Sales Training - The Power of Community Selling
(PRWEB) July 30, 2013 -- Authentic training explains how, in an era of increased competition, community selling is a highly effective sales technique that can rapidly increase add-on sales and repeat purchasing. Over the decades sales training has moved from relationship selling, which was essentially about getting the customer to like you, onto consultative selling that focuses more on gaining their respect. But the latest sales technique to emerge in sales training today is community selling.
A company that does community selling especially well is Harley Davidson, says Company Founder Melissa Davies. "If you walk into a Harley Davidson dealership you may be struck by how many customers are congregating both inside and outside, and they all seem to know each other. Customers assemble at the store, which is the local meeting point for the riding community; and so the store is more than a store, it’s a community. When people come together to share in their passion an interesting thing starts to happen - sales are banked, but not in the usual way. There are no traditional roles of 'sales person' or 'customer' – there are only riders, fuelled on by their passion for the ultimate ride and pride for the brand".
Authentic Training explains how most of the time when customers go shopping they don’t even acknowledge one another. But when you bring a community together, they spur each other on and effectively sell to each other. The riders will notice something on someone else's bike and think 'that’s nice' and then check it out in store.
If you walk into a Harley store at the start of a ride, it’s like walking into a party and the sales team are getting amongst it; mingling with customers, demonstrating, consulting and selling but not in the traditional way. The sales team know just about every one of the riders in their store. They know what they like and what’s on their wish list. When you’re passionate about your products it’s easy to build a relationship with your customers because you automatically have something in common – your shared passion.
But community selling isn't just limited to motorcycles, there are lots of other examples of companies that do this well; Apple is one. Apple shops are like mini communities too, where lovers of technology congregate to explore emerging trends and chat with a consultant. Linen, lingerie and jewellery parties are also examples of community selling. Some leading brands, like Tupperware, realize the power of this type of selling and have built their entire sales model around it. There are many opportunities for retailers to embrace community selling, sales teams just need to get creative. The Authentic Training selling program provides tips and techniques on how to maximize sales and community selling is just one of many sales techniques in their ground breaking sales training program.
Authentic Training believes sales teams need to start questioning everything they've been taught about selling in the past, as the dynamics of today's sales environment are quite different. The company provides a number of training options with individual training guides that focus on different sales techniques from just $97.
Further Information
Sales training in today’s environment is becoming more and more challenging. Managers need to stay on the cusp of the latest sales techniques if they are to empower their teams to achieve success. Sales training doesn’t need to be costly to be effective. The Authentic Training sales program provides everything needed to empower and enable sales teams to achieve greater success. Best of all, mangers can deliver the training themselves without the need for costly consultants or external training courses.
Melissa Davies, Authentic Training, http://www.retailandsalestraining.com, +1 (425) 800 3635, [email protected]
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