9 Ways To Make Sales Training More Effective
I'm going to give you guys a HUGE gift - a list of great ideas that you should share with your sales manager. Seriously, email the link to your manager and thank me later. Here goes...
In many cases, sales training is boring, useless or even counter-productive. But it doesn't have to be that way. Here is a set of rules that can make sales training far much more effective.
- RULE #1: Set a goal to be the best trained sales organization in your industry. This will allow you to differentiate yourself from the competition, which can be challenging in a world where customers can easily find similar products and services.
- RULE #2: When times get hard, increase your sales training. When sales are down, it's often a waste of money to spend more on marketing and promotion. The biggest bang for your buck usually comes from improving the ability of your sales team to sell.
- RULE #3: Include skills training in every sales team meeting. Set a goal to spend at least one third of every team meeting on sales training. You're more likely to increase everyone's numbers by improving skills than with more product training.
- RULE #4: Focus the training on fundamental skills. Most sales failures take place because of a lack of ability or practice in very fundamental skills, like questioning or presenting. Even top sports stars train the fundamentals every day. You should, too.
- RULE #5: Tie the fundamentals to your sales process. If you understand how those skills help move an opportunity through the sales cycle, you can identify exactly where additional training is needed, either on a group or on an individual level.
- RULE #6: Include role-playing in every training session. While it's fun to bat around concepts about selling and sales theory, it's only useful if the theory is tied to actual behavior. That means practicing, in a controlled way, so that the skills are really learned.
- RULE #7: Track the impact immediately after training. When you teach a skill, you must first ascertain whether the skill is actually being applied in the field, and what impact it is having. That way you can constantly improve performance.
- RULE #8: At each meeting, check for retention of what was taught before. Sometimes sales training involves eliminating bad habits and integrating new good habits. That requires continuing attention to make sure that the training sticks and continues to be used.
- RULE #9: Make sales training into a fun event. Sales training should ideal involve a contest, a competition, and/or prizes. Sales pros are naturally motivated to win, so turning sales training into an opportunity to win practically guarantees their attention and participation.
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