Recognising the needs of the industry and responding to one of its great challenges – high staff turnover – retra has launched a series of sales skills training sessions for its members.  Titled ‘Heading for the Future’ they are delivered by George Morton of Top Level Solutions consultancy (see box on page 39).

More important than ever

Sales skills – cornerstone of first class customer service – are of key importance to independent electrical retailers who now need to be more competitive than ever – and not through discounting. Sales skills “give independents the opportunity to convince the consumer that their knowledge makes them the best choice. Retail training provides them with a way of developing the relationship with the consumer, and ensuring that any questions and needs they may have are answered and met,” says Mike Floodgate, retra support and development executive.

The evening training session, which I ‘tested’, took place on a pitch-black November night in Oxfordshire. It was attended by 22 retailers from local independent electrical companies, including staff from Overture, Corbetts, Astley Audio, O’Gormans and Hutchinsons. The youngest participant was 15 years old, the oldest was in his late 50s. Some of them know George from previous training sessions, others came to the Oxfordshire Inn Hotel on retra’s recommendation.

Learning ‘people skills’

George says that he coaches retailers in ‘people skills’. “I teach them how to deal with customers and colleagues correctly.  People skills are vital in life, as well as business. Sales people who are good at this will generally be successful. In my experience, manufacturers mainly deliver product training, which is hugely beneficial to everyone. Add the people skills, however, and things really begin to happen.”

What’s different about this type of training? I ask George. “It is unique in as much as it deals with real human emotions, people’s behaviours and attitudes.  There is no product knowledge training in my courses.  I do a lot of NLP and body language.” 

However, first of all George tries to enthuse retailers about their role in the economy, telling them that they are a part of the most important profession in the country. “If every sales person stopped working at 5.30pm every day, the UK economy would collapse in three months.” It is his overriding desire to convince his students that retailing is a great career but to be recognised as such it must be undertaken with utmost professionalism and the sales skills training should give them the tools to achieve this.

Apart from receiving general advice, such as “get to work every day with an objective”, the students learn communication skills, such as those  based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP was developed to help retailers understand consumer behaviour and respond to them in a way that will produce best sales results. For example, 35% of the population react to visual signals, 40% to kinaesthetic (feeling) ones, while 25% – to auditory/hearing signals. On the shop floor, an assignment of the customer to the ‘visual’ group, after careful observation and listening to their comments, would mean that sales staff should demonstrate picture quality of a TV or talk about the appearance of a domestic appliance. If the customer is ‘kinasthetic’ he/she would like to use the product, hold it and feel it. 

However, it is vital, stresses George, that the retailer employs sales staff who represent all three groups of customers, ie visuals, auditories and kinasthetics. Otherwise they would not be able to communicate with a significant proportion of people coming to the store. He gave examples of retailers, who realised this and changed or trained their staff accordingly, and increased their sales.

A significant proportion of the course is devoted to all-important opening lines and the process of engaging the customer in the conversation which leads to a sale. Greeting the customer who just entered the store with the common ‘Can I help you?’ is more likely to scare rather than encourage customer to browse.

Instead, George suggests tips for ‘customer engagement’, such as:

• Customers will walk round most products before stopping at the one they are thinking about.
• 90% of customers who come into your shop are thinking of buying your products within the next four/six weeks. What they are looking for is A REASON TO BUY FROM YOU.
• Remember that you work in the industry. Most customers do not fully understand the products you sell. Make it easy for them to understand what they are buying by avoiding jargon.
• Make the customer buy you first. You will never sell your product until you sell yourself.

Knowledge of body language is also so crucial, particularly as it differs in relation to the two sexes. What some men would welcome as a sign of openness and confidence, women would take as a sign of intimidation. George’s tips in this area were a revelation to most of the course participants.

The students also get plenty of advice on how to discover their clients’ real needs and how to close the sale. Some of this is common sense but some tips were new to them and they planned to test them shortly on the sales floor.

George told me that the retail sales training which he delivers doesn’t end with this course. “I also do Sales and Management Training, Customer Service Training, Train the Trainer skills and Appraisal Training. I firmly believe that most sales people would be better at their jobs if their shop manager actually new how to manage effectively. In our business I believe that is a major underdeveloped skill.“

Working together

Reflecting the wishes of many independent dealers, George believes that manufacturers should be helping retailers to hone their sales skills. “We are all in this together. We will only survive with each other’s support. Manufacturers require skilled salespeople to convince customers to buy their products. There are many types of trainers in this industry: product trainers, sales trainers, management trainers, finance trainers and business skills trainers, to name a few. All the manufacturers have to decide is, what training skill is missing from their company and then work with an appropriate trainer to add value to their products and deliver the right message to their customers. Or better still; make a contribution to help finance the training via retra, Amdea, BADA, CIH or any other major force in our industry.  It would in my opinion, be very cost effective and be much more focused in continuing the success of the independent sector.” 

George Morton

Top Level Solutions

George started his career in electrical retailing in 1963 as an apprentice television engineer with an independent dealer in Dunblane.  In 1982, he joined the financial services industry to study and experience the differences between selling tangible and intangible products.

He remained in financial services until 1994 as a sales manager, trainer and finally divisional training manager, gaining membership of the Institute of Personnel and Development. In 1994, he founded Top Level Solutions and went back to his roots to support independent electrical retailers by helping improve their sales and management processes. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Managers, and over the past ten years he have supported many of his clients in winning major industry and local business awards. 

After running his first evening training session in 2007, he was commissioned by retra to deliver sales skills training to its members. He now runs around 20 sessions per annum and he has just completed work on stage three of this training for the UK-wide tour, starting in January/February 2010. 

REASONS WHY SALES ARE LOST

(according to George Morton)

0. Absence of pre-sale preparation
0. Lack of understanding of how customer thinks
0. Inability to get customer emotionally involved
0. Lack of enthusiasm on the part of sales staff
0. Giving too much information

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