Why is sales training so important?

[Richa]

Well trained sales associates - men and women who have studied the art of selling and are able to lead their customers through a pleasant buying experience - are a real luxury for any retailer. Unfortunately, these master sales associates are few and far between in any retail establishment whether an independent store or an outlet in a national chain. Why is this? Because far too many owners and sales managers believe product knowledge training is sales training.
This is not to say product knowledge training isn't essential. It certainly is. When sales associates know their product inside and out and can demonstrate the features and benefits to the customer, it goes a long way towards leading that customer to buy. However, P.K. represents a very small part of the actual sales process.

What may surprise many to learn is that product knowledge should be used only about seven per cent of the time during most sales presentations. This means 93 per cent of the process requires the use of what are often termed "soft selling skills". These are the skills that must to be taught to every retail sales associate and embraced by every owner and manager if top and bottom line goals are to be achieved.

What are soft selling skills?

Here are a few examples:
Greet the customer properly. How many times do we fail miserably in teaching this most basic skill to our sales associates?
Understand the make-up of a sale. This is absolutely imperative to gain a successful conclusion to any sale - that is, take the order, arrange for delivery and get paid.
Employ basic psychology. Understanding how and why people buy is a critical element to successful selling.
Overcome objections. Without the ability to do this, the associate can never gain control of the sale.
Qualify the customer. Knowing how to do this and understanding why it's so important to do so is vital to the development of a master sales associate.
Ask for the order. Closing the sale is often the easiest part of the job, but far too often the customer walks away simply because the associate wouldn't ask her to buy.
Follow-up after the sale. Building profiles and networking are all key components of establishing long-term relationships with customers and should part of the training process.

These are but a few of the soft selling skills that are essential for development and growth of any professional sales staff.
There isn't a retailer in North America that can afford to have a single customer slighted or turned off by a sales associate. Yet, unfortunately, this happens every day mostly because that associate wasn't trained to meet the customer's needs appropriately. Study after study has shown that one dissatisfied customer will tell at least 20 other people of their negative experience.

Simple mathematics says if three customers leave your store dissatisfied in some way or other every day, they will tell their experience story to a total of 60 other people. Over a one-year period, some 22,000 potential customers will have a negative impression of your store. Can anyone afford to let this happen? Absolutely not! It's a very competitive world out there and the pressure is increasing all the time. One of the keys to surviving and thriving in this environment is sales training - that means giving sales associates soft selling skills, not just product knowledge.

[Leader]

OK fine!

But do you have any idea - who provides training in Nepal?