In any organization, the people are the greatest resource. Few organizations really devote the time necessary to give their people the tools and information needed to maximizes their competitive advantages. Effective and continuous training is one of the key building blocks to developing your associates.
In my experience, having daily 15-30 minutes huddles prior to the store opening and an hour-long training session Saturdays, provides the lesson time to build truly effective associates. In our organization, we focused on sales; but these principles or lessons can apply to any type of business or group. Quite often our service associates, our warehouse manager, and some of our office team members were invited to participate and were always welcome to attend.
Our Saturday meeting usually ran from 8:30 to 9:30; however, it was not uncommon for most of our associates to arrive at the store around 8 am, and all of them arrived before they had to be there. These meetings were not always popular, but even the worst critic had to admit that our associates knew their business better than anyone else. The meetings could be tough and to succeed you needed to be prepared. The training mirrored the unpredictable nature of our sales, where things can change at a rapid pace and you never get to choose your customers. We strove to make the meetings useful, relevant, and the sales manager and myself always tried to be very well prepared.
The following principles come from a career spent in retail and as well from my experience as a consultant. Many of these tips come from some of the best people various sales industries, from real estate to automotive selling to general department stores and specialty home furnishings stores others come from trial and lots of errors.
IN GENERAL
It is important to focus on things that your people can use “right away.” Whether it is a 15-20-minute daily meeting of your associates or a longer 60-minute Saturday meeting.
- The topics discussed have to be useful and applicable for the audience. Too often presentations and trainers use too wide of a scope and lose their effectiveness.
- The topics discussed should be relevant to your audience. Inclusiveness and awareness are really good things, but remember to ask for feedback.
- Sometimes your meetings might have too many people or are too unwieldy because some people don’t need to be present. Zoom meetings are a good way to demonstrate this point, look for the associates paying attention, and those people who are doing other things … they are not getting much from your meeting and could even be distracting to the ones who really need to be paying attention.
- MAKE YOUR MEETING INTERESTING!!! People who are bored are not really paying attention and you are wasting your time and their time.
- Make your meetings fun. This many not always been possible, but where you can try it. We used things like a “Shotgun” game: I would give each associate a $1 coin, and we would ask each associate for a particular feature, advantage, and benefit (FAB) on a particular product. We would go around the room as many times as possible and if an associate could not think of another FAB, then they would put their coin in the pot, whichever associate was the last one to contribute a FAB, would receive the contents of the pot.
- Focus on things that your associates can use right away. While there is a place for theory and medium to long-term plans; daily and weekly training meetings are very “tactical” vs “strategic” in nature. Giving your associates tools that are directly applicable will improve their attitude towards your training and give immediate payback for them and you.
- MAKE YOUR MEETINGS INTERACTIVE, ASK QUESTIONS, and ASK YOUR QUESTIONS IN RANDOM ORDER. In my experience, the best training is interactive. Get everyone involved, get them thinking, ask questions in random order helping to develop their skills in handling unexpected situations. If your organization deals with customers issues, the latter training is especially useful.
- LISTEN. I cannot understate the importance of meeting with your people everyday. As a retail organization that was open 77 hours and 7 days per week, it was rare to have the same group of people two days in a row. I learned to listen to my people, to learn about them and what was going on in their lives. I also learned to listen to their opinions and ideas, I wish I had learned sooner than what I did.
- Assign readings or “homework”. Every kind of organization can learn from others and with the internet, virtually everything that has ever been written on any subject is available – use it. Find useful articles or videos and ask your people to review them and then come prepared to discuss them. A key point, tell people a few days in advance rather than surprising them the night before.
- Have an underlying structure to your meeting. These meeting are “tactical” in nature and as a sales organization we always wanted the meeting to end on an upbeat note. We used positive accomplishments or a special offer that our associates could use right away. Anything negative was done at the beginning of the meeting with administrative notices, then the meeting built up momentum with training, focused on how to make the day as successful as possible.
- Start and finish on time. Starting on time is important for those people who make a point of being there and ready to start. If you allow people to show up whenever they like, you will lose their respect. Finishing the meeting on time shows your associates that you value their commitment and their plans for the day.
- Appreciate the varying skill levels of your associates. Although we did not always succeed, we tried had to make the topics covered relevant to the skill levels of the newest associates as well as to the senior associates.
- When you ask for opinions, do not judge the responses. Having associates who will tell you what they really think about things is very rare, which is unfortunate. If you can foster a “safe” environment for your people to tell you their opinion, make sure that you listen. Do not try to justify or defend, simply thank them or ask more questions. I have worked for companies that did this as well as for those who did not and the most successful stores were the ones that valued their associates’ opinions and ideas.
- Start your Saturday meeting, with a quick review of the “take-aways” from the last meeting. Too many training meetings are standalone meetings, so use this tool to tie your training together and ensure that everyone understands.
- Lay out the topics to be covered for the time allocated. Many people try to cover too many issues and the training is too much to absorb. My suggestion is to have more prepared than what might be able to be covered, but allow the meeting to “flow” based on how your associates are absorbing the information – quality training is more important than quantity training.
- Send out a summary of your longer meeting to all associates. As with the previous point, too many meetings cover great things but then are never discussed again. Use the summary to cover key point and things that you want to carry forward. As a presenter, decide on five key take-away points and ensure that these are not lost on the people present, as well as to those people who were not at the meeting.
SAMPLE AGENDAS
- The following agendas are for a sales organization; however, the format can be used for any type of organization, regardless of the industry.
Daily Huddle – (15 to 20 minutes Sunday to Friday)
- These meeting are done daily and are meant to be brief meeting to discuss one or two key points for the coming day.
- These meeting can be very informal and it is important to keep everyone upbeat for the activities of the coming day.
- Possible topics:
- A new promotion starting that day.
- A change in an operating procedure.
- A group training session for a new associate on role-playing.
- A group training session on a subject that everyone is struggling with.
Primary Training Meeting – (60 minutes Saturday)
- 5 minutes on Takeaways from last week’s meeting – one key point from everyone present. This should be part of the preparation expected from each associate and they must have a different point. Note to the presenter: use a flip chart and record the points.
- 5-10 minutes on Administrative Details
- New or revised procedures
- Anniversaries for associates
- Upcoming announcements
- Anything negative (remember to praise publicly and criticize in private; any negative points should be something for the entire group and not something that only affects one or two associates.)
- Presentation to contest winners
- 5-10 minutes on “The Numbers” – weekly, monthly, and quarterly leaders. Try to have the most up to date numbers possible and congratulate the top 3-5 associates in whatever categories your organization measures.
- 15-20 minutes on Training. Using the principles from the “General” section, create a training session for your associates that keys on the areas that you are trying to influence. For example, choose one of the following:
- 5 Motivations for buying
- 2 of the 6 steps of selling
- How to sell fabric protection
- How to sell extended service plans
- 5-10 minutes on a Competitive Shop Report. Each week someone should do a short presentation of one of your primary competitors. Use the following criteria:
- Overall Presentation
- Did they use the 6 steps of selling?
- Explanation of how their sales associate did presenting the specific item chosen.
- What did they say about our store?
- What did they do well, what did they do poorly, what should we be concerned about?
- 5 minutes – REVIEW YOUR ADS. Using an interactive format, quickly drill your associates on: Terms, features, substitutions, and unadvertised specials
Successful organizations do this type of planning and as a small or medium-sized business or organization, adopting this level of preparation will improve your training dramatically.
Paul.