How to Train Your Sales Team

Ultimately, the value of any employee is measured by the employee's productivity. How many sales dollars did he or she produce? Did they stick? Or did they lead to an extraordinarily high percentage of returns, credit losses, or dissatisfied customers?

Productivity can vary widely from one employee to another. A top producer will often generate two or three times the sales of the average producer. The top producer will develop a loyal following of customers. People who always buy their suits from Sal because he knows what looks good on them. People who always buy wallpaper from Mildred because her recommendations have always been proven current. Best of all, this loyal following sends their friends!

Developing Top Producers

To become a top producer, a person must get to know every aspect of the job thoroughly. This can only be done through development of skills.

The New Employee

The time to begin an employee's skills development process is immediately upon hiring. Beginning training immediately has the following advantages:

Achieves a reasonable level of employee productivity in the shortest possible time.

Avoids unnecessary expenses and lost sales.

Takes advantage of the new employee's natural interest in the job and willingness to learn about it.

Training vs. Education

Training is often confused with education. Therefore, it is often rejected by people whose background includes unsatis­factory educational experiences. In training, the tradi­tional academic atmosphere of teacher, classroom, library, laboratory, and homework have little application because the objectives of education and training are totally different.

The objective of education is to expand the person's knowledge. The objective of training is to make the person able to perform specific tasks. Knowledge may provide a background for training, but the ability to apply that knowledge is the goal of training.

An educator would be satisfied with the student who under­stands and can explain the motivations of a consumer. The trainer wants the person to be able to use that knowledge in a selling situation, not just on a written examination.

Retail Training

In retailing, training generally involves development of the following:

Knowledge of store policies and procedures including cash register operation, credit approvals, and customer returns.

Knowledge of the product that the person is expected to sell.

Selling skills to build sales and profit.

Training Techniques

Most training in small retail operations involves "one-to-one" training. You, as the owner, training a single employee. Ordinarily, people are hired one at a time so that there is little opportunity for training in a classroom setting. To some extent, individual training can be supplemented by books and publications that are available for retail sales training. In other cases, courses sponsored by local community colleges or distributive education associations can be helpful in the development of selling skills.

Criteria for Successful Training

Regardless of the training method that you use for your personnel, there are two key elements for success. These are as follows:

Trainee participation. The training process should directly involve the trainee. Asking the trainee to read a book or listen to you talk has little or no value. Few can absorb it. The passive role of reader or listener is seldom helpful in understanding and remembering. Reading a book or hearing a speech is fine for entertainment or intellectual stimulation, but these activities are seldom effective in a training environment.

People learn by doing things. When you teach new sales personnel how to prepare an invoice or credit memo, it is not enough to tell them how or show them how. It is far more important to have them do it.

Feedback. Feedback is what you learn by testing the employee's understanding of the facts that you are teaching. It permits you to measure the employee's progress at each step. Through feedback, you can recognize problems when they arise. Through early recognition of misunderstandings, you can correct them as soon as possible so that training can progress.

Feedback helps you direct your training efforts since you know those things that give the employee particular difficulty, such as arithmetic or trade terminology. In the remainder of your training effort, you can then be particularly careful and painstaking in teaching anything that involves trade terminology or arithmetic skills.

Teaching selling skills consists of the three following steps:

Customer communications. Developing a courteous approach to greeting customers and discussing their buying needs. This permits the salesperson to assist customers in their product selection and describe products in terms that show how they fulfill the customers' buying needs.

Feature-benefit relationship. Understanding the reasons why your customers buy, relating your products or services to those reasons, and describing your products or services to your customers accordingly.

This article offers managing your business tips and manage business advice. However, you aren't ready to start your own business
until you have given any thought to managing it. A company is an ongoing activity that doesn't run itself. As the manager you will
have to set goals, decide how to reach those goals and make all the necessary decisions. You'll need to purchase or make your
product, cost it, advertise it and market it.

You'll need to keep documents, and determine prices. You'll Have to Control stock, make the ideal buying decisions and keep prices
down. You'll need to employ, train and motivate employees today or as you develop.

