The riddle many training departments are facing—and are increasingly frustrated by—is how to get all that excitement and energy from the training to carry on in the field long after the event itself. What we often see is that there’s a lot of focus and attention on the implementation. Maybe it’s being rolled out at…

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Retail Sales Training

Salespeople hear all kinds of challenges and objections on the store floor, and of course, pricing is one of the biggest. Today more than ever, the culprit is information: consumers typically have more information at their fingertips than the salespeople do. It’s very common for customers to do price comparisons on their smartphones while shopping…

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A new urgency for retail leaders and high-potentials to up their games and take on more responsibility has been driving an increasingly intense focus on retail store leadership training. We’re not only hearing about it from clients; it’s something you can see being played out in the news and in the leadership shuffles among major…

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What do you mean? There are many phrases and words used every day, both in the stores and in corporate offices, to describe some action or expectation: “Get to this quickly.” “Be more proactive.” “Run the business like you own it.” “You should get the merchandise on the floor faster.” “You have to tell a…

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When we’re working with a client who is charged with implementing retail sales training or other learning initiatives, one of the early questions we like to ask is, “What is the role of senior managers in developing their people?” What comes next is not always encouraging. While many understand the importance of what happens back…

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As we explore the topic of listening, and as we practice “listening to learn” in our workshops, I’ve noticed that participants often still define it in narrow terms. When they think of listening, they think about being intent and paying attention. They don’t think about the more active part of reflecting to gain insight. So reading…

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retail management

There are a number of pitfalls that store managers frequently encounter as they try to make the move to multi-unit management. One of the most common is trying to run a district or region the same way you ran your single store. It’s only natural to build on past successes and the practices that got…

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Even though the customer experience is getting more attention now from retailers, the challenge is that the conversation has changed in a number of significant ways in recent years. That means no matter how dedicated or accomplished today’s managers and associates are, they need to know how to adapt and grow their interpersonal skills to…

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We’ve been in Ridgewood, NJ for almost 25 years and at this location for about half for that time. When you make a decision to move, whether personally or professionally, it’s an opportunity to reflect and purge! Our files are filled with examples of challenging problems we have solved and situations we’ve improved through our…

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It seems the death of retail stores in the wake of growing digital technology and e-commerce has been a little exaggerated. But what isn’t an exaggeration is the fact that digital technology is transforming the industry—and customer expectations. Retailers are recognizing this. One of the most common phrases I hear now is “trusted advisor.” How…

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