David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert notes there are three aspects to becoming a great salesperson: self-management skills, interpersonal skills and product and technical knowledge (aka the “Sales Triangle”).
In order to be successful, he says the triangle must be balanced. In order to achieve this balance, you should to consider:
- Focused Sales Training. At many companies, product knowledge can get a disproportionately large chunk of the training focus. That leads to “educators” on the floor, not salespersons.
- Peters says research shows successful sales people attribute only a small percentage of their success to knowledge of products and services, and the majority to their interpersonal and self-management skills.
- In addition to product knowledge, you should train your staff to:
- Apply their product knowledge with customers.
- Use their interpersonal skills to make those connections between what they know about the product and what they learn and perceive about the customer.
- Use their self-management skills to get the job done.
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