The Challenge
Quality Sewing & Vacuum runs on created sales. A customer who walks in for a bobbin case can leave with a $3,000 embroidery machine - if an associate shows it to them, demonstrates it, and asks. Customers who are simply waited on walk out with the bobbin case.
LaPonte knew that the associates with the highest sales per hour were the ones who consistently showed customers something new on every visit. The challenge was getting that behavior to replicate across 13 stores. Newer associates defaulted to clerking - answering questions, ringing sales, waiting. They were not building rapport or creating desire.
Traditional training was not a workable answer. A full-day session pulls associates off the floor and rarely changes behavior, because behavior changes through repetition, not information. LaPonte needed something his 150 associates could do in short sessions, on a regular schedule, from any location - including from home on their own phones. And he needed to track it.
Most retail training programs address either selling skills or customer communication. LaPonte needed both - because the associate who cannot connect with a stranger will never get the chance to close.
The Solution
LaPonte found SalesRX through Bob Phibbs' weekly retail email newsletter. The program's core premise matched what Quality Sewing & Vacuum already believed: associates have to earn the right to sell by making the customer feel seen first.
SalesRX is an online retail sales training platform built around short, interactive video lessons. Associates complete modules in approximately 10-minute sessions. The platform adjusts the learning path based on each associate's responses, so it functions as practice rather than passive viewing. Certifications are earned at the end of each sequence.
The Results
By the first quarter of 2018 - within months of launching SalesRX in fall 2017 - Quality Sewing & Vacuum recorded its best quarter in company history.
Associates who completed the training and applied it on the floor showed measurable increases in sales per hour. Stores where staff actively demonstrated new products to every customer, regardless of their stated purpose for visiting, outsold stores where staff waited for customers to express buying intent.
Customer complaints dropped. LaPonte attributed the reduction to better listening and communication habits developed through training - associates learned to take customer concerns seriously, stay on the customer's side, and find a resolution rather than refuse one.
The performance gap between top and bottom stores became a clearer diagnostic tool: where staff embraced the training, results followed. Where they did not, results were flat. That visibility alone gave managers a sharper lens for coaching conversations.
LaPonte's summary: "I think we also improved overall customer service and reduced customer complaints by learning to listen and communicate better."
