headloss 

Excellent advice... be honest about what you know and don't know, it's the best way to learn and actually be helpful.

headloss 

So, how much wrenching are you expected to do? I'd start with the stuff that a sales-person should know as well as any mechanic. Do you know how to change a stem the correct way? Helping a customer to get the best fit and finding a stem that will improve the ride quality is one of the best experiences I've ever had in a bike shop. Someone taking ten minutes to make such a minor modification while helping a friend to dial in her fit made that a shop that I've gone back to over and over.

In general, learning as much as you can about fit makes a lot of sense for any salesman. You need to know what common complaints are (just search any number of the cycling forums online). Be familiar with things like K.O.P.S. but also understand that it isn't the end-all-be-all and it isn't accurate for everyone. Read what Sheldon, Peter White, and others have written at great lengths about it.

Be familiar with the bikes you are selling. Remember to show customers to use spacers in a hydraulic brake if they take the wheel off. Show the person who is new to cycling what a barrel adjuster does. Show the customer how to unlatch a typical road caliper or a v-brake to remove a wheel for transport. There are all sorts of little things that take a moment.

Familiarize yourself with all the different bottom bracket standards and know what will and what won't work together. Lots of great online comparisons.

Read up on pull ratios and understand why you can't mix Sram with Shimano or Dynasys or whatever and be able to communicate that to customers who ask you about it.

Read The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt, print out a copy of Sheldon's crib sheets, take some photos of common torque values from the appendix of Zinn's book and keep them on your phone.

Know how to size a chain, I just had to fix someone's chain after a shop mechanic left it entirely too long. Know how to set a wheel in the dropouts, I've had a shop mechanic misalign both a wheel and the disc brake caliper (might have been done at the factory, but the shop didn't catch it upon inspection).

I have no idea what your level of knowledge is. If you need to learn stuff, shoot me a PM and I can give you a full list of book marked links that might be helpful.

jimincalif

Lots of good advice above. I've had sales training and want to re-emphasize the comments above to (1) LISTEN to customers, (2) be honest and (3) know your product. If you don't know, tell the customer you will find out. I just bought new wheels. Went to one LBS and they showed me some wheels and the guy there said he "thought" they were about $650. I looked them up online, they should have been about $360. Was he BSing me or did he just not know? I prefer to think the latter, but nevertheless I just bought new wheels at a different shop.

Also, if you are with a customer on the floor, at the register, whatever, do not let another employee distract you from the customer until you are done. Congratulations on the new job!

Machka 

And a comment about phone etiquette, if you're with a customer ... let someone else get the phone. If you are the only one there, excuse yourself to the customer, answer the phone, put the person on hold, and then return to the customer. Do not leave the customer standing there while you chat on the phone ... even if the phone call is business.

The person who has made the effort to come into the store gets priority.

rydabent

west +1

Plus LISTEN to the customer to see what he or she wants. NEVER assume anything.

wahoonc

I worked some retail back in high school and never got any training other than a brief welcome/orientation, now get to work. I asked some of my friends that currently work retail and none of them have had any specific training from the companies that they currently work for. Some work for major chain stores, others for small local shops. Must have been a Canadian thing.

Aaron

Machka 

In some ways I'm surprised ... in some ways I'm not.

flatlander_48

Good information, but there is one critical difference. Buying a car is usually a necessity. Buying bike usually isn't.

-=(8)=-

Its been mentioned already, but the #1 issue I have with going in to bike shops is condescending, usually younger person~ "No really my friend, I really do want rat trap pedals, no clip-ins, thank you"~ telling me what I need when I have clearly asked for something else. Then attitude afterward. Since I dont look like a 'serious' bike rider, I get this a lot. Very annoying. Another issue I have is looking at bikes on the floor and seeing tool marks on them, missing valve caps, or other small stuff that makes it look like the set-up process got the short shrift.

