Hey, it’s Bob Negen. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, I am going to share with you how to create a down and dirty, cheap and easy, yet incredibly effective holiday training program.

So before we get into the mechanics of building this down and dirty training program, I want to invite you to a program next Wednesday at one o’clock p. M. Eastern. It’s called a holiday sell-a-bration.

And what it’s gonna be all about is how to sell more better effectively during the holiday seasons. Not more better effectively, more better, more effectively during the holiday seasons. And so it’s gonna be filled with tips and tricks. We’re gonna talk about the difference between your holiday customer and a regular customer ways to build the average ticket.

I guarantee that it’s going to be action packed and content rich. And I want to encourage you to be there. So November twelve, one o’clock holiday sell-a-bration.

So let’s get to how you create this training program.

First of all, I hope I don’t need to explain the value of training. And I know that everybody on a visceral intellectual level says, oh, yeah, I need to train my people. Yet, how often do you go into a local store and you don’t get that great experience? And it is my experience that poor service comes from poor training.

That people don’t know what to do. They don’t feel comfortable out on the floor. They don’t feel confident out on the floor. And therefore they just kind of shrink back.

And while you certainly don’t have time to build out a robust training program, you do have the time to do this work. So step number one is to get your, your key employees, your managers, your veterans, the people who have been around a long time, the people who have that institutional knowledge, the people who have been there, done that and can help you build this training program. Schedule a meeting for an hour, maybe two hours. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to write this stuff down and you’re going to create a document, whether you do it on a pad and paper, whether you do it on a word doc.

Just remember this, If it ain’t written, it ain’t real. That what you’re doing is you’re creating a document that is that you’re going to use with everybody on your team. So you’re all on the same page. Yes.

The veterans go through the same training as the rookies. You’re a part time seasonal people get the training and the people who have been around for a long time. You’re trying to get everybody on the same page so that the holidays work as smoothly, as effectively, as stress free, and as profitably as possible. So here is the roughest of drafts.

This is sort of a high level look at what should be in your program course, modify it to fit your store and its needs. So first of all, let’s talk about staffing because many, if not most of you hire on part time seasonal people.

These pieces, this communication is really important. First of all, how do people request time off? This is a always a bugaboo. It always creates tension. If you tell everyone, everyone on your team, this is our policy, our time off request policy, it becomes so much easier. Just a word to the wise.

Make sure when you communicate that everybody knows that this is a request, that the schedule exists to serve your customers, to have enough people on the floor, not to make your team members social lives as fun as possible during the holiday season. And that’s hard for some of you, I know, but time off. How do people request time off?

What do they do if they have to call in sick? When do they call? Who do they call? If they try to find somebody else to work their shift before.

How does this all work? You might have policies around that right now. If you do write them down. If you don’t think them through.

The final thing is being on time. Emphasize the importance of being on time. I was just in a story yesterday and the woman behind the counter was so frustrated. You could see somebody was fifteen minutes late for her, for their shift.

And so this person was bearing the brunt of it. So here is how you write this standard. You are on the floor ready to sell when your shift starts.

Not you wander in when your shift starts. You are on the floor ready to sell when your shift starts. Make sure that people understand that. Make sure that you communicate that this is important. So that’s a staff piece. Add your own where you feel it’s necessary. Let’s talk about operations.

One of the things that it took me years to learn, but that I feel passionate about is this idea that an opening and closing checklists completed to standards is the single best way for you to keep your store looking good and running well. Why? Every day you’re bringing your store back to perfect. And so having an open closing checklist, using it, making sure that it’s done to standard.

Here’s a tip tip of the trick of the trade. Don’t let people check it. Make sure they initial it. So if it isn’t done right, you can go back and coach them on what it does look like when it is done correctly.

So having an open and closing checklist, talking about it, is everything on there. Stress the importance of stocking at night or stocking in the morning before the store opens. So that when the doors are open, all your people have to do is sell. But the importance, I just again, cannot emphasize, strongly enough the importance of open and closing checklists.

