Tools for salespeople – the front-line force
In the ongoing campaign to acquire customers, salespeople represent your
company’s front-line force. So quality sales training works best when it provides
these tools:
- expert customer relations skills
- enhanced communication techniques
- comprehensive product knowledge
- advanced selling skills.
Of course, it’s not easy to custom-tailor every training programme, especially
when the sales staff is large and/or geographically dispersed. But typical
training methods often suffer from inconsistent delivery of information and a
lack of measurement tools to determine their effectiveness. They also suffer
from insufficient preparation and planning.
We plan our holidays and our vacations; do all the homework necessary to
enjoy our break from work. Now look at your sales staff’s plans for next week.
Whom are they calling on? What touch-pieces are going to prospects? How do
they plan to go deeper and wider inside the customer’s company?
Key questions for a sales training programme
Before initiating a sales training programme, the CEO and sales manager should
address certain key questions:
- What is each salesperson’s current level of skill and product knowledge?
- How much support does the team get with updated product information and
positioning statements? Does marketing support sales?
- Are sales goals clearly focused and established? What improvements have
been made, both in the field and in the office, to make salespeople’s work
more efficient?
- How is the industry changing? Do the sales staff have a good working
knowledge of your competitors’ sales strategies and product development?
- Ask the sales staff: Is your company easy or difficult to work with? Is time
consumed with needless paperwork or other activities that rate a poor
second to actual selling?
- What are the sales training programme’s long-range goals (more repeat
business, gaining entry to new territories, etc.)? Make sure goals are
specific, attainable, measurable and meaningful.
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