When Kevin Reilly, senior vice president of Platinum Guild International (PGI) USA, joined the organization in 2006, sales training was a much more involved process than it is today.
“We had a video series that lasted about three hours,” Reilly tells JCK. “It worked for the time, when people’s attention spans were a little more generous. It was on DVD and was packaged beautifully. Retailers would get a box with all the training materials and videos. It was a great alternative to the live in-store sessions that we’d done.”
About a decade ago, PGI recognized the need to offer shorter, snappier training sessions, so the team created a new series of shorter animated videos that were each about 4 minutes long, and covered all the benefits and characteristics of platinum.
“But we felt it needed an update,” Reilly says. “It needed to be something that could speak to the current audience and respect people’s busy lives.”
In September, PGI debuted a brand new series of free sales training videos on platinumlearning.com. “The videos feature three typical jewelry consumers that walk into a jewelry store and they tell the audience what they want to hear when they purchase relationship jewelry or any jewelry at all,” Reilly says. “‘We’ve heard that platinum is fabulous—why should we buy it?’ And that’s how we set up the scenes.”
The content, Reilly adds, is divided into 16 short video segments, all under 2 minutes in length. “Each one goes over in brief but important detail the benefits and characteristics of platinum, so the viewer can walk away with the information they need to effectively communicate to their customers,” Reilly says.
PGI categorized the training into four sections. The bulk of the content is in a section called PREFERS, named for the acronym PGI USA uses for the seven benefits and characteristics of platinum (Pure, Rare, Enduring, Feels Significant, Emotional, Real White, Secure).
Following the PREFERS section is a series of five clips focused on key selling tips including advice on how to handle a situation when a customer does not ask specifically for platinum, rethinking the term upsell, and why special orders are worth the wait.
“When I ask people how their platinum sales are, often the response is, ‘Oh, my customers don’t ask for platinum,’” Reilly says. “What I say is: ‘If they didn’t ask you for platinum, that’s the best news. It doesn’t mean they don’t want it, it just means they don’t have the language to articulate what they’re looking for.’ From our consumer research we know approximately seven out of 10 consumers desire platinum for their engagement rings, so if you’re selling less than seven out of 10 engagement rings in platinum, then you have an opportunity to grow that business.
“The other one is that if you’re using the word upsell, that should sound a warning bell,” Reilly adds. “If you lead with the best, you never have to upsell. Assume that everyone who walks in the door can afford the most expensive item you have. If you show it to them and explain why it’s the best value for money and they still want to see something else, then you can talk about other metals.”
One topic that Reilly tends to avoid, however, is price—even now that gold is far more expensive than platinum. “The price scenario could change,” he explains. “The shelf life of these videos could span a wide range of different commodity price scenarios. So I like to concentrate on the intrinsic value of the most precious metal in the world. It’s always a great value for a consumer’s money. Right now, situationally because of the current price, it’s a real benefit to retailers and consumers alike, because the most precious metal in the world can now be purchased for a price that would not have been possible a few years ago. But I don’t like to concentrate on price; I like to concentrate on long-term value.”
The final bit of sales training touches on special orders. “Platinum often loses out if a store has to special order a piece,” Reilly says. “Retailers will a lot of times talk the customer out of a piece they have to special order in platinum. But when it comes to an engagement ring, I tell them, ‘It’s worth the wait.’
“Especially in the context of a wedding. Venues, cakes, pictures—all those things you have to plan months in advance. My favorite is the wedding dress; it takes about eight to nine months to make a bespoke wedding dress. Think about the bride to be walking into the dressmakers’ salon with her Pinterest images and saying, ‘This is the dress I’ve fallen in love with, but if I can’t have it today, I don’t want it.’ Would that ever happen? The dress industry has managed expectations. We know they’re going to wear that dress for about five hours, but the rings—they’ll wear them for the rest of their lives. It’s worth the wait.”
All told, the new sales training series totals less than 45 minutes. “But the way we’ve put it together, if they have a few minutes here or there, they can watch a segment,” Reilly says. “They only need to set aside two minutes at a time to watch a segment. Even if they want to brush up on something for an engagement ring customer coming into the store, they can just pull out their phone because all the videos are optimized for mobile.
“Just go to PlatinumLearning.com and click on sales training,” Reilly concludes. “It’s all there for the taking—and it’s free! When people are armed with the language they need to communicate the benefits of the metal, they sell it because it tells an amazing story.”
Top: Platinum ring with 12.82 ct. aquamarine, sapphires, and diamonds, $50,000; Oscar Heyman
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