Sales training and development is big business and can create actionable change in a company’s sales force. There are, however, a lot of programs and gimmicks that might sound good when presented by the professional hoping to contract to do the training, but that have little measurable impact down the line when the contractor is long gone. The goal of any sales manager when contracting with or building a sales training and development program should be to have accountability for results built in.
The best way to do that is to use a consultant as an adviser rather than the primary sales trainer. Why? Because this creates, from the start, a hierarchy that makes your staff the primary sales training force rather than the consultant who may or may not be around for the long haul. Make yourself or your training staff as conversant as possible in the techniques to be taught and how to teach them.
To create accountability, make sure that metrics are in place for real, useful measurement of the techniques to be learned. If one approach works better than another, according to your consultant, create ways to test and measure that so it can be proven. Short-term results are a good beginning, but some techniques that are good for fast results aren’t so good for the longer term. Be sure to track changes and affects over time. As a sales manager or team lead, you should be doing this regardless if you want to see continued improvement with your team’s performance.
Be sure to have ways of measuring and matching key characteristics of each trainee and salesperson. For example, if someone is a receptionist but has potential and, more importantly, aspirations towards moving into the sales team, make sure they are involved in the training that could help make that happen. On the other hand, if the person is a receptionist and has no interest in doing more than that, do not push and instead train only as much as needed to improve performance in that role.
The best training is either on-the-job or as close to it as possible. Of course, using untested and unproven techniques on real-world clients may not be the best idea, but if those you’ve worked with closely can both benefit from and aid your training, be open to the idea of involving those clients in the training process. This can build real-world scenarios for the trainees to use and help solidify an already strong client sales relationship. It also creates ways to demonstrate the actual effectiveness of a technique as well as highlighting ways it can be tailored to fit your specific needs.
To this end, feedback should be immediate and constructive. Nothing is perfect, so feedback should never be “that was perfect!” There are always ways to improve, but an overall positive tone should underlie all feedback. Use this feedback to continue tailoring and perfect to fit both the clientele and the salesperson’s personality and strengths.
When all of this is put together, it becomes “coaching through confidence” as your team learns to work individually and together to become more effective. If your measurements continue throughout the training and well beyond, accountability for the added techniques and changes is built-in.