By: Furniture World Magazine\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
From a past issue of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine by contributing editor Joe Capillo<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s look at salespeople this time. Rather, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s look at what we expect from our salespeople. How do we hire them and train them to do what we expect of them? Then how much do we pay them to do it? Well, there I go again – not exactly how do we pay them, but how do we allow them to pay themselves? In the June\/July issue, I wrote about how disconnected many salespeople are from what it takes in performance to earn the money they say they want to earn (For those of you who missed this article, it can be found in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sales management article archives\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on the www.furninfo.com website.) These people seem to be part of generation-S, where S stands for somnambulistic (sleep-walking). This really bugs me, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve concluded that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not their fault. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our fault \u00e2\u20ac\u201c us, the older generation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the one I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m part of. The one that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a letter.
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\nOur business requires a lot of highly consultative selling. This means that good salespeople need to exhibit high-level communications, engagement, evaluation and analytic skills. They also must have the ability to listen to customers, and use that information to help them use the products you sell to solve their home decorating problems, and enhance their quality of life.<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some pretty high-minded stuff, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you agree? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll bet that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of help your customers would like to receive. But Wait! Your salespeople also have to expertly describe the features and benefits of all the products in your store. Not just one or two categories (like your buyers), but all of them. You expect them to be experts in upholstery (and all of the fabrics and leathers), bedroom furniture, dining room furniture, home office, occasional, bedding, motion, juvenile, accessories, lamps, rugs, different species of woods, different construction methods, and on and on.<\/p>\n
We expect them to not just know these products, but also how to put them together to make a beautiful room \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is what customers are trying to achieve. This is the real reason why customers come to your store in the first place.<\/p>\n
Wow! Look at all they have to know. But, Wait! They also have to know how to use your computer system, which is probably as user-friendly, and intuitive to most of them as an abacus. They have to understand your finance plans and be able to explain them to your customers, not to mention (though I will) warranties, fabric and leather treatment plans, delivery systems, factory order processing systems and… international relations (so they can explain where the hell the container is).<\/p>\n
But wait! On top of this we want salespeople to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relationship builders\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, developing and maintaining long-term, professional and personal relationships with customers so they keep coming back. To make sure they can do this, we give them one phone for every 10 salespeople, and at least a couple of computers, that are also used for inventory lookup and sales order entry. This really bugs me!<\/p>\n
Now, think about your salespeople. If they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re like all of the thousands I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve encountered over the decades, they earn between…<\/p>\n
CLICK HERE\u00c2\u00a0to read the rest\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0of this article from a past issue of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine by contributing editor Joe Capillo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Furniture World Magazine\u00c2\u00a0 From a past issue of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine by contributing editor Joe Capillo Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s look at salespeople this time. Rather, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s look at what we expect from our salespeople. How do we hire them and train them to do what we expect of them? Then how much do we pay them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-indonesia-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}