Good luck

syncro87

I think it's pretty similar in many ways. Most people buy new cars way more frequently than they NEED to, and make all kinds of impractical choices when doing so. I mean, the average person could get away with driving a 12 year old Camry with 150k miles on it and still get to work and school just fine...but they get newer and more elaborate vehicles than what is absolutely required or makes sense. They want the cool Jeep or Beetle convertible, Corvette or whatever. Nobody needs in dash nav, a heated steering wheel, or really cruise control for that matter. I think selling a car to the average person or a bike involves listening to their needs/wants/desires and helping them find a solution to make their life easier and/or more fun.

flatlander_48

In the sense that the need that is to be satisfied (transportation) with purchasing a car is a necessity. Unless a bike is intended to be routine, daily transportation, it falls into a different category. For most people, if you go shopping for a bike and don't come home with one, life goes on. Seeing as how no one goes to a car dealership just to hang out (and they do in the case of some bike shops), I think the intent factor is stronger. Basically what I'm saying is that the thought process that brings person into a bike shop is very different from a car dealership.

From the perspective of a died in the wool car guy, my thought process in buying a car is different. Before I go, I know what I want, what I can live with and what it's likely to cost. And sad to say, I've run into many sales people who knew much less about what they were selling than I did. That's discouraging. There's just no substitute for knowing your product, as you said. Back in '84 I was looking to buy a new VW Quantum (and I eventually did). I had a sales guy lock my wife in the back seat: he forgot that he tripped the childproof switch. I saw him do it and I knew what was going to happen. I could have helped him out, but it was much more fun to see him sweat. He also didn't know how to put the crossmembers in the roof rack. Sad, but it is a crazy world...

syncro87

I'm also a car guy, and owned a 1987 Quantum syncro (awd) wagon. A toast to you for also being one of the few to own a Q or know what one was.

You'd be surprised how many people go to car dealerships to just hang out and look around. I'm like you, I know cars, do research, and go in with a fairly high degree of intent. But having sold cars for 5 years, I'd opine that you and I are the oddballs. The average shopper is way less educated than you probably are when you set foot in the store. Sure, you'd occasionally get a car nut as a customer, but for every one of those, you'd get 25 people who had no clue whatsoever.

You're totally right about salespeople who were poor product experts. That always drove me nuts and still does. How can I the prospective client know more about you the guy trying to sell me a car, who puts food on the table repping this product? To this day, as an enthusiast and someone who reads about cars a fair bit, it drives me crazy when I go look at a car and I know more about it than the salesperson.

One of the problems with the average dealership is that management puts little emphasis on product training, and little investment in keeping good salespeople or cultivating good salespeople. Turnover is usually high, and emphasis is on grinding clients in the short term for maximum dollar, telling people whatever they need to hear to buy today. Then, since the manufacturers want good survey scores, the dealership coaches the customers for good scores (we need all 5's) after the fact instead of earning the rating during the process. The manufacturer has no idea that the reason the store gets a 5 star rating is that they are offering customers a tank of gas if they bring the survey back to the store for them to mail it in, with all 5 of course. lol.

I loved cars, loved VWs, and made real nice money in the car business. I've heard that I still get people coming in looking for me at my old store, and I left in 2005! But I left mainly because I was sick of the culture of idiot managers, high turnover, pressure to lie to customers, the focus on the quick buck rather than the relationship. Nick nacky crap like you have to turn over every person you speak with to a manager before you let them leave. Crap like this. If I could find some niche dealership somewhere that treated employees and clients as a respected resource instead whipping out a 4 square and Joe Verde sales tapes, I'd consider going back. Tough to find, though. Most places don't want sales staff that can think, they want drones to work long hours for $50 a car and tell clients whatever they need to in order to get a signature on the dotted line.