The other thing to put on your list for sure is what are your policies? What are your procedures around packing and shipping? If you do e commerce, which almost everybody does now, how are you getting those things out the floor? I mean, out the door with all of the appropriate paperwork, meaning thank you notes and all those things.

What are your standards? How does it look? What do you do? Write it down. If you do those two things, you’re ahead of most people.

Now let’s talk. That’s back of the house stuff. Again, this is down and dirty, but this is important. Now, let’s talk about front of the house stuff.

The stuff that makes you money. Training. Product training. You and your team ask yourself, what are your best sellers?

What are your most important items? What are going to be your best sellers this holiday season? And then write down a product description and, know, just sort of talk about it. What is it?

Who is it for? What are the features? What are the benefits? How do you sell it effectively?

But give, you know, so let’s just say you bring it in part time seasonal people. Give them that information that they need. So when they’re talking to people, when they’re talking to your customers, they’re speaking intelligently about what you sell and you know, again, and also another trick of the trade, make sure that everybody knows, don’t lie to the customer. So many new people, because they don’t want to feel foolish, will start just making stuff up. So give them that basic product knowledge and make sure they understand if it’s outside of their knowledge base that they go find somebody who can give them the right answers. This sounds obvious, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this all done incorrectly and you probably have too. So another part of this product training is add ons.

What can you add? What are the appropriate add ons for those best sellers? So if you know what’s going to be a best seller and you’ve taught your people how to sell, you should also teach them what are the add ons that are appropriate for that item. And then finally, when we talk about products, stocking stuffers. Everybody should know stocking stuffers. Everybody should understand the importance of stocking stuffers and it should be a non negotiable standard that every single customer who comes to the counter is shown a stocking stuffer, is shown some sort of impulse item. Let me tell you a story.

So years ago I spoke in Holland, Michigan for their downtown development authority meeting. And I did a holiday training program in November and I talked about this idea of a non negotiable standard for an add on impulse item at the counter. And later on in the in February, so after the holiday season, I saw someone, her name was Kate Moynihan, Moynihan Gallery. She said, Bob, I did that add on thing.

Okay. Good. So my immediate question, well, tell me more. And she said, you know, I had a I found a beautiful blue and green candle set.

And everybody, it was a non negotiable standard, had to show every customer. So I said, wow, did you how did you do? And she thought about it. She said, well, I sold through two orders.

So I think I I think I sold eight thousand dollars worth. Maybe it was ten. I don’t remember. Many thousands of dollars worth.

This is the power of making it a non negotiable standard that sounds that every single customer is shown some sort of impulse item at the counter as they were checking out. So lots and lots of money there. So that’s product training. And then the final piece of it is sales training because there’s a difference between product training and sales training.

Selling training. Product training is what you sell. Selling training people how to sell is giving them what the skills they need to engage your customers skillfully, to ask good questions, to add on appropriately, to understand how to sell an impulse item at the counter. So there’s a difference.

And product training is incredibly important. But if you really want to get the most from every single customer, you have to give your team sales training. And that’s what the cell abrasion next Wednesday is all about. It’s about how you and your team can sell more effectively, because I’m going to look at you and tell you with a hundred percent certainty that if you give your team even the most rudimentary sales training, that you’re going to increase your average ticket by at least ten percent.

And think about this. If you increase your average ticket by ten percent, you have increased your holiday sales by ten percent without getting one more customer in the door. So it’s valuable. It’s critical.

And I hope that I’ll see you next Wednesday. So there it is, you know, get together with your team, get together with the people who have the institutional knowledge and ask them, what does everybody need to know? What does everybody have to agree to do? What do we need to do together to build the kind of training program that will absolutely maximize our holiday opportunity.

So I hope that you found that helpful. If you have any questions, put them down in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you next week.