Tips for Increasing PC Sales and Employee Motivation

3/3/22

Increase retail PC salesEvery sales manager continually strives to motivate their sales team and improve their performance. There is no single cure-all to accomplish those goals, but these six best practices have been proven successful.

Even if some of them already look familiar, it never hurts to re-evaluate how they are applied in your stores.

1. Check for Attitude

The first step in creating a motivated sales team comes when you interview associates for your team.

Candidates’ existing attitudes toward assisting customers should be critical in your hiring decisions. It is relatively easier to impart your store’s sales methods and culture to a new hire when they already share your philosophy.

2. Incorporate Multiple Training Methods

Not everyone learns at the same pace, nor do they respond equally to all teaching methods. Most people are experiential learners, but there are others whose brains gain and retain knowledge better with auditory or visual learning.

Employ a blend of various approaches, including presentations, manuals, live sales tool demonstrations, gamification, multimedia graphics, and video. The Intel® Retail Edge Program delivers training to your associates using various learning styles to ensure they are well-prepared to work with customers on the salesfloor.

3. Shorten Your Trainings

Putting associates in a windowless room for several hours and pummeling them with slide decks on sales theory doesn’t lead to higher information retention. Information overload can lead to “data smog” and cause the brain to become overwhelmed and confused.

Consider making each training session shorter while incorporating some of the various microlearning approaches listed above in #2. The shorter durations keep learners’ minds fresh, focused, and able to absorb information more efficiently.

Short learning segments are easier to fit in or around the workday and mix well with on-floor training.

The Intel® Retail Edge Program uses engaging microlearning training available across various devices. Sales associates take advantage of these quick trainings to learn about Intel® products and technologies and the PCs they power.

4. Add Role-Playing to Your Training Tools

Role-playing is highly effective and breathes life into dry sales training. Role-play exercises are also an excellent method for regularly evaluating and improving your team’s skills and knowledge.

Many people have minimal experience with role-playing exercises, so furnish them in a relaxed, non-judgmental manner. They soon have a natural feel, and associates appreciate these opportunities to apply sales techniques. As they continue these exercises, positive results with customers increase their motivation.

The Intel® Retail Edge Program provides trainings that include sales tips and different scenarios that your associates may encounter when working with customers. These are invaluable when helping to enrich the customer experience and increase their level of satisfaction, both during and after the sale.

5. Set Clear Expectations

Never assume associates know exactly what their goals are or how to accomplish them. If they don’t meet an expectation they didn’t understand, they may see the situation as unfair. This is a definite motivation killer that could even foster toxic resentment.

Have conversations about expectations privately or in meetings and ask associates to reflect them back to you. That way, you know they have understood them.

6. Practice Continuous Feedback

Constructive feedback on associates’ performance goes hand-in-hand with setting expectations and improving performance and morale.

Tell them precisely what they did right if someone meets or exceeds expectations. Be generous with positive feedback and recognize a team member’s accomplishments publicly. However, discuss any negative feedback with associates privately.

Keep in mind that there are risks with both negative and positive feedback:

  • If it is not genuine, employees see right through it.
  • If it is not specific, it has less impact.
  • If it is not constructive with specific steps for improvement, the behavior is unlikely to change.

Create an Environment for Positive, Continuous Improvement

You can employ other techniques, but these are a few of the most impactful. They will help your sales team build a collective sense of competence toward customers and co-workers and continuously inspire them to improve their performance.

Increase PC Sales and Employee Motivation

The Intel® Retail Edge Program delivers training that engages and motivates retail associates and drives PC sales. The Program measures success in multiple ways throughout the year, helping you see positive changes in your team and your bottom line.

Discover more about the Intel® Retail Edge Program and how it can improve the performance of your sales team and increase your PC sales.

Get information about the Intel Retail Edge Program

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article has been updated and originally appeared on the Intel® Retail Edge Program manager blog.

 

 

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