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Training Money-Makers
Get your staff to sell, sell, sell |
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Written by Bernice Klassen
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Your employees are the face of your business. They are the first people your customers see and the individuals responsible for convincing shoppers to buy that bouquet. But selling doesn’t come naturally to everyone and you need to nurture salespeople by providing your staff with selling tools and training so they can be the best advocates for your shop.
Here are some suggested tips and tools to help your employees become successful salespeople who will make your products – and your shop – more profitable.
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Your staff can become great sellers by using great listening skills, careful observation and lots of practice.
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Learn the story behind the product
You can‘t sell a product that you don’t know. Start a binder or file folder where you can insert product care and handling articles, trends of the day and business ideas. Expect all staff to take ownership of the information with sign-off sheets. Discuss and explain this data and quiz staff members on the information at staff meetings. Education is key in presenting an informed, knowledgeable front and will assist employees to not only make sales but to handle complaints. Every staff member should be required to do some type of yearly if not seasonal review of product and processes to stay in top form.
Define staff roles
If your employees are struggling with the various roles in your shop then they won’t be focused to sell. In a retail shop, staff members aren’t simply just order takers or cashiers, they are multitaskers who answer phones, clean the shop, ship and receive products, merchandise displays, provide customer service and troubleshoot computer problems. Having detailed information on each of these processes is imperative. Shadowing a fellow employee or role-playing will provide a level of comfort with the various roles around the shop so attention can be brought to the actual art of selling.
Encourage an individual style
Selling isn’t a natural skill that every employee is automatically blessed with. Each employee will have their own technique: understanding that technique and allowing development is key. Building customer relationships and thereby subsequent sales requires a level of engagement. Eye contact and smiles are the most basic first steps. The next step is to remove barriers, such as the counter,
while moving closer to the customer in order to provide an opportunity for engagement. Be available without being intrusive by dusting a shelf close by, merchandising a display or watering a plant, all within earshot to provide availability. If you need to return to a task at hand, excuse yourself and provide an option for the customer to call you when they are ready to discuss their purchase. Make the customer feel validated. Comment on something of personal value – i.e., hair, clothes or shoes – to let them know you have noticed them. It is a proven fact that there is a correlation between friendliness and loyalty and creating a warm, inviting atmosphere results in an increase in return sales.
When training staff, work through examples of good and bad sales experiences that they have had. Allow them to practise and share their knowledge with other staff members because they are your best customers! Teach your employees how to recognize each customer’s taste as culture and gender play a big factor. It is not always 100 per cent accurate but a great jumping-off point. Next, observe appearances. What colours is your customer wearing? What style? We are creators of self-enhancement and gravitate towards colour and style that, to us, seem best suited to our appearance. You can suggest not only colours but design style based on a customer’s overall appearance.
Learn descriptive words as they relate to product and colour. Yellow denotes cheerful, white symbolizes elegance and so on. Because you truly want to sell what you have in your store, any item can become what the customer is looking for often based on the descriptive words used. Taking a minute to describe in your head the items you want to sell or making descriptive notes allows you to be prepared.
Upsell to up profits
In order to push your shop’s product, your employees will have to take the opportunity to upsell. Your staff need to understand the importance of upselling to the bottom line and realize that product movement is a learned concept. Incentives, be they free coffee, an extra hour off with pay or a $10 bill are all ways to drive sales and make challenges fun. It can be as simple as moving 20 balloons or as challenging as increasing the average transaction from $35 to $45.
Prepare ahead of time
There are periods when the store becomes hectic, our brains become frazzled and our selling skills falter. Having product attributes written in a descriptive way by your cash register, phone or even on occasion where the customer can read the details themselves (making this an extra salesperson on the floor) can greatly enhance your daily sales. Some people are opposed to scripts, yet we are all familiar with “Will there be fries with that?” or “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” and do not consider them intrusive. Are these not mini-scripts? These employees are evaluated on whether they have inserted these comments into their encounter with the customer. If this is a tried and true method for other businesses, why would it not be a great option for us?
This doesn’t mean your employees will need a teleprompter to make a sale. Selling in full-blown scripts is a difficult task and few are good at it. It is considered a hard sell, a thing of the past. It does not allow the presenter the privilege of passion and personality. Total commission-based sales, and requesting employees be good “closers,” are all hard-sell tactics and, quite frankly, I do not know of anyone that truly appreciates being approached in that manner. Instead, leave your employees with a few choice phrases to help encourage the purchase. This could be as simple as having staff always recommend a beautiful vase with every purchase. These soft-sell practices allow passion and personality to shine through by providing suggestions. My twin sister, who is the best salesperson I know, says have passion, provide incentives and keep suggesting until they say no.
Many find that selling with multiple price points feels both comfortable and natural. “Will that be for $40, $50 or $60?” People will generally choose the middle ground. Another option is “I would love to have $300 to make that look extra special for you.” The onus is then on the customer to decide the final amount. They may ask “can you do it for $200?” at which point you always validate their request, perhaps with “I can, however to really make it spectacular, $300 would be great.” Often the negotiated end result lies in between: in this case probably $250.
Act like a professional
Presenting a professional manner in actions, speech and attire implies a respectable company. Dress codes, safety codes, and language acceptability need to be addressed in a precise document so it is very clear to everyone. Respect for customers and employees alike provide a safe, fun environment for customer interaction. I have had the privilege of dealing with everything from body odours to inappropriate dress. Though never pleasant, having a written protocol takes some of the discomfort out of these situations. It will also help your employees prepare for a variety of scenarios so they can provide each and every customer with a top-notch shopping experience.
I have observed persons not appropriately “presented” for their positions and quite frankly I lose a level of trust. It’s like someone who sells makeup wearing too much makeup or none at all. An unprofessional or inappropriate appearance makes me leery of their skill levels and I don’t trust that they can recommend what is best for me.
For some people selling comes naturally. For the rest of us, we learn through practice, and by gaining confidence through product knowledge and training. But at the end of the day, you must have passion: passion for the product, passion for your customer and passion for success.
M.G. Bernice Klassen is experienced in nearly every aspect of the floral industry, including retail, wholesale and grocery chain. Armed with a business administration degree, with a specialty in marketing and management, Bernice is now offering her services as a floral consultant to the industry. Contact Bernice directly at
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