It's generally agreed that there are three basic categories necessary to successfully operate a retail store: merchandising, advertising and sales and management. If equal attention and expertise is placed on each category, the organization should be successful. If one category is slighted, it will greatly subtract from the effect of the other two.

The one category that retailers seem to concentrate on the least seems to be that of sales and management. They spend vast sums of money on merchandise for their stores, the location of the stores, the way the stores look and advertising to bring as many customers in as possible. Yet often, no money at all is spent on training and developing the personnel ultimately responsible for making the store profitable by selling all of that merchandise, in that great location, in that great looking store, to all of those customers. Let's face it; most merchandise doesn't sell itself, no matter how great the location is or how great the store looks.

So, why spend even more money on advertising if your sales staff can't close the majority of the customers that are currently coming into your store? Why not teach the sales staff how to be more successful with your current flow of traffic and advertise when the sales staff needs more customers to sell to?

Well, thousands of retailers have invested in sales training programs to do just that. And the issue is this: if the salespeople are not responding to being force- fed a new sales training system, what is management to do? It's a tough question. To answer it, you have to ask yourself this question: Why do you do sales training anyway? The answer is, of course to increase sales.

I doubt if anyone will disagree that increasing sales is the ultimate goal of sales training. Yet so many retailers seem to lose sight of this ultimate goal in the midst of their frustration when implementing a sales training program. The game changes from doing what is right to make sales, to getting everyone to do it like it says on the training tapes.

This is the way I look at every sale I don't make: someone else could have sold the item to that customer, so why didn't I? Then I analyze my every move until I discover the weak portion of my presentation. Unfortunately, your salespeople usually don't have this point of view. They actually believe that the "be back bus" is coming back with all of those customers holding their business cards when they walked out the door.

Well, the "be back bus" doesn't always come back, and that is why we must constantly try to learn from each presentation and minimize the number of customers walking out the door without making a buying decision. If there are salespeople who are very successful, why not figure out what they are doing that works, and have everyone do it? We know what works, and our retail video programs translate that information into simple steps that can be taught and put to use on the selling floor.

Human beings resist this change, no matter how much it will benefit them, let alone the store. Even though they can't argue with the fact that schmoozing with customers and getting them to feel comfortable with you and the store is better than saying "Can I help you?" That still doesn't mean they won't continue to say "Can I help you?" when a manager or supervisor isn't listening. It's simply easier. Schmoozing takes a little thinking, concentration and effort.

The trouble is that owners or managers see a sales training program from a different perspective. The determination and drive they had to have to get into the positions they are in now will make them see things differently. Our Friedman Professional Retail Selling Course, or any other sales training program, makes so much sense to them that their frustration is heightened when salespeople on the floor don't share their enthusiasm and willingness to grow and get better.

Consequently, those same owners and managers decide to get tough and insist that salespeople follow the system. Here's where the goal becomes to do it like the tapes say as opposed to increase sales. Let's look at just how ridiculous this really can get.

You decide that your salespeople are not adding on merchandise to the primary item enough. So you choose to push that issue for a full month, devoting every store meeting to adding on and showing the Trial Close tape (if you're using our system) and possibly the Probing tape as well. Every week you jump up and down and preach the importance of adding on and how to do it.

The problem is that two out of six of your salespeople do a remarkable job at adding on and you are punishing them by making them sit through your endless lectures on the subject. Frankly, I don't care how they are adding on as long as they continue to keep doing it as well as they have in the past. Let me say that one more time. I don't care how they are adding on if they are doing it well to begin with. The last thing I want to do is take someone who is spectacular at adding on and teach them a new way. If I can enhance it, that's great, but I don't need to change it.

On the other hand, you may have a salesperson who is pathetic at adding on and they will have to do it your way, by the system. "Isn't that unfair?" Not at all. The minute someone asks you why he has to do it a particular way but Bob doesn't, you look him in the eye and tell him that as soon as he adds on as well as Bob does, he can do it any way he likes as well. But in the meantime, he'll do it your way, because it is a teachable way that will help him succeed. This means you would have to base this decision on an objective measurement of how well they are adding on, not your opinion.

Do not misunderstand me. The salesperson already performing above the standards will still have to attend regular meetings when you are talking about sales training techniques in general. After all, you can carry the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" theory too far. Exposing them to the information might make their performance even better. In fact, sometimes the top performers don't even realize what it is they are doing right that makes them so successful. This would even validate their efforts up until now. But as long as his statistics are terrific, he is not forced to use the techniques.

How do you measure a sales training program's success?

The major mistake retailers make is tracking only the gross sales and sometimes the gross profit of each salesperson. Although these statistics are valuable, they do not help the salesperson improve. If someone's gross sales are weak, a store manager may tell the salesperson that they need to sell more and give them advice based on the manager's opinion of the salesperson's weaknesses.

For a manager to successfully coach a salesperson to higher productivity, they must have more facts on which to base this advice. How can a manager know if a salesperson has difficulty selling higher priced merchandise or never seems to sell accessories to go along with the main item or spends too long with customers or isn't very good at getting customers to talk with them at all? Tracking numbers such as average sale, items per sale, sales per hour and conversion rate will give the manager insight into what each salesperson's strengths and weaknesses truly are, and the manager can then coach from that information. Opinions about sales performance may not always be accurate; however statistics are facts, and facts don't lie. Understand too, that this type of analysis and coaching should be done on an individual basis, not as a group.

You only do sales training to improve a statistic. Improving a statistic will, in turn, increase sales. Don't ever lose sight of the goal. It is not to have everyone selling in the same way, but to make the most of every sale.