Appendix

Retail Training Resources

The following programs have been designed to complement this book and enhance the professionalism of your staff and the productivity of your stores.

Retail Sales and Management Books, Audio and Video Training Programs

• Gold-Star Selling:

  The World's Number One Retail Sales Training Course. Recorded before a live theater audience, this updated program captures the passion and spirit of Harry J. Friedman, retail's most sought- after consultant and trainer, as he shares his newest discoveries for making your sales staff more successful. Incorporated into the program are role-plays and interviews with shoppers and salespeople in retail stores that give your staff a new perspective on how customers want and expect to be treated. Your staff will learn how to assess a customer's shopping profile and engage them in conversations that result in more sales; how the Quick Tour establishes value in shopping at your store and differentiates you from the competition—including those on the Internet; why people buy; how to match your merchandise to their desires and routinely add on to the sale; how to handle customer concerns and comfortably close the sale—today! Plus, they'll learn the long-lost art of customer appreciation, and how to build loyal customers for life. Deluxe album with 4 DVDs, 5 participants' workbooks, 5 participants' checksheets, 1 coach/leader's guide, and 5 pocket reference guides. Available in General Retail, Home Furnishings, Jewelry, and Apparel/Footwear versions.

• Retailer's Complete Book of Selling Games and Contests:

  Over 100 on-the-floor selling games, contests, and variations, designed to motivate your salespeople, improve their selling skills, and immediately generate more sales. The perfect tool for getting your staff excited about selling and turning a slow sales week into a quota-busting sales record. 250-page book.

• Retail Management Training Camp:

  Live recording of international retail authority Harry J. Friedman presenting retail's number one sales management seminar. Learn how to motivate your staff and bring a passion for selling to your sales floor; how to set individual and store sales goals and see that they're met; how objectively holding your salespeople accountable for their sales will increase the quantity and quality of their sales; how to create a culture of great customer service; and more. 16 CDs, plus 263-page manual with ready-to-use forms, checklists, and reference material.

• Multiple Store Supervision Course:

  Retail's premier multistore management seminar comes right to you in this compact four-hour live recording for busy executives. Harry J. Friedman offers up proven techniques for effectively managing multiple stores and increasing productivity. Find out how to go from continually putting out daily fires to eliminating noncompliance and building better store managers. Discover why some stores lag behind the rest, and how to bring them quickly up to speed. Learn how often to visit your stores and what to do when you're there, and how to set up a model store that becomes the standard for all stores to follow. Complete training program includes 5 CDs, plus 253-page manual.

• Retail Employee Development Course:

  How to recruit, hire, train, and retain top-producing retail employees. Harry J. Friedman tells how to go from frantically searching to selectively choosing the best person for the job and how to pinpoint the kind of salesperson that you should be hiring for your store. Learn how to build a training system instead of randomly training people, and discover what causes employees to stay and contribute to your success. Comprehensive 258-page course manual.

• Retail Policies Manual:

  The first easy-to-customize, retail-specific store policies manual. Sample policies researched to be the most commonly used in retail today, along with points to consider in establishing the right policies for your store are provided in this user-friendly manual. Deluxe three-ring binder, plus sample manual on CD in Microsoft Word format, making it simple to create and update your own policies manual.

Retail Seminars

• Professional Retail Management Course:

  Want a staff obsessed with serving your customers and continually increasing sales? Bring them to the completely updated, most on-target store management course in the world. Attended by retailers representing well over 50,000 stores, this seminar is a master plan on how to run your retail floor and generate more sales. Discover how you can turn less-than-motivated salespeople into excited, high-performance sales fanatics; how to accurately and objectively set sales goals; the new sales metrics; and which ones you'd better be watching very closely. The easy-to-read sales performance dashboard pinpoints how managers can improve each salesperson; how to go from a have-to to a want-to store culture; the right way to handle variation and deviation from best practices; new thinking on how to coach and, when necessary, how to discipline; how establishing esprit de corps results in better customer service and higher sales. Three-day seminar includes comprehensive 263-page manual, with ready-to-use forms, checklists, and reference material. Call for seminar dates.

