Nursery Sales Assistant VHT103

Become a fantastic nursery sales assistant! This course was developed in response to a request from a retail nurseryman who was finding it difficult to find staff with appropriate skills. As he put it, job applicants were either over qualified or lacked the basic skills needed: to be able to identify plants, advise customers on their use and to understand some basic sales techniques and procedures. There are five lessons in this course, as follows:

1. Introduction to Plant Identification: Understanding plant classification and pronunciation of plant names.
2. Basic Sales Skills: Determining different types of customers; developing the communication skills to sell, including how to open and close a sale.
3. Caring for Plants: Planting techniques, understanding soils, plant nutrition and pest management.
4. Selecting the Right Plant for the Right Place: How to create different moods using plants.
5. Advising Customers in a Nursery: Developing good communication skills, knowing your product, plant placement.

Learning Outcomes At the completion of this course you should be able to:

• Identify a range of different plants, based on their flower and leaf structures.
• Describe the importance of effective communication and sales techniques in the retail nursery industry.
• Demonstrate knowledge of how to care for plants, both in the garden and in the nursery.
• Demonstrate knowledge of appropriate plant selection for a range of different sites.
• Identify a range of plant health problems and describe appropriate chemical and non-chemical control methods to control those problems.
• Demonstrate knowledge and use of nursery products.
• Describe the importance of plant placement in the retail nursery.

This course was developed in 1999 in response to a request from a retail nurseryman who was finding it difficult to find staff with appropriate skills. As he put it, job applicants were either over qualified or lacked the basic skills needed: to be able to identify plants, advise customers on their use and to understand some basic sales techniques and procedures. This course covers these basic fundamentals.