It’s a tough labor market right now. It can be very difficult to find quality employees, especially salespeople with experience in flooring. Most dealers want people with flooring experience because there’s less training required. But what if you didn’t have to limit yourself to flooring pros? What if you could instead simply hire the best salespeople regardless of their flooring background?
Let’s look at three tools that can help you get new sales hires trained on the basics quickly and have them producing for your business fast.
Diagnostic Selling System
A Diagnostic Selling System is a step-by-step, documented sales process that can be easily taught to new hires, even if they have no flooring experience. I’ve seen the results first-hand: increased closed sales, increased margins and quick success for newbies.
Some of the elements that make this work include scripts, a detailed questionnaire and over 21 “trust builders” incorporated into the process. These elements create differentiation, position the salesperson as a trusted advisor, help them close more sales and command higher margins.
All of this is organized into a step-by-step process that anyone can learn in a week and have success with right away, regardless of their background.
Floor covering basics
Mark Farnsworth, a flooring coach with over 45 years of experience, has created a training manual called Your Complete Flooring Guide. It covers:
- Different flooring types and which type is best for specific applications
- Measuring for an accurate site plan
- Environment and foundation concerns
- Proper estimation of material and waste
What I like about this manual is it doesn’t try to cover the entire universe of flooring.
That would take a library and wouldn’t be useful to a new salesperson. Instead, Mark covers the foundational knowledge a new salesperson needs in order to go out and start making solid recommendations to customers with confidence and close sales right away.
Room visualizer
Most dealers who have a room visualizer simply let it sit on their website. That’s fine, but they’re missing an opportunity to help their salespeople close more sales, including newbies.
Roomvo is a fantastic visualizer with a massive product catalogue, which includes most manufacturers—and it’s free for dealers. One thing we’ve covered extensively is incorporating their visualizer into the sales process. The salesperson can now show the customer exactly what different types of flooring will look like in each room. It will help position them as a trusted authority and help them close more sales while commanding high margins.
These three tools can serve as the foundation to get new salespeople closing sales fast, regardless of their flooring industry training. They’ll also help an existing, experienced salesperson to be a lot more effective.
Jim is the founder and president of Flooring Success Systems, a company that provides floor dealers with marketing services and coaching to help them attract quality customers, close more sales, get higher margins and work the hours they choose. For information visit FlooringSuccessSystems.com.