• Multiple Store Supervision Course:

  Recently updated! How to build a highly accountable, high-performance retail chain. The first seminar that gives owners, area supervisors, and district managers a system for running multiple locations and getting everyone producing at higher levels. You'll learn why your store managers will make or break you; how a lack of district leadership may be costing you a small fortune, and how average DMs can become powerful leaders; why setting performance baselines for each store is critical for success; how to develop strategic and tactical plans for your stores and how they differ; why and how accurate assessments reveal the root causes of poor performance; how hitting your sales goals as a district or company is reliant on building stores individually; how to project sales goals and notice trends. The importance of creating a model store; how to effectively staff your stores and stop settling for average employees; how to eliminate noncompliance and stop putting out daily fires. Three-day seminar includes comprehensive 253-page manual, with ready-to-use forms, checklists, and reference material. Call for seminar dates.

• Sales Masters Course:

  Like getting a master's degree in retail selling! An in-depth look at the newest and most successful sales techniques in retail, developed by retail's master salesman, Harry J. Friedman. Discover how the high-performance professional prepares to sell; why the way you open the sale can mean success or failure; how a company history and Quick Tour can set you apart from the competition; must-ask probing questions that cause shoppers to open up and give you extra information that helps close the sale; Product Theater: the fine art of presenting and demonstrating merchandise with eloquence and emotion that results in “I'll take it!”; how adding on and selling groups of merchandise as single units can help you close more sales and build more profit. The fine art of closing the sale, and why intent is more important than technique; why properly cementing the sale results in fewer returns and more repeat business; the long-lost art of customer appreciation and building loyal, life-long customers. Three-day course with an optional fourth-day certification. Call for seminar dates.

In-House Training and Speakers

• Bring Our Seminars and Workshops to Your Location:

  The Friedman Group can deliver all or part of the above seminars, as well as training on other retail topics, in cost-effective in-house programs that can be designed to fit your schedule. Programs can vary in length from one hour to several days.

• Professional Speakers:

  “The chicken was dry, but the speaker was sensational!” Count on our dynamic speakers to make your next event one that is long remembered. Every one of our speakers is also a trainer, and well versed in implementing the Friedman Sales and Management System in the real world. No boring speeches that don't relate—just information-packed presentations that motivate and educate.

Elearning, Project Gold Star, Consulting and Customized Training

• Elearning:

  The Friedman Group offers elearning, virtual classroom and single subject on-demand learning programs for a wide variety of retail topics. We can incorporate your existing product knowledge, sales, customer service, or management training, along with policy and procedure manuals—or create them for you, along with testing, certification and many other options. All of this is now available at breakthrough pricing that makes virtual learning affordable for small to midsize retailers, as well as global icons. Please call for more information.

• Project Gold Star:

  The High-Performance Retail Sales and Management Implementation Program: At the pinnacle of all Friedman training programs is Project Gold Star—a formula for developing a truly sales-driven, high-performance retail organization. This unique public forum for small groups of owners and senior managers consists of monthly two-day meetings for four months. It provides an organizational framework for streamlining store operations, developing your staff, and maximizing store performance. Key to this program is the personalized attention and access to our consultants, who will help with your implementation questions and challenges you may face along the way. In just four months, you'll learn to implement the full spectrum of Friedman Retail Sales and Management Systems, including training programs, performance standards, and accountability systems. It's the fastest way to boom your business. Call for upcoming dates. This program can also be delivered privately just for your stores.

• Consulting Services:

  As retail's most sought-after consulting and training organization, we offer strategic and tactical planning solutions for achieving your goals, as well as being a full-service training and implementation provider. From our Business Improvement Audits to our comprehensive sales, customer service, management, and operations systems, we can provide organizational structure, benchmarking, and metrics for the full range of retail positions, utilizing the most widely used retail training methodologies in the world. Find out why retailers of all sizes and industries have made us their consulting and training resource.

• Customized Training Programs:

  The Friedman Group provides customized training programs in the areas of sales, customer service, store management, operations, and product knowledge, as well as developing customized policies and procedures manuals. Using our expert trainers, in-house writing staff, video production facility, LMS, and virtual learning capabilities, we can create and help implement the perfect training tools for your company—in a very cost-effective manner. Put your thumbprint on your training. Call to learn how we can provide a perfect solution for your needs.

For more training resources . . .

Call: 800-351-8040, or 310-590-1248

Fax: 310-590-1555

E-mail: info@TheFriedmanGroup.com

Website: www.TheFriedmanGroup.com