Cheers, fellow ex Quantum owner!

flatlander_48

And further, it had the Audi 5-cyl drivetrain with a 5-spd (I've never owned an automatic). Loved that hard mechanical shifter; NO Cables!! Mine was also a wagon; dark silver metallic, black interior, brushed aluminum roof rack. If I remember correctly, the model designation was GL. Somehow, Quantum just sounded better than the Passat that it became. Anyway, I traded it on a 1990 Nissan Maxima SE in the fall of 1990.

During the CARS program, I traded my 1994 Isuzu Trooper LS for a new 2009 factory JCW MINI Clubman. My experiences with sales personnel at the MINI dealerships in Buffalo and Rochester have been pretty decent. MINI seems to be going about things a bit differently, so it might be an interesting situation to check out.

Very Nice! I like it! I still can't get over the pneumatic door locks. Never saw that before and have not since. And they say the Swedish are quirky...

One night my kids and I were waiting for my wife to finish work. As we sat in the parking lot, it started to rain (summertime). I couldn't raise one of the back windows. Since the switches were at the end of the console, I turned around, popped the switch out, swapped the wiring and closed the window!! Definitely a Thank You Volkswagen moment!

contango 

Different field I know, but if I'm shopping for anything computer-related and the sales assistant starts to give me BS information I just ask more and more detailed questions until they are forced to admit they have no idea. Usually by then the only purpose of the exchange is to make them squirm as much as possible, because by then it's a foregone conclusion they won't be getting my money.

On the topic of BS and pushing upsales I remember two bike shop guys I talked to. On the topic of cleaning my bike they had two approaches. One tried to sell me an all-inclusive cleaning kit which was going to cost me Ł60 (about $100) explaining how great it was. The other said I could buy an all-singing package but until I had a better idea of my needs I'd do just as well with a bucket and a sponge, and maybe Ł5 worth of specific stuff (a scrapy thing to get between the sprockets of the cassette etc). Neither made a sale that day. You can probably guess which one is my go-to bike shop if I need something.

flatlander_48

Syncro:

This is my car. It's from 2010 as it's a better photo than recent ones. Style points if you can identify the place...

Myersch

I'm sad to say that I lost the job as a mechanic two days ago. It was an excellent resource to have your suggestions and advice to improve my customer relations and mechanic skills. In the end it was my lack of experience in sales and mechanic work that got me fired. My boss told me to revisit the shop sometime in the future so I hope to work on my knowledge of competitors and the fine-tuned specifications of mechanic work. I needed to learn things like 29" wheels can fit 700c tires, how to keep my head when multiple people are trying to tell me what to do while i'm on the phone, being completely respectful to my boss 100% of the time even if he acts like a friend, how to shut up and give quick and concise responses, and to not bring personal life into the workplace.

If any individuals who have just started to work at a bike shop chance upon this thread I wish you the best of luck!

Dave Cutter

The only two complaints I have about LBS employees/service over the years was one employee was a bit rough/clumsy with my bicycle. Another employee was stoned out of his mind.... and reeked of pot-smoke.

Corben

Congratulations on snagging a sweet job that many of us can only dream of having. There's some great advice here for you to start using right away. Good luck you lucky dog you!

FBinNY 

A bit ironic in view of the OPs final post (no. 41 today). I guess that after reading some of the advice you quit before getting to the end.

Corben

I did! Better read it. He got laid off. Bummer...let this be a lesson to always read the replies completely.

FBinNY 

So he says.

Cyclosaurus

This happens to my wife all the time. She used to be a general contractor, so when we're dealing with tradesmen or salespeople in the contracting/home improvement world, she does 90% of the talking. There's been a number of conversations where the whole time she is speaking but the guy is looking at me the whole time, even when he's responding to her.

Cyclosaurus

Sorry to hear you lost your job. Keep in mind that most of the things you mentioned are not specific to a bike shop. They will apply in just about any job you take in the future.

twolegs

i've picked up a lot on youtube, and ive adopted the attitude that nothing is ever beneath my skill levels, ive learnt a few little tricks here and there using that approach and watching other peoples videos- it helps to build up an overall picture, a little informal, but it does help

Machka 

+1