Sales Training

Your Blueprint to evaluate your sales training needs and options

First replace any haziness with clarity

Is there a need for any strategic brainstorming on:

• Your company brand - its identity, core values and positioning
• Where you want the company to be, by when and a plan on how to get there

Either satisfy yourself your company is based on rock solid brand foundations that your staff and customers can buy into.

Otherwise resolve to address the issue: If you don't, you'll find that any sales training you invest in will have only limited success.

Then, what must the sales training achieve, is it more...

• Lead generation
• Effective cold calling
• Customer retention and growth
  • Repeat business
  • Cross selling
  • Up selling
• Exploration and evaluation of new or previously failed markets
• Appointment setting
• Profitable sales/ better negotiation skills

Medium to long term strategy: Use whatever system or process to score and then prioritise your training needs in principle. You can come to specifics (the actual figures you need to achieve a little later).

Imminent damage limitation or to offset a sudden major deficit in sales revenue: You'll want to get to those specifics immediately.

Then look at the person or people to be trained - and at the same time consider:

• Their individual backgrounds
• Their individual experience
• The role(s) they were taken on to perform
• The job description(s) that underpin the role(s)

New business, number-cruncher/ pavement-pounder? Farmer and nurturer? Or both?

If the person is not ideally eqipped for the job it's down to the employer/ manager to explore what training can fix that and achieve the necessary results.

This is the area of approach and attitude as well as knowledge and aptitude that you need to get buy-in to attain.

Next you need a method of delivery that will best:

• Fit in around the existing demands of the business
• Establish brand identity awareness, and/ or
• Achieve long term behaviour change
• Embed the necessary sales communication skills and techniques

Before we get sidetracked onto budgets let's just reflect on how much just one non- or under-performing sales person is costing you.

Add up all outgoings on this individual so far + lost opportunities - revenue generated to date then ask yourself how you can not afford to provide effective training.

Let's look at the options:

1. Customised group sessions: At your place or a venue of your choice - with planned intervals for testing, application and feedback in between learning sessions - good for
   • Strategic brainstorming
   • Traditional classroom style sales training
2. Distance learning: Course modules with individual coaching/ mentoring/ tutoring - good for supplementary to or instead of traditional classroom style sales training:
   • Supplementary training of several individuals at varying skills levels and with different coaching/ mentoring/ tutoring needs
   • Alternative training method for lone sales individuals or those in different roles, therefore different needs

Hypothetical example of a Senior New Business Manager and a brand new Telephone Sales Executive. Neither is is reaching anywhere near optimum performance.

Could you impart the essential sales techniques and skills and instill behaviour patterns and processes to permanently turn that around with a 2- or 3-day in-house course or separate open courses for each of them? We very much doubt it - that's putting a band aid on a gaping wound!

But a mixture of classroom and distance learning with tailored coaching and mentoring (or distance learning with tailored coaching and mentoring alone) has been proven to produce both speedy and long term desired results.

Processes, routines, reporting systems that underpin continued success

This is the accountability bit. Processes, systems, routines and reporting should all support the sales effort not dictate it or, heaven forbid, inadvertently stifle it!

Optimum amount, depth and regularity of reporting sales activities and results will vary from company to company and, in all probability, individuals (and their roles) with the company.

Yet where they exist they must be followed and somebody in authority must be seen to be responsible for ensuring that happens.

This overt accountability must be established and/ or reinforced both as part of the training and continued thereafter.

Continue to monitor progress and review results

And provide training for any new and/ or additional staff promoted to sales roles as the need arises.

Now you have your Blueprint to evaluate your sales training needs and options.

Talk to us for sales training that does work!

Prices for our standard distance learning courses with tailored mentoring/ coaching are published on this site. Prices for brainstorming/ classroom and blended face to face and distance learning training are available on application.