In this “Better Sales Session” with Kingsdown, vp of sales training and education, Craig Wilson, emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions. He dives into a common disconnect in mattress retail: focusing on product specs instead of customer needs. He highlights why customers don’t wake up dreaming of coil counts, but rather seeking solutions to sleep problems like back pain, shoulder pain, or overheating.
Transcript
Kathryn Greene
Okay, so you have all these great materials that go into your mattresses, Joma wool, organic cotton, but how does that translate into selling to the customer?
Craig Wilson
Yeah, it’s kind of funny. I think there’s a disconnect between how we have traditionally trained retail salespeople. Because we get all excited about every little bit in our beds. We got little wingdings, little twists, little turns. We brand everything. And then we just come into our retail training sessions and we go, spec, spec, specs back spec.
And we just bury the retail sales associate with these specs and brands and all this stuff. What happens? I shut down, probably. I’m not even listening anymore. Yeah, exactly. Their eyes glazed over.
We’ve all seen it. Never, ever in human history did anyone wake up and say, we need a new mattress. If only we had 1,791 coils, right? True. No one ever matters. They didn’t wake up with a spec problem.
What kind of problem did they wake up with?
Kathryn Greene
Maybe a back problem.
Craig Wilson
Yeah, that’s exactly right. A pain, a sleep problem, something else. That makes so much sense. Instead of stressing them out, you know, trying to find a solution.
Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So instead of looking at a bed and saying, specs bag, it’s got this, it’s got that, it’s got this, it’s got that. Maybe you say something like this. You know, you mentioned that you had shoulder pain. You’re going to be happy to know this particular mattress got a layer of latex.
Should take some pressure off of that shoulder. You feel how that elevates? The trick is you got to find their pain. So how do you find their pain? We got to ask the question to find their pain.
I want you to think of every time they list a pain, I want you to think of it as arrows in your quiver.
Almost like they have back pain. Oh, back pain. You know? Oh, they sleep hot. Do they now? Sleeps hot. Now what am I going to do with those arrows later?
Launch them. What features am I going to mention? those that directly impact those pain levels, the value into those. They’ll be happy to know these features are in this bed.
Kathryn Greene
I love it. Well, I am happy to know. So thank you for sharing.
See more sales tips and strategies at SleepSavvyMagazine.com.