Setting Business Management Goals. Great small business management Is the secret to success and great management starts with
setting goals. Establish goals for yourself for the accomplishment of the many tasks necessary in starting and managing your
company successfully. Be specific. Write down the goals in measurable terms of functionality. Break big targets down to sub-goals,
demonstrating what you expect to attain in the next two to three months, the subsequent six months, the next year, and the next
five decades. Beside each target and sub-goal set a specific date showing as it is to be achieved.

Plan the action you must take to attain the goals. While the attempt Required to reach each sub-goal should be great enough to
challenge one, it should not be so great or unreasonable as to dissuade you. Do not plan to achieve too many targets all at one
time. Establish priorities.

Plan in advance how to measure results so you can know exactly how Well you are doing. This is what is meant by"measurable" goals.
If you can't keep score as you move along you are likely to eliminate motivation. Re-work your plan of action to permit for
obstacles that might stand on your way. Attempt to foresee obstacles and plan ways to stop or minimize them.

Buying. Skillful purchasing is an important essential of profitably Managing a business. This is true whether you're a wholesaler
or retailer of product, a manufacturer or a service business operator. Some retailers say it is the most important single factor.
Merchandise that's carefully purchased is not difficult to market.

Determining what to purchase means finding out the Kind, type, quality, Brand, size, colour, style -whatever applies to your
specific inventory - which will sell the very best. This requires close attention to salespeople, trade journals, catalogs, and
notably the preferences of your regular clients. Analyze your earnings records. The manufacturer should view the problem through
the eyes of customers before determining what materials, components, and materials to buy.

Know your regular customers, and also make a Fantastic evaluation of this People you expect will become your clients. Just what
socioeconomic category are they? Are they homeowners or renters? Are you currently searching for price, style or quality? What's
the predominant age group?

The age of your clients can be a prime consideration in Establishing a purchasing pattern. Young men and women buy more often than
most older people. They need more, have fewer responsibilities, and spend more on themselves. They are more conscious of fashion
trends whether in wearing apparel, cars or electronics. If you choose to appeal to the young trade because they appear dominate in
your area, your purchasing pattern will probably be wholly different than when the more conservative middle-aged customers seem to
be in the majority.

Study trade journals, newspaper advertising, catalogs, window Displays of businesses like yours. Ask advice of salespeople
supplying you product, but buy sparingly from several suppliers instead of one, testing the water, so to speak, until you know
exactly what your best lines will be.

Finding suitable merchandise sources is not easy. You will buy Directly from producers or producers, from wholesalers,
distributors or jobbers. Select the providers who sell exactly what you want and can provide it when you want it. (Distributors
and jobbers are utilized by most business people for quick fill-ins between mill shipments.)

You may spread purchases among many providers to gain more Favorable prices and promotional material. Or you might focus your
purchases one of a few providers to reevaluate your credit issues. This may also allow you to become known as the seller of a
particular brand or line of merchandise, and to maintain a fixed benchmark in your goods, if you're shopping for stuff for
manufacturing functions.

When to purchase is essential if your company will have seasonal Variations in sales volume. More stock will be needed prior to
the seasonal upturn in sales quantity. As earnings decline, less product is needed. This means purchases of goods for resale and
materials for processing must vary accordingly.

At the start, how much to buy is speculative. The best policy is To be frugal until you've had sufficient expertise to judge your
needs. On the flip side, you cannot sell product in case you do not have it.

To help solve buying issues, you should Start to maintain stock Control records simultaneously. This will allow you to maintain
the inventory in balance - neither too big nor too small - with a suitable proportion and decent range of merchandise, sizes,
colours, styles and qualities.

Fundamentallythere are two Kinds of inventory control - control in Dollars and control in physical components. Dollar controllers
show the sum of money spent in each merchandise category. Unit controllers indicate the amount of individual items when and from
whom bought by class. A fantastic stock control system is able to help you determine everything, from whom, when, and how much to
purchase.

Pricing. A lot of your success in manage a business will depend on How you price your services. If your prices are too low, you
will not cover Costs; too high and you will lose sales volume. In both cases, you won't Earn a profit.

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