Luxury Products Group recently hosted its first-ever round of regional training sessions in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago and Las Vegas. “I was impressed with the quality, enthusiasm and talent of the people who attended our regional training sessions,” LPG Executive Director Jeff MacDowell said. “Thank-you to our members who invested in sending their staff to this valuable training. And of course, we’re very appreciative of Elkay for their sponsorship.”

In each city, presenter Robb Best led attendees through four-hour courses that gave them solid takeaways to better engage with customers and increase sales. As Elkay’s Senior Advisor for Cognitive Strategy, Best is highly regarded for his research and expertise into the correlation between neuroscience and the sales process, LPG noted.

“Our team was so pumped up when they came back from this training session,” said Jeremy Smith, sales, marketing and showroom manager of Central Arizona Supply. “The in-depth training from Robb had a practical and immediate impact in our showrooms. Even those who had seen him before felt they gained deeper knowledge and understanding.”

The training events also included roundtable discussion groups. “It was important for members to talk amongst themselves and share best practices,” MacDowell said. “They were very vocal about hiring and training, building the right culture to retain employees, internet sales, IMAP policies, shifting to boutique rather than ‘commodity’ products, using vignettes as much as possible, and even allowing pets.”

Based on the positive feedback from these sessions, MacDowell said he hopes to secure additional vendor sponsorships so LPG can offer more training sessions in the future.

In other LPG news, the luxury bath and kitchen buying/marketing group’s newest member benefit features social media articles and posts for showrooms to use within their digital marketing programs. The posts are customized for LPG showroom members and some featured select vendor partners.

“We’re excited to add this content to our growing list of member benefits,” MacDowell said.  “LPG showroom members now have a resource for their social media content that is laser-focused and relevant to their businesses.”

Access to the social media content is restricted to LPG showroom member via the group’s secure member portal and is updated frequently with seasonal and topical information for members and their customers.