Training Can Contribute to Your Future Success

Each day brings even more news of political, social and international industry changes that have an effect on all of our lives. The major challenge facing those in a sales management position is coping with change. Sales training is widely acknowledged as the best weapon in your personal management armoury helping you take advantage of the opportunities that such changes bring.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “May you live in exciting times”. Moving, varying times are also times of opportunity.

Improving the performance of personnel is all about training. Utilising the human resources that you control. Failing to appreciate the full potential of your people is not only demoralising for them but can be commercial suicide in competitive markets.

We are always hearing about problems that most companies have recruiting experienced staff. Training helps you to grow your own experienced staff. In fact recruiting experienced people but not continuing their training in times of change means that their skills quickly become out dated.

Any corporation in business in 2010, which does not have management and staff training as part of its strategy for success, is in real danger of being pushed aside for a more perceptive competition as the economic climate stabilises and returns to growth.

So what is training? Changing people’s behavioural patterns is one definition of training. In other words, adopting new and better habits. That sounds a bit like “trying to teach old dogs new tricks” which we know all about. Nevertheless, the skill in training is to get people to adopt the best working practices from the outset and to encourage experienced people to adapt their, often deep-seated, working practices so as to obtain better results.

Analysing the results of training is particularly difficult because many other factors can influence the performance of human beings. One of the best pieces of quantified research was carried out a few years ago by PA Consulting Group.

Their findings indicated, when compared between well-trained sales people and sales people in the same industry who were not trained at all, the minimum difference in turnover. On average the results showed differences in turnover of more than 30%. There is no reason to believe that these findings would not be confirmed in today’s markets.

The most important validation for training turns on five basic parameters:
1.Maximise the company’s strengths in the market place.
2. Provide a base on which a planned development programme can be built, to gain maximum employment of personnel.
3.Create an empowered, motivated workforce, enabling the company to choose its market direction consequently capitalising on market opportunities.
4.Assist in identifying character strengths and weaknesses.
5.Provide an opportunity for exchanging views and ideas.

As a group the well-trained team is more likely to encompass, the right positive mental attitude towards the customer, their company, their job and most important of all, themselves.

By its very nature training, helps to identify the road on which people should travel if they are to be effective. Well-trained group form a kindred spirit or group identity and it is this teamwork approach which increases resilience and assists in times of rapid change.

This is a predominantly important factor in producing a business image and improving communication. All teams are a collection of distinctive people, often working in spread out locations. To produce a unified company outlook there is no more effective way than by delivering regular sales training.

But what about the cost? Training may seem expensive. Employing people is very expensive and training is simply part of that cost. For some managers the cost of taking people off the job is a major expense and can often act as a deterrent. Judging this against the cost of not training their people - which is likely to be far greater? Once a company’s reputation has been damaged or their market share lost, the cost of winning either back may be too great and the business then becomes vulnerable to takeover or even failure.

However, because management do not wish to spend “too long” on training some so-called training courses are little more than fast-paced lectures. Such training will be of limited effectiveness at best, and in many cases the intended effect is missed completely.

Undoubtedly quality training, and by that I mean training which delivers skill development and back ground knowledge through well thought out interactivity is a very cost effective investment. The courses maybe longer but the costs of effective training are small when compared with increase in revenue. Nevertheless, even the best training courses cannot be considered as a cure-all. Training is not like an injection - “one jab and you’re fixed”. To be effective, training must be given as a continuous process, not a one off event. This is why long-term individual growth plans and corporation wide training plans are important.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “May you live in exciting times”. But moving and varying times are also times of opportunity. A key component of sales success in challenging times has shown to be sales training.

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