Sales Training HQ

Sales Training – A Short Course, Part II

“I learn by going where I have to go.” – Roethke

Sales managers and experienced producers often have training responsibilities that require them to manage this process, helping people do their best by:

• Assessing individual training needs.
• Setting training goals and making plans to meet them.
• Selecting and organizing training methods and resources.
• Prescribing field activities, coaching, critiquing, reinforcing and follow-up.

Training is not one-sided, however. A trainer’s or sales manager’s responsibility may be to make training available, but it is the sales person’s responsibility to make the most of it. The ultimate responsibility for learning is the learners, so the manager/trainer’s role will be more of a "coach" than a "doer”.

A good trainer is a leader and coach. Michael Beck of Leadership Coaching, Inc. (leaders-coach.com) maintains that all leadership is by example. “The people who follow usually duplicate half of the good things their leader/coach does and twice the poor things, say Beck. “To be dynamic, a leader must practice self-discipline, be a perpetual student, become efficient, prioritize tasks well, determine materiality, and practice delayed gratification.”

In other words, coaches usually do not get out on the field and play the game, but they must know how to help their players become winners. Sales trainers must be convincing in demonstrating successful sales techniques. This makes them responsible for being the "player-coach," that is, someone who can play a good game, not just talk about it.

Trainers Can Kill With Kindness

Watching sales being initiated, developed and closed by a player-coach helps pre-contract candidates and new producers learn how to apply the knowledge and skills they’ve learned. But the player-coach role can quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, especially for sales managers or trainers who have a stake in the outcome.

People may learn best by doing. But once producers have the knowledge and skills they need, every time you close business for them, the less they learn and the closer they get to leaning on you. Worse, every time you don’t make a sale, you lose credibility.

Many salespeople have left the business because their sales managers didn’t know when to stop making sales for them. That instinct is even stronger with pre-contract candidates, since sales managers and trainers have a stake in candidates satisfying their pre-contract requirements.

Resist the temptation.

To be an effective career test, pre-contract training must allow candidates to make it or break it on their own. Unless on joint calls with candidates to demonstrate a sales talk or give technical backup, let them take sales presentations as far as they can before stepping in.

Not to put too fine a point on it, good sales managers understand that their relationships with producers should one of coach or counselor, not true friendship. The treatment of pre-contract candidates and new producers should always be cordial and considerate. However, evaluating a person’s ability to perform to a minimum standard is part of the job, and friends should no more judge each other than they should try to change each other.

Good trainers, moreover, should have a "coaching" attitude in all their dealings with trainees; and good coaches should be caring, non-threatening, and build confidence, trust, and respect.

About the Author - Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training for the financial services industry for over 30 years...but as Will Rogers put it: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Through interactive, Web-based "Do-While-Learning" programs, e-Newsletters and straight-talking articles, Bill helps agents and advisors get the job done: profitably improving performance, helping grow your business, skipping expensive mistakes, making the journey to success faster, smoother, easier. And fun!

Sales Training – A Short Course, Part I

In many organizations, sales managers and experienced producers have training responsibilities for which they are ill-prepared and, in some cases, barely qualified. If that’s you, the following may just be a lifesaver.

"Training must not be controlled, but instead be completely free play...in a simulated environment in which [agents] can discover for themselves that [selling] is not a series of canned problems with a limited range of responses, but a human encounter where the unexpected always happens and flexibility is the key." — Col. David H. Hackworth, U. S. Army (Ret.)

“KASH”

The objective of sales training is to help salespeople develop the Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills and Habits—KASH-- they need to meet their production goals.

To put it simply — Knowledge is what they need to know; Attitudes are their outlook about the career and themselves; Skills are what they need to do, and Habits are the behavior patterns they must develop to meet their performance standards.

As the philosopher Roethke, observed, "I learn by going where I have to go." So sales training must be a practical, hands-on learning experience, not an academic exercise. Salespeople, especially new producers and those in pre-contract training, must learn by doing; and they should be taught by demonstration, not just out of a book.

That’s why the best sales trainers and sales managers are former producers who can show how it's done; who know what they're looking at when they observe trainees in action; who have solid opinions, and who can give meaningful feedback.

Sales training requires considerable versatility. You have to be an effective teacher, mentor and coach, ace communicator, public speaker, AV specialist, computer guru. But, that's not all. In many organizations, trainers are expected to bring a lot more to the table...

• Trainers are in a position to support the company’s HR objectives. They do this by assessing and addressing individual career development needs, as well as by administering Company training programs. The point is: make training count; never train just to have something to do.

