Should Your Retail Sales Training Be In-House or Online? -

The long-held belief for getting your retail sales team on the same page has been that in-person retail sales training is the only way to do it.

Bring in managers, assistant-managers, team-leaders, training-staff or some combination thereof and tell them to bring back your training to their staff.

That is the way that it?s done; that?s the way it has been done.

Which was fine.

For awhile.

But this strategy was inherently flawed. If you?re telling your top sellers what they need to know then you have got to appreciate that they will take their own spin for how they think your instructions should be interpreted.

That was a flawed fact that before now was just the reality of in-person training; all this in an age before online retail sales training.

What does online retail sales training give you that this tried-not-necessarily-true method doesn?t?

Two larger things really; accountable knowledge transfer and a strategy to turn this information into action.

Information

This is key; no facts get lost from person to person. With just in-person training, it could be like the?momma?bird feeding her biggest baby birds first then the smaller ones then the smaller ones. There is a reason the runt baby birds often don?t survive.

What you get in my online retail sales training is you get to put that worm right into every baby bird?s mouth.You?re welcome for the visual.

Here?s what else you receive:

• Ability to track the uptake and effectiveness of your programs down to region, district and store levels.
• Employees can send questions and receive real-time answers.
• Actionable, impactful videos designed for today?s learner.
• All content taught by top retail sales trainers.
• Certificate of completion to ensure they know their stuff.
• Engaging, entertaining user-friendly interfaces that focus the learner.
• Everyone from your newest part-timer to seasoned veteran learn the exact same information at their own pace.

For your managers there are added tools to bring the online training onto your salesfloor:

• Courses just for managers so they can make the retail sales training stick.
• Instant access to a suite of measurable features and tools to track how your employees are doing for reward or counsel.
• One-on-one training delivered to your units anywhere in the world.
• Scorecards to see how your employees are progressing.

Strategy

Another bonus of this virtual training is giving your employees a strategy to use the information they?ve been given; so that the result is consistent across your brand. Your associates will learn how to:

• Be genuine, know how to approach, engage and sell the customer.
• Be more human in an increasingly inhuman world.
• Build rapport.
• Get customers to return.
• Get your merchandise out the door.
• Make every stage of a sale meaningful.
• Meet a customer?s needs.
• Move through every step of a sale.
• Open a sale, present your merchandise, handle objections, add-on and get the customers to say ?Thank you? instead of beat them-up for a discount.
• Sell from confidence.

The true magic happens when your managers can have the bulk of the program taught one-on-one online so they can inspect what is expected on the sales floor. ?It doesn?t have to be either online retail sales training or in-person training, they should be both be used to grow your sales and help present an exceptional experience for each customer that also moves your merchandise.

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Posted by Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor on February 28, 2013.

Source: http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/should-your-retail-sales-training-be-in-house-or-online/