Sales Educator & Brand Ambassador

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Vendors and Manufacturers:

CONSIDER ENGAGING ME IN A ROLE THAT DOESN’T YET EXIST…

TO COACH YOUR DEALERS AND THEIR PEOPLE ON selling and up-selling

Virtually all consumer electronics AV vendors who travel throughout the US and Canada agree the greatest needs in the audio/video industry are for AV Business Owners - to better understand Sales and the Selling Process. And more importantly for their Salespeople to get better at Selling!

Not only Selling, but also how to do a better job of Up-Selling (selling better products more often). The need to get better at Selling is industry wide. Not only dealers with retail showrooms, but CI Integrators as well. While every vendor knows, recognizes, and laments this - virtually none are addressing it directly. Working for you, as either an employee or as a Consultant - I can do just that for your company. It will set you apart and you will be rewarded with increased sales, greater dealer loyalty, and great press.

Dealers often try and spend as little time as possible on each category, because they are trying to sell a client so many categories. If there is one category they should spend a bit more time on - it’s AUDIO. Here’s why:

Home Entertainment Electronics Dealers and Integrators have a lot of products (and categories of products) to sell these days – but Audio products are different than all the rest. It’s smart to spend a bit extra time on Audio because it’s a unique and profitable part of the business. While Control, Video, Networking, Motorized Shades, Lighting, and Security are continuously getting cheaper and less profitable – better Audio has never gotten cheaper or less profitable. This isn’t to say that dealers shouldn’t sell all that stuff - of course they should. But it is worth investing in improving their ability to sell Audio and for them to spend a little more time on it with each client.

Sales Educator & Brand Ambassador

 If you create a new position, a Sales Educator & Brand Ambassador (or hire me as a consultant in this role) I propose representing your company by spending most of my time visiting your dealers, focusing on teaching them actual selling skills, tips, techniques and helping them better understand the selling process.

With the majority of the industry racing to lower profitability and cheaper products - this value added position will be a win, win, win, win for everyone involved (Dealer, Salesperson, their Client, and the Vendor). If your brand has better, more expensive, step-up products - you know how important it is that your dealers have people who can actually sell them.

This is not to say that product training isn’t important - of course it is! But that’s best done in a separate session on a different day. It’s really important to understand that people can only absorb and learn so much in one sitting. Too often - those who do training sessions in the AV Industry don’t understand this and so they try and throw everything they know at their audience - hoping some of it will stick. Unfortunately, the opposite happens; they overload their students and rather than absorb some of the info - virtually all of it is forgotten. Everyone’s time is wasted. Unfortunately, this happens all the time.

Hiring or retaining me as your Sales Educator & Brand Ambassador would enable me to focus on teaching about selling, and up-selling and helping dealers understand the business reasons and logic of focusing on Audio in general, and especially better audio. Then others on the sales team (Regional Managers, Independent Reps, or Factory Product Trainers) could focus on the specifics of product training. This two prong approach would get your brand more attention and overall face time with your dealers and their people. More people representing your brand and more time overall spent in front of your dealers – will go a long way toward making your company an even more dominant, unique and important (value-added) vendor.

 People remember when someone (and some company) makes the investment to teach them something that directly benefits them- and helps them earn more money. The reward will be increased loyalty to your brand, and increased sales – especially of your better products. Sales education sessions like this used to be common but are now almost never done.  With fewer dealers coming out of the performance-luxury selling side of the business and more coming out of the tech / functional side - this kind of education is needed more than ever.

Consider engaging me to represent your brand and do this important work - as a stand-alone position. Alternatively, much of what I’ve described can be executed to done as part of a Selling or Sales Management position.