Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
Remember your first day on the job? While some of you were sorting pipe fittings in the family hardware store as soon as you were old enough to walk, many of you remember the day you shook hands with the manager as he welcomed you to your new job.
It’s OK to admit if you felt a little overwhelmed that day—there’s a good chance every new hire you bring on feels the same way. Anyone who takes on a job in a hardware store has to learn the names, features and uses of thousands of products. That can be intimidating for anyone, and that’s why thousands of retailers use the training programs offered by your association, the North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA). NRHA’s training programs give your employees a foundation to support the hands-on training they receive in the store.
This year, NRHA made some big changes to the core learning tool, the Basic Training Course in Hardware Retailing. This course, available on www.nrha.org for any NRHA member, now features updated information encased in a progressive learning system relevant to today’s students. The result is an even more powerful tool for curing your new employees’ first-day jitters and giving them the confidence they need to greet their first customers.
Why the Redesign?
When NRHA first released its Basic Training Course in Hardware Retailing, it was meant to be an easy way both for your employees to learn and for you to manage that learning process. Rather than overwhelm employees with detailed product information, the course gives your employees basic product knowledge and selling skills.
First, the new module includes updated product information. While a box nail might always be a box nail, many other products—light bulbs, for example—change rapidly. Information in the redesigned course is current with what’s new and changing in the industry. During the course redesign, NRHA consulted with industry experts to provide you with the most up-to-date information available.
NRHA also knows more companies today are using online learning resources as a way of training their employees. Effective online courses include short bursts of information, interactivity and multimedia presentations. The redesigned Basic Training Course in Hardware Retailing has a brand-new look and feel, all designed to make it easy for your employees to learn and retain critical information for each product.
“When we talked to retailers and distributors about what they value about our training course, they told us they value the selling skills information, in particular the add-on and upselling information,” says Scott Wright, vice president of member services at NRHA. “We also heard a lot about how retailers wanted shorter, more visual and more interactive training segments for their employees. We redesigned the course based on best practices in the training industry and feedback from those who use the course every day.”
Basic Training now features a voiceover to reinforce what students read on the screen. While the presentation guides students through the course at a steady rate, there are also opportunities for students to click through information at their own paces.
An employee can finish a module in less than seven minutes and complete an entire department in less than two hours. This means it’s easy for an employee to take the course in short segments, whether it’s during slower times of the work day or at home.
“We’ve taken into account a variety of learning styles,” Wright says. “Students hear the narration while they read it and visualize each product on the screen. Or, they can print out the study guide if they wish. We also allow them to work at their own pace, whether that means spending extra time on one product or skipping ahead through products they’re already familiar with.”
Focus on Selling Skills
Knowing that teaching employees to deliver good customer service and to sell more products are key goals of any training program, NRHA also added more selling skills features to the redesigned course. After students build a foundation of product knowledge, the course directs them to envision how they can use their newfound knowledge on the salesfloor. The second half of each module discusses how to answer customers’ frequently asked questions about products, how to recognize add-on sales and how to upsell customers to better products. By teaching these skills in tandem with basic product knowledge, your employees can learn quickly how to boost transaction size.
Making the Transition
Of course, many of you are already frequent users of NRHA’s Basic Training Course in Hardware Retailing. All of the testing and training management features will stay the same; you will use the same training manager and student passwords as you did before. While the old version of the course will continue to be available for a short time, NRHA encourages you to start using the new course as soon as possible.
Those of you who access NRHA’s training courses through Ace Learning Place or True Value University will be able to view the updated program in later this year. If you are a Canadian retailer, there will be a Canadian version of the course available later this year.
“I will be one who always suggests there be more emphasis on add-on sales in our training,” says Peter Walsh, owner of Walsh’s Ace in Wisconsin and a user of NRHA’s training programs. “I would say it is the biggest issue we see every day with our training, and we need to teach employees to do it each time we can.”
Course Organization
The redesigned Basic Training Course in Hardware Retailing includes eight core departments:
- Hand Tools
- Plumbing
- Electrical
- Hardware and Fasteners
To help employees organize the information they are learning, the course breaks down each department into chapters and each chapter into modules.
