Sneak Peek

SALES SKILLS FOR GARDEN CENTRE STAFF

Self Paced 20-hour course to help you understand more about Sales.

Improve your garden centre sales and your sales skills or those of your staff.  This course was written in conjunction with professional garden centre employees working in this field. The aim is to be able to apply your learning on the job, as you are learning.

Students will learn the art of selling: understanding that a more professional approach to selling is the key to improved sales in today’s competitive environment within garden centres.

A business cannot survive without great salespeople and garden centres are not excluded from this. Too often garden centres have concentrated only the plants – not how to sell those plants. If a garden centre is to thrive, then it needs great staff with the abilities, techniques, attitudes and approaches of professional salespeople. Just knowing about horticulture, although important, is not enough. A sales team or even a single salesperson can make a huge difference to the success of a business. Knowing how to open and close a sale and how to encourage add-on sales are fundamental to sales skills. This course covers these areas and a lot more.

Who would benefit from studying this course?

•    Garden centre sales assistants
•    Garden centre owners
•    Small operators
•    Larger operators with accessible and flexible staff training needs
•    People (with some horticultural background) looking to break into garden sales
•    Students of horticulture wanting to expand into sales

Why Choose this Course?

•    20 hours concentrated on sales skills that is easily achievable at home or at work
•    It has industry input so is aimed at what is expected in the industry today
•    Is informative but isn’t academically frightening!
•    Encourages self-paced study and the opportunity to assess a student’s progress through self-assessment tests at the end of each lesson and a larger test at the end.
•    It encourages pride in a learner’s sales position.

How Will This Course Help Me?

Learning not only boosts sales-skills it encourages confidence, improves self-esteem, and engenders pride in a job.
•    Learn how to open and close sales
•    Learn the importance of product knowledge to sales
•    Learn marketing techniques and how they can be used to boost sales
•    Learn about the importance of how we speak to customers, listen to customers and present ourselves
•    Understand the role of law and ethics in sales
•    Know how to gain new customers but also to keep old ones.
•    Become a true sales professional in the field of garden plants and products.

What's inside this course?

Lesson 1: Presentation, Personality and Communication in Selling

• Personality, Self-Awareness and Attitude
• Types of Shoppers
• Communication, Active Listening and Conversation Selling
• Communicating Confidence
• Trends in Ethical Shopping

Lesson 2: Helping the Product Sell Itself

• Merchandising and Displays
• Signs
• How Customers Pay
• Case Study: Garden Centre Products & Services

Lesson 3: Product Knowledge

• What is Product Knowledge?
• Knowing your competition
• Marketing for Sales Outlets and Retail Businesses

Lesson 4: Selling Made Simple

• Introduction - The selling process
• Steps in Sales
• Using Language to Promote Sales
• Creating Logical Sentences
• Reduce Confusion in Your Sales Approach

Lesson 5: ‘The Opening’ (Gaining the Customer ’s Attention)

• Introduction
• Timing and Opening a Sale

Lesson 6: ‘Closing a Sale’ (COS)

• Add-On Sales/Upselling

Lesson 7: The Law and Selling

• Ethics and Selling
• Ethics in Sales
• Guidelines for Ethical Marketing and Selling

Lesson 8: Gaining and Keeping Customers

• Customer Satisfaction
• Promotions
• Measuring Success

How does this course work? 
You can enrol at any time.
Once you have paid for the course, you will be able to start straight away.
Study when and where you like. Work through at your own pace.

You can download your study-guide to your smart phone, tablet or laptop to read offline.

There are automated self-assessment tests you can complete at the end of each lesson. You can attempt these as many times as you wish and each time, upon completion, you can see your results. You will need internet access to complete the self assessment tests.

At the end of the course, you are presented with a large assessment which can be attempted online, anywhere, anytime. If you achieve a 60% pass in the exam; you immediately receive a downloadable certificate of completion with your name on it.