Make Your Sales Staff Celebrity Endorsers

Are you thinking I'll talk about Tiger Woods? No, you've already had plenty of chances to consider how his bad behavior shows the risks in using celebrity endorsers. So I'll talk about Best Buy instead. That electronics retailing giant is rolling out a pilot test, first publicly discussed last June, for in-store kiosks that let customers trade in video games for store credit. Experts say Best Buy wants to grab entertainment software market share from GameStop, which with more than 6,000 stores located in more than 15 countries, calls itself the world's largest video game retailer.
     What's this have to do with making your sales staff celebrity endorsers? You see, one of the advantages enjoyed by GameStop is that their employees are gaming enthusiasts. Among other things, GameStop has rental programs to allow their staff to master the games. Serious gamers come to store employees to learn the tips, traps, and tricks. When a GameStop staff member praises a game, the endorsement is coming with expertise worthy of celebrity.

• What opportunities do you provide your sales staff to thoroughly learn about each of the products and services they're selling?
• To what degree do you take the recommendations of your staff—those who handle sales and those who handle returns—as to what products should be pruned out of your merchandise mix because the staff feel uncomfortable endorsing them?
• How do you make your expert staff members into celebrities, such as by featuring their photos in ads or even announcing their birthdays over the store speaker system?

     Kudos to Best Buy for courage in taking on GameStop. Researchers at University of Texas and University of Southern California say consumers are attracted to products whose celebrity endorsers have shown courage. Maybe that does bring us back to Tiger Woods.