With foot-fall down on our high streets, maximising every opportunity to up-sell is more important than ever in retail.

Spring works with former store manager – turned sales rep turned training provider – Jake Wiid to provide support to our clients, “In my time in retail, I experienced some good and some terrible sales people. Judging this was not on the value of their ticket items but on the care, compassion and more importantly their understanding of the customers’ needs.”

Jake knows that training is a key factor in the success of any sales team, “some retailers see training as a ‘chore’ or a ‘distraction’ from selling, where as this should be seen as the key to selling.”

We asked Jake for his top five tips and this is what he had to tell us:

“The best sales people I encountered all had the same key skills in common.”

1. Knowledge – with the digital age among us customers are more savvy and highly researched. They expect to come to store for that first hand knowledge and to ask what it is like in the field or on the trail, sales people who have used their products find the customer trusts them.

2. Passion – You can’t teach this, you feel this, as fluffy as this sounds, if you talk to someone who cares, you will buy. Apple is a great example of this, their staff care, are highly trained but more than that, they are passionate

3. Up-selling – Every good sales person can upsell the product if they listen. Not every customer can be upsold but most can. Shoes need socks. Bikes need helmets. If you focus your time on listening and not talking, you can upsell 90% of the time. People come to the store to spend money, let’s help them to do that.

4. Time & personal service – Everyone likes to feel special or unique, just because they are buying a pair of socks from a high street retailer should have no bearing on how they are treated. If you can give every customer the Virgin Upper Class experience every time, regardless of spend, they will return. Even better if you can get their name and use it….just don’t get it wrong

5. Added extra – Most wholesalers have freebies, which as store staff we find a massive perk of the job, if you can get some of these freebies set aside and give them to selected customers as a thank you, they will return and buy more.

In summary and the words of Richard Branson ‘Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough, so they don’t want to’

A version of this article first appeared in Cycle Industry News earlier this month