• Trainers can also produce measurable results. Sales training attempts to bring out the best in people. It should deal in reality and include ways to monitor activity and assess performance based on measurable outcomes, while accounting for individual variables.

But training, cannot make sales happen. While training can contribute to sales results, it cannot determine sales results. The only result for which training can be absolutely accountable is the delivery of training that meets pre-established organizational goals.

One of the exciting things about sales training, however, is that if effective, the rewards are immediate. The company, the producers and the clients are all winners, right away!

The Training Process

The most effective training programs are:

1. Goal-oriented. People are expected to move toward measurable performance standards, along a predetermined path of well-defined goals.
2. Activity-based. The end-result will be the ability to apply knowledge and demonstrate proficiency with career skills.
3. Self-directed. The trainer makes training resources, guidance and coaching available, but it is up to the trainee to make the most of them.
4. Individualized. Training can be geared as much as possible to the interests, needs, experiences, strengths and duties of the trainee, and conducted in a positive learning environment.

Next: Sales Training – A Short Course, Part II

About the Author - Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training for the financial services industry for over 30 years...but as Will Rogers put it: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Through interactive, Web-based "Do-While-Learning" programs, e-Newsletters and straight-talking articles, Bill helps agents and advisors get the job done: profitably improving performance, helping grow your business, skipping expensive mistakes, making the journey to success faster, smoother, easier. And fun!

The Need For Sales Training

Sometimes we forget the basics, what are we really trying to achieve by training the sales force? What are the issues we are trying to address, and how do we see sales training bridging the gap between where we are now and where we want to be?

We believe there are probably four main stakeholders involved in sales training:

For the company executves - listed below are some of the common issues we hear from executives regarding the issues they see with managing the sales team

* Business predictability - how can we improve the accuracy of forecasts for orders, revenue and margin.

* Higher level customer engagement - why can't we get higher to the customer's executives, and focus on value not price.

* Consistent performance - how do we reduce the variance at both team and individual level.

* Product and services mix - how can we get the sales team to sell the optimum product and services mix.

* Raising the amount of customer selling time by reducing the time taken on administration and emails.

* Consistent customer experience - how do we get this across the team.

* Winning of new customers and getting existing customers to take a wider range of products and services.

For the customer - have you ever put yourself in your customers' shoes? What attributes would you like to see in people you do business with? Again, the ideas below is based on our experience, and they happen to form a memorable acronym IKEA

* Integrity - does this sales person display the level of honesty and reliability that gives me confidence to buy from them.

* Knowledge - do they possess the knowledge expected of them in the following areas:

o Their company - history, philosophy, culture, strategy, processes, people.

o The market - general market and business drivers, my company's specific vertical market issues.

o Their products/services - high level benefits linked to my own company's business drivers and issues.

o The competitive landscape.

o My company - see empathy.

o Technology - not at a detailed technical level, but a broad understanding of technologies from a business perspective.

* Empathy - "before I care how much you know, I want to know how much you care." Does this sales person see me as unique, and have they taken the time to do the research

* Authority - when things go wrong with the project, since they normally do, will this person have the authority within their company to get the problems sorted out quickly.

For the sales people - having looked at the company's and customer's perspective on sales training, what about the sales people themselves? Try answering these questions

* Who decides what training the sales person needs?
* Is the training part of a long term, structured individual development plan?
* Has the need for the training been explained together with the expected outcomes?
* Are similar courses repeated year after year that everyone attends?
* What are the expected outcomes and changes in behaviour? * Who measures the success of the program?

Key reasons for training from a sales person's perspective should be:

* Professional improvement, looking as sales as a worthwhile career.
* The training will help meet my objectives/targets and hence earn me money.
* All training looks good on a CV.
* Its interesting to have time to reflect and gain a different perspective.

Too often sales training seems to be undertaken with little communication with the sales force to explain why they are there, what the benefit of being there will be and what is expected to change after the training.

For the sales managers - most sales managers have between 6 and 12 sales people working for them. How do they know what they are saying to customers, and how they are positioning the company? They cannot be at every face to face call or on the phone at each customer contact. We recommend the introduction of a structured sales process that is repeatable, and can be analysed and individual performance measured at each step.

By being able to use the same structure for each sales person, the sales manager will be able to identify areas that individuals need help in, and coach them accordingly. Conversely, if everyone is using there own system, it is very difficult to analyse where a person is in the sale, and what measures they need to take to get back on course.

You can find out more about sales training at sales-training-consultants.co.uk

About the Author - John Fowler is a sales and management trainer designing and delivering workshops across the world specifically for the IT industry. John can be contacted on his website at Sales Training Consultants.