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Profit from knowledge
I have spent 20 years in the Sports and Outdoor trade on both sides of the fence - as supplier and retailer - and I have seen how variable staff product knowledge can be. It's not as straight forward as: multiples and their high staff-turnover rate as ‘poor', while independents with their long-service awards and owner-salesmen rate as ‘good', although that's often true!
What matters most is that members of staff are keen on their product. Often they use it themselves - never underestimate the selling power of: "I use this myself". This is why I always try to leave product with staff. Some stores have a policy against this, which is folly in my opinion.
The more technical products with more to learn don't always prove the hardest sell - often they are the easiest, as lots of features means lots to talk about. Sometimes comparatively simple products have one little killer fact that is a great sales line, which explains a new use or application that will transform sales from poor to profitable. Communicating this fact to the consumer can be the hardest part of the job for both brands and retailers.
Product passion
There seems to be no demographic to staff knowledge - it's not youth or experience that sells, but a passion for the product that makes the difference. I have one retailer who is an evangelist for one of our brands. He has personally used it since before it was available in the UK, and he attributes much of his ability to still play sport and walk the hills solely to its benefits. Guess what ... he sells lots of it!
The company I work for specialises in high-end accessories to enable people to perform better for longer, and we focus on training staff to sell a range of solutions. For instance, if a runner has an Achilles problem, the assistant may look at the footwear and do a gait analysis, which will often point to a better shoe for the runner. We also sell a support to aid recuperation and early stages of recovery, a sock with Achilles protection and shock dispersing soles. Thus an £80 shoe sale could be augmented by a £28 support, a £25 insole and a £10 sock. The total sale and profit almost doubles. Most importantly, the customer's chance of a quick and comfortable recovery and non-recurrence is vastly improved. Training the staff to spot these opportunities and correctly sell them benefits everybody.
Without technical product knowledge and understanding of consumer needs the retailer cannot sell effectively. Any opportunity to receive staff training from brands should be grasped eagerly, and here are a few pointers for gleaning maximum benefit from a Tech Rep.
Audience participation
I once worked for a retailer where we had weekly training sessions for shop-floor staff. We used to read up on the product, its competition and its potential downfalls before the session. Some Tech Reps dreaded our sessions because they well knew it would be tough and that their pitch would be questioned. Unfortunately, on one occasion a Tech Rep left in tears: in the middle of a rehearsed marketing diatribe a graph was shown, claiming that ‘Panther Bell' cushioning went on forever at 100% effectiveness. The tears started when someone said: "I think we can ignore that graph. Its claim is obviously physically impossible". Staff should listen to training with an objective mind, rather that blindly believing all they are told. From the brand perspective, Tech Reps need to keep training realistic, and grounded in the real world. Sometimes the marketing one-liners are best left in the press releases!
Retailers should remember that although a session might be the only training they receive from a particular brand all year - the poor Tech Rep may be running the session for the 100th time. If the audience sits lifeless in front of the trainer, the session won't be fun or memorable for anybody. Make the Tech Rep welcome, have some questions ready, take notes and - maybe - offer a small round of applause at the end. Either that or a handkerchief ...
Keep talking
Not everybody learns everything after one hearing. Different members of staff will digest different bits of information. Simply talking about the product and the training will re-enforce the whole process. Once some of the information has been communicated to customers, staff should swap lines that helped to make a sale - and lines that didn't. If this becomes a part of a retailer's corporate culture, new recruits will also get up-to-speed much faster.
