The Pros & Cons Of Different Kinds Of Retail Sales Training

As I said at the outset, retail sales training encompasses the process used to train your store associates in how to engage a stranger, how to build rapport and trust, how to show a product and demonstrate both its features and its benefits, how to contrast and compare products, how to overcome objections to sell value over price, and how to close each and every sale.

In-person retail sales training which can work two ways:

Online retail sales training

Shadow or buddy system retail sales training

Self-paced retail sales training

On the plus side you have:

Face-to-face training, which is ultimately where you want your associates to excelface-to-face conversations.

When someone from the outside, with a background in training and a curiosity about how individuals learn, delivers the training, the associate does not question it because it has third-party credibility; they just believe it better.

Training can be more effective because it can immediately be corrected, explained and rewarded.

A great trainer is easily understood, is engaging, and makes the time pass quickly.

The downside of in-person retail sales training includes:

On the plus side:

Online retail sales training can be delivered anywhere in the world and at any time, allowing for a flexible training program.

Anyone who has to sell, no matter what their current level of experience, can learn from a wide range of online retail sales training programs powered by intuitive interfaces specially designed for ease of use.

Anyone should be able to start training immediately without a lot of explanation.

You can ask questions and receive answers in real time. With my online retail sales training program closed captioning technology, you can train anyone, at any location, in most any language.

Specialized modules will specifically meet the needs of sales managers so they know how to coach the online sales training and make it stick.

The best online training programs have comprehensive tracking and reporting tools, allowing management to see how their employees are faring at an at-a-glance basis. They can also view who has been certified by completing the training and who has not.

On the downside:

Youll need a laptop, desktop or tablet, earphones, and a place for employees to gather off the sales floor in a comfortable environment.

Often the training provided is dull and does not do a good job of teaching the store associate what he or she needs to know to make a sale.

This approach has few upsides, as you are trusting another employee to train a newbie. Theres really only one plus: money. You arent spending additional dollars to get employees to travel to a location; you arent purchasing additional materials or paying overtime for travel or after-hours training.

The downsides to shadow or buddy training are many:

This also has very few pluses:

But the minuses of self-paced retail sales training are serious:

A great retail sales training program is logical. It builds from the ground up with exactly what to do at every step. It makes it easy for anyone observing, coaching, or managing it to know exactly where someone is in the process.

The time it takes to train varies. Generally, the onboarding phase of retail sales training takes from 5-10 hours. The product knowledge phase should allow about 10 hours for the top 25 SKUs.

For in-person behavioral retail sales training, or training of the soft skills, allot a minimum of three hours exposure to the material to start. For an online program, you need a minimum of an hour of content.

The time it would take to master that content on the salesfloor with role-playing, trial and error with shoppers, and comfort level of the learner, however, would be closer to thirty to forty hours.

Training is not something to get through. Its not as easy as passing a simple test.

Training is the heart and backbone of your retail operations.

No matter your personality type, you can leverage your unique abilities to engage your customers and make better sales. This quiz will not only give you insight into your own type, but will also teach you to recognize, relate to, and connect with the other types to build a solid sales team.

If you are a new store, you should begin retail sales training at least six weeks prior to opening, so every crew member knows exactly what it takes to create an exceptional experience. That way, from the soft opening to the Grand Opening and beyond, anyone who visits your store will get the same treatment. Many boutique retailers miss this important step and make excuses such as Sorry, were new, which never leads to shopper loyalty.

For a more established store or stores, you can start any time to improve your sales. While it is generally best to be done with retail sales training by November 15, some training is better than none. The key is having an employee meeting to establish why you are adding retail sales training and taking questions so employees dont sabotage your efforts.

Retail sales training and customer service training are similar, but are not really the same.

Retail sales training is designed to convert more shoppers into customers so the store can exceed sales goals. Customer service training is most often used to keep existing customers from leaving and to improve Net Promoter Score or social media reviews.

Some think customer service magically happens after a purchase while selling happens before.

I think great customer service happens because of great retail sales training that allows a retail associate to build an exceptional experience customers rave about through reviews, word-of-mouth, and social media posts.

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Retail Sales Training | Retail 101