The National Bed Federation (NBF) is perfectly placed to provide specific, relevant training and education to its members and to the wider bed industry.
Going back to basics, the NBF has just launched a further, standalone course to its successful online Sleep Council Sales Academy (SCSA) programme, with its new, pioneering Introduction to Beds course providing the ultimate backgrounder for anyone and everyone joining the industry.
Officially launched at the annual Bed Show in Telford at the end of September, we developed Introduction to Beds for anyone fresh on the bed scene, either in retail or manufacturing, working in sales, buying, customer services or production – in fact, any role within an organisation involved in the bed industry.
Regardless of your role within a company, gaining knowledge about your market and the products will help you in your day-to-day dealings with your colleagues, customers or suppliers. It will give you the confidence to engage more effectively and productively, and can improve career prospects.
Some businesses in the bed industry have formal, structured induction programmes for new joins, but unfortunately, many don’t. We firmly believe that this new course should be an integral part of all business’ training for those new starters. It really is a great, fast-track way to get up to speed, potentially saving the business money along the way.
“Regardless of your role within a company, gaining knowledge about your market and the products will help you in your day-to-day dealings with your colleagues, customers or suppliers”
To demonstrate our commitment to raising standards in our industry, the course is completely free of charge to everyone until the end of the year, and will remain free to all NBF members beyond that date. From 1st January 2017, non-NBF members will pay just £25 – a small investment in employees’ professional development.
The course sits alongside the existing Sleep Council Sales Academy (SCSA) programme which was introduced by the NBF in 2014 as a way of promoting excellence and raising standards within our industry. The SCSA provides a benefit mainly to retailers in terms of improving selling skills, conversion rates and average sale values.
It focuses on providing sleep knowledge rather than product knowledge, and shows staff at all levels how to use that knowledge effectively with customers to build trust. Consisting of four, 30-minute online modules, the SCSA Sleep Sales Course has now been taken up by almost 1500 users.
At the NBF, we’re looking forward to ending 2016 on a high – this year we’ve enjoyed the most successful Bed Show and awards gala dinner to date, recognising the best in the bed business. We have also seen membership reach 100, welcoming newest members Dreams’ manufacturing division and more recently, Dreamworks Beds, to the NBF.
More specifically, we’ve successfully raised the profile of the importance of quality training and knowledge sharing throughout the whole bed industry through innovative online training – which continues to promote excellence and raise standards within our industry.
Simon Williams, marketing manager at the National Bed Federation (NBF) has more than 32 years’ experience in the bed industry, working with Dunlopillo, Slumberland and Bensons for Beds. For more information and to register, visit www.intro2beds.com.
