Great Retail Salespeople Are Made, Not Found | Retail Today With Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor - Flash Briefing

This idea that you're going to hire someone who is already trained, and a great salesperson frequently, to me, falls on the floor. Because ultimately, great salespeople are made, not found. You can train anybody. Again, you can use my online system salesrx.com. $195 a month for starting with five users, and I will teach you, I guarantee you, exactly how to create rapport, how to discover the shopper, engage the stranger, and ultimately make the sale. You can have anyone go through that and we can teach them that. You can also pay me several times more than that and I'll come train your crew, but the reality is, unless you're willing to focus on creating a salesperson, you're just hoping, and the problem with hoping that you're going to get a great salesperson is, maybe you get a great salesperson that worked for a competitor and I don't know what your business is, and you say, "Oh, they're all trained."

Well, I used to be in the coffee business and we would tell people, do not hire people from Starbucks. Do not hire people from Starbucks. And invariably we'd have, the franchisee would say, "Hey, I just hired my new manager from Starbucks."

It's like, okay. And the problem was they were trained to Starbucks standards, so when they came to your store, they're going to bring your store basically to Starbucks standards, which probably doesn't work for an independent little coffee house. And so a lot of times there was a lot of miscommunication. There was a lot of friction because they were trained in one system. And you're saying, "Oh, it's compatible."

It isn't. Usually, a lot of times you're bringing bad service and you're bringing bad habits from another business onto yours. So great salespeople are made. They aren't found.

If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com. Or, send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening.

If you love what you heard on Retail Today, connect with Bob by visiting retaildoc.com or send a message to bob@retaildoc.com. Thanks for listening!