Sales training is something you should consider investing in
if you are a company owner and have never coached your salespeople before. Even
if you took your time to hire the most qualified sales people with the best
recommendations, you shouldn’t assume that investing in sales training is a
waste of your time and money. The training can help resolve a multitude of
issues that your salespeople may be facing and make them more effective in the
role that they play in your company.
For sales training to be of any benefit to your company,
there are various things you need to do. First and foremost, you need to strive
to earn the trust of the people you want to coach. You should learn how to
remove your managing helmet and put on your coaching hat if you want the sales
training process to flow smoothly. The sales training hat is all about being
non-judgmental and allowing the sales people to be open and expressive in
discussion of behaviors as well as the challenges that they are faced with. If
there is not mutual trust between you and the people you want to coach, the
coaching process can seem daunting.
Another thing you will need to do for sales training
to be successful is ask effective questions. Most people do not like being told
what to do, and your sales people are no different. What you need to do in
order to achieve success in your sales coaching program is agree on the “what”
and use effective questions on the “how” of the sales training process. You
should allow your sales people to own their solutions because that will lead to
better execution as well as better people development. You should use effective
questions that stimulate thinking and illuminate solutions.
Self-evaluation can also help a great deal in ensuring that
your sales training sessions are successful. As you do post call debriefs or
skills assessments, you should allow the sales people to guide the process and
self-evaluate. As a sales manager or leader, you may be in the field with the
sales rep a few days every month. You should encourage them to evaluate how
they did on each call even when you are not in the field with them. If you
teach the sales reps to depend on you for everything, they may become very
ineffective in executing their roles.
Most sales managers are usually quick to offer feedback when
training or working with sales
reps. You may think that you are helping by doing so, but things might turn
against you in the long run. You should relax, take a step back and allow your
sales representatives to self-evaluate. If they are able to assess what they
did as well as what they can do in order to improve upon their sales ability,
their self-awareness will increase. And when the sales reps are self-aware,
they will be more confident and deliver in the role that you have assigned to
them wholeheartedly.
For more
tips on effective sales training, visit our website at healthybusinessbuilder.com.au