Issue 9 - December 2007

Seasons Greetings from The Furniture Training Company. We hope the holidays will bring you success and become a launching point for a wonderful new year.

As you think about ways to show your gratitude and appreciation to your employees this year, consider that the gift of training really does keep on giving. An investment that teaches your sales associates how to better serve their customers this holiday season will genuinely show you care. Your sales associates will appreciate it, and your customers will definitely appreciate the increased level of customer service that will result from the training.

This newsletter focuses on giving you and your sales associates the knowledge you need to successfully sell furniture. Feel free to contact us and share your training knowledge and ideas. Good luck with your training, and enjoy the Furniture Training Newsletter.

In This Issue...

• Announcement: The Furniture Training Company Expands its Product Line
• Feature Story: Congratulations
• Tips and Tricks: Buying Motives
• Did You Know...

Announcement: The Furniture Training Company Expands its Product Line

After a lot of discussion and work we have redesigned our product offerings to fit your needs even better. You will now be able to select a training package that contains exactly what you need. In addition, we now offer individual sales coaching, an hour long conference call that gives your staff the opportunity to talk directly with our sales experts, and managment seminars, a one-day event that will ensure your training investment pays off.

Click to see our complete product list

Congratulations

From the desk of Mike Petersen

Congratulations to everyone enrolled in courses provided by The Furniture Training Company. Believe it or not, over 70,000 lessons have been completed at the website this year. Think about that… FTC has provided over 12,000 hours of training to some of the world's finest furniture retailers. All that training has translated into over 1500 associates becoming either a Certified Furniture Fundamentals Specialist (CFFS) or a Certified Furniture Sales Specialist (CFSS). Congratulations to all!

Tips and Tricks: Buying Motives

We all make decisions in life based on our emotional needs and wants. Customers coming to your store are no different. Although they are coming to buy furniture, most of the time, the customers have underlying needs they are trying to fufill. These needs are the subconscious motives that prompt customers to make purchases. Associates that pay attention and correctly identify customers' buying motives are more successful at meeting the emotional needs of their customers.

The following list describes some common buying motives:

• Value - Many customers are looking to get quality products at a good price.
• Unique Image - Some customers have a strong emotional need to be different from everyone else.
• Feeling Accepted - Items that will meet with approval from their friends and family are very important to some customers.
• Comfort and Ease - This motive is becoming more important to customers as the world becomes more hectic and demanding.
• Aesthetic Appeal - Almost everyone, at one time or another, has purchased something based solely on aesthetics; customers are attracted to the item's feel, look, or design.
• Entertainment - Many customers spend a great deal of time and money satisfying their need to be entertained.
• Avoiding Loss - These customers feel they might lose an opportunity as a result of inaction.

Did You Know...

Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts movement was a design style popular at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Members of this movement sought to bring craftsmanship back to design, in reaction to industrialization and the growing number of cheap, impersonal, machine-made products. The pieces produced during this era generally had a simple, rough, natural look that still appeals to many customers today.