Training the Sales Force – avoiding pitfalls

Every year, companies invest millions of pounds in the sales training and development of their sales force, and with good reason. 74 - 84% of company revenue came from the activities of the sales force.
 

The total number of sales people employed in the UK is in the region of 350,000.  Any resource that produces around three quarters of the revenue, and with the related costs, should be cared for and nurtured.

A good starting point when considering sales training should to be the people who are involved. Training which is suitable for a 22 year old graduate should be different from that provided for a 55 year old with years of experience.

In the instance of the former, training should be focused towards the mechanics of the selling process. Traditionally, this has been based on the AIDA approach:  Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. However, there is a shortfall in this model, in that it is assumed the sales person has already found someone to be able to sell to, and has also set up a meeting with them so that a quality meeting could be conducted.

Prospecting can be daunting to everyone. If you are considering a sales training course that looks at the total process, from start to finish, it is advisable to make sure that it covers the areas of prospecting and making appointments, if it applies to your business. It is these two skill areas which prove to be the end for more sales careers than any others, assuming that there is no lack of purposeful effort on the individual’s part.

Training an experienced sales force requires special care and attention. Most may have gone through the early learning stages, and will have now reverted to the state often referred to as unconscious incompetence, they are incompetent, but are not aware of it. Someone who is at this stage of does not respond well to going over the basic principles, they need something more sophisticated to capture their imagination. Personality styles, Transactional Analysis, and even business finance are more likely to produce an improvement in their performance. 

One thing should be stressed however, that if the trainer adopts too strident an approach, the experienced sales person might react against it. Flexibility is key: if a delegate insists that they have tried the approach being advocated, and it did not work, the trainer should point out that there is always someone with a different experience. Even the most hard hearted cynic can be won over with some patience and persistence.

There are two types of training techniques, which are particularly suitable when training sales people. Firstly, role-play is an excellent opportunity to practice and develop skills, and to do so in an environment where mistakes do not cost in terms of lost business. 

Many sales people recoil at the mention of role-play, some people say it is not realistic, people are merely play acting and they have a point. This can occur if the activity is not introduced properly.  Delegates should be told to stay in character, to be natural, and to regard the whole thing as practice. Perhaps the word practice is a better word to use than role-play.

An excellent variation is silent role-play. This is especially useful when concentrating on questioning techniques. Instead of speaking, participants write down a question on a flipchart. The customer does the same with their response, therefore forcing the sales person to think about the nature and construction of each question in reaction to the answer given. This activity is best used with experienced sales people, as those with little experience may be fazed by the public nature of the event.

Secondly, case studies are extremely beneficial, especially when a company wants to focus on a specific issue such as a change in pricing.  Delegates are provided with information pertinent to the topic, together with some instructions that constitute a learning activity.  Frequently used in combination with role-play, it provides various answers and results if syndicated among a number of groups. This in itself can be useful to a company, as it generates new ideas, which may challenge the way things are currently done. 

Perhaps more so than in any other form of management training, credibility of the trainer is crucial in sales training. The nature of selling can produce a certain macho dynamic among sales people.  They feel that they have gone out there on their own, taken the world on, and succeeded.   Any trainer that stands in front of a group of sales people must, therefore, have been through the same experience, as much for their own benefit as the delegates.  Being faced with a question such as, what do you say when a customer says that they are happy with their current supplier? This demands a speed of thought and commercial acumen that can only really be gained from having done the job.  If the trainer can not answer such a question, then their credibility is immediately called into question.

Measuring sales training transfer to the workplace is not an easy task. There are many variables that enter into the situation. The most important of these is the willingness of the delegates to change the way they do things as a result of the course. The saying goes that if you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.   Participants can leave a sales training event highly motivated, and determined to apply their new acquired knowledge and skills, however this is soon forgotten when they hit the first problem of the week. This is where the role of the Sales Manager is of paramount importance. If the new found skills are not managed into place, there is a strong possibility that they will get lost in the chaos of the workload. A programme of regular field visits should be planned, where progress can be observed and the application of techniques monitored.

Training sales people is essential if a company wants to stay ahead of the competition.  Products and services are similar if not identical, real growth is slow, and customer loyalty is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

More than ever, the ability to persuade a customer to go with a particular proposal is vital. That is the role of the sales force today - to create orders and profit. The real payback from effective sales training can be quick, and manifest itself in many ways.  Ignore it at your peril!

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