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Leslie Carothers

What does 'it' mean?

For any of you that saw Ebay’s brilliant fall advertising campaign, you now know. They caught your attention-you have to admit it.

We were all curious what “it” was. For any of you now reading my latest blog, the “it” I’m referring to is a subject dear to my heart- sales training.

Yes, I own a sales training company-let me be clear about that from the start.  However, I want to share with you three issues regarding sales training that impact almost every furniture retailer I talk with-whether The Kaleidoscope Partnership works with them or not and that, hopefully, will help you increase your sales in 2006.

First, it’s always the goal of every retailer I talk with to increase sales. And, of course, they are always looking to get the maximum return on their dollar invested-that’s just good business sense. 

However, as in advertising (think Ebay) sales training is a LONG-TERM investment. I find many retailers have to think very hard before investing in long-term, committed sales training for their sales force although they can easily invest 5-8% of their gross sales dollars in advertising every year to bring customers into their store.

What happens when those customers hit the door? What type of experience do they have in your store? Is it consistent? Is it(if it’s supposed to be) focused on building long-term relationships? How are you measuring that? Who is measuring that and how are they being held accountable?

If you don’t have a focused, consistent, measurable sales training program in place (sales-not product) why are you surprised when sales are not where you would like them to be? Very few retail sales consultants today come fully equipped to understand all of the nuances of relationship selling and design.  

Secondly, what is the role of your sales manager? In most retail stores, the sales manager is handling or doing the following: selling, taking care of operational responsibilities, dealing with customer service issues, recruiting and hiring and trying, after all of that, to increase your sales (on which their bonus is usually based).
 

Considering that most sales managers work 5 days a week and that 2 of those days are usually the weekends, all of their other work is done on 3 week days. As a retailer reading this, where would they find the time to do product training, sales training, recruiting and coaching their team-responsibilities that should be the number one priority of any SALES manager?

The truth is, most sales managers-no matter how well meaning their intentions-focus only on the problems that are directly in front of them and don’t (aren’t able) to accomplish their main priorities. Sometimes I find that owners don’t realize their managers aren’t able to get it all done or the owner interrupts the flow of the manager’s day and something (usually sales training or coaching-which is different from goal setting) falls through the cracks. I will speak further about this in a later blog.

Lastly, the number one issue that most retail sales consultants have on a sales floor (unless they are very experienced) is how to make transition statements from one part of the conversation to another. Many of them simply don’t know how to OPEN up a conversation that can lead to a larger sale. Please focus your sales training efforts in this direction and you will see an increase in your sales for 2006.

To sum up, focus on these three areas for increased sales in 2006:

1. Provide consistent, focused sales(not product) training that can be measured.

2. Evaluate the responsibilities of your sales manager and re-prioritize their daily schedule so they are not selling (i.e.-competing) against their own team and so they can focus on coaching, building, training and hiring-the activities that will build your sales over the long term.

3. Make sure that your consultants understand not just the importance of building a larger sale(most of them want to do this, obviously)- but EXACTLY how to go about doing this-dialogue, design skills, etc. You will see a decrease in turnover( because consultants are able to make more money faster) and a build-up of long term customer  loyalty as REAL relationships are formed between your customers and confident, smart, well-trained consultants- a winning formula for long-term business success.   (to add public comments click on "Add your Comment" below, or to email Leslie directly click here.)