mattress salesman at the Sit 'n Sleep store here, uses humor to put his customers in a relaxed mood.

"I'm not here to sell you anything," he says. "I tell them, 'We don't have to pay for it or sleep on it.' It blows them away when I tell them that."

If he feels he has established enough rapport with a customer, he may take the humor to another level. When he is asked what type of mattress he sleeps on (a common question), he has a quip ready: "My mattress is the most important piece of furniture in my house. You are not sleeping in my house. You are not getting my mattress."

That brings a laugh — and it underscores the importance of a good mattress.

"Humor is very important," Arthur said. "If a customer doesn't think this is relatively comical, you've got a problem."

He's spent nine years selling mattresses, more than five of them at Sit 'n Sleep. "That's not long enough," he says of his time with Larry Miller, president of Sit 'n Sleep. "He's the best employer in retail in the U.S.," he said. "Most employees would work for him for half the money. He lets us be honest with the customer, and the customer senses that. He also lets us be nice to our customers and be nice to each other."

Arthur said customers respond to his words of praise for Miller. They believe that a company that treats employees well will treat customers well, too, he said.

He notes that one challenge on the sales floor is to give the customer just the right amount of attention. "One of the most difficult things I've encountered is the art of ignoring the customer without really ignoring them," he said. "That is the most compelling thing you can do in this store. Customers are getting pounced upon" in other stores.

Arthur said he tries to let his customers know that he wants them to sleep better, but that he won't push them into a sale. "The customer has to genuinely believe I care about them," he said. "If they purchase a mattress from me, thank you. If they don't, I will still sleep well. I have their best interests at heart. They are making a really important investment."

Source: Furniture Today, 11/15/07

Mattress recycling program instituted by eMattress

As the American public becomes increasingly aware of the need for recycling and green manufacturing processes, one mattress manufacturer, eMattress, is taking the lead by announcing a mattress recycling program. This program will make it possible for owners of an eMattress memory foam mattress to have their old beds picked up at their homes and recycled, rather than being forced to let these items cause environmental problems in local landfills.

More than 63,000 mattresses are disposed of every year and they end up in American landfills. Because of the considerable size of these items, mattresses are the single greatest factor in pushing landfills to capacity. Each mattress takes up as much as 23 cubic feet. Clearly, a recycling program is called for: only eMattress has, thus far, been able to implement a program making this possible.

Any memory foam mattress purchased from eMattress can be returned to eMattress for dismantling and recycling. EMattress, which is an original manufacturer of memory foam bedding, will break the mattress down into its original components and recycle the materials safely and in an environmentally sound manner. From the owner’s perspective, recycling the mattress is easy: a phone call to eMattress results in obtaining a recycling RA (return authorization) number. EMattress will arrange for the pick up of the mattress and handle all the work. Customers are responsible for shipping and handling fees, but the consensus of early adopters is that this is a worthy investment in the environmental cause.

Studies have indicated that many local landfills receive as many as 300 old mattresses and box springs in one day. This is a vast amount of material which, if extended from head to toe in a line, would stretch for more than a third of a mile. One day’s worth of bedding is a lot; imagining years’ worth of this and it’s clear that a better solution to bedding disposal is necessary. Mattresses are bulky and difficult to recycle, but there are solutions available to the consumer.

EMattress has always used natural mattress covers, relying on materials such as 100% natural virgin Australian wool, which has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-dust mite properties; another material used in mattress covers, Innofa, is manufactured in part from natural bamboo. Not all companies operate with the environment firmly in mind, but eMattress has made the brave choice to forge ahead with its recycling program because it knows that its clientele already leans toward the green. EMattress is proud of its customers for being so environmentally aware, and it is proud of its ability to offer this extended service to loyal memory foam mattress users.

Source: eMattress, 11/08/07

Taking a nap may be good for your heart

The next time the boss finds you leaning back in your chair, feet up, eyes shut, tell her that you're napping for medical purposes.

Science won't definitively back you up yet, but the evidence is mounting that a short afternoon nap, for an otherwise well-rested, healthy person, is good for the heart.

"I love to nap," says Dr. Robert Downey III, chief of sleep medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California. "I recommend napping."

Among his fellow researchers, it's still controversial whether napping has cardiovascular benefits. Early studies of possible heart benefits of siestas in Mediterranean and Latin American countries, where short afternoon naps are typical, have had mixed results. But a recent large study of 23,000 people in Greece, published in the Feb. 12 Archives of Internal Medicine, showed a 37 percent reduction in heart attacks among people who napped at least three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes. That study was the first to weed out sick and sedentary nappers and control for physical activity and diet, which might have colored results of other studies showing no benefit.

Now a study, in a recent online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, offers a clue about why a nap might be good.

The new study tested nine healthy volunteers who did not usually nap. After sleeping for four hours the night before, each was hooked up to check for blood pressure under three conditions. In two sessions the volunteers relaxed, one time standing and once lying down, but didn't sleep. In the third session, the subjects fell asleep for no more than an hour.

The researchers found a significant drop in blood pressure when the volunteers slept, but not when they merely relaxed. And the drop in blood pressure when they napped occurred in that sleepy window of time right before falling asleep, not during the nap itself.

It's the brief period of anticipation of the coming snooze where cardiovascular benefits take place. Just lying awake, even if relaxed, doesn't do the trick, says Greg Atkinson, chronobiologist with the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University and an author of the study.

That makes sense to Downey. "Anything you gain in [a restful state] would be magnified by going to sleep," he says. But he cautions that for a nap to result in increased alertness, it probably should last 20 to 30 minutes.

"With a light nap, you get that soothing, biological benefit, but you don't have to fight your way back to consciousness," he says. That's because brain waves slow considerably as you get drowsy, more so when you sleep. But after about 30 or 40 minutes, the brain goes into still-deeper sleep, and waking can make a person feel more groggy than rested.

Younger children, and adults who are sleep deprived, go into deeper states of sleep quicker, so a short nap for them might be more likely to result in a groggy awakening. And insomniacs are generally advised not to nap, Downey says, to give them a better shot at sleeping at night.

Inadequate sleep -- seven to eight hours is recommended for the average adult -- as well as disorders such as sleep apnea are pervasive in American society, and people who feel sleepy throughout the day should talk to their physician, says Michael Twery, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. "If sleepiness is affecting what they do, controlling their lives, or if they wake up with morning headaches, maybe they need a medical evaluation," he says.

But for healthy people who get a good night's sleep, the human circadian clock is set to want a brief nap in the early afternoon. It feels good, and it just might be good for the heart, to indulge that post-lunch loss of energy. Go ahead. Put your feet up and close your eyes.

Source: Baltimore Sun, 11/1/07