We live in a busy world and finding time for sales training and, especially, follow-up on that training is not easy. To remain fresh, however, sales managers and dedicated sales persons need to continually be refreshed to stay on top.
Here are a few ways you can work individually or together to keep your sales team fresh and productive. Each of these ideas takes only minutes to implement – some as few as five. They’re worth finding time for.
Test and Re-test Closes
If you’re in a rut with your prospects to closures ratio staying stagnant, then you might need to re-think how you’re making your close. Experiment with different ideas for making the close and try them, when appropriate, and keep track of what seems to be working best. Often, your “old standby” closer is great and just needs a little tweaking in verbage or approach. Other times, you might find that a completely new way of doing things is far better than what you’ve been doing. Tracking what works and what doesn’t (and especially what works EASIER than others) is a great way to improve your technique. Sales teams can share information back and forth to give one another new ideas and mutually work towards finding what’s best.
Pop Quizzes
Remember the “pop quiz” in school, when the teacher would drop a bomb and suddenly surprise everyone with a list of questions based on the material? While in school these were often fear-inducing, on the sales floor, they can be great ways to improve product knowledge and response techniques. Individual sales people or the sales manager (or both) can conduct pop quizzes randomly with others who are not otherwise engaged at the time.
Around the water cooler, over the cubicle wall, or riding in the elevator, these quizzes can work as great refreshers to keep your sales force on its toes. Work up a list of questions and spread it around or hold random drawings and email a question or two to people on your sales team so they can ask them of their colleagues.
Videos
Most sales managers and nearly all sales teams will have various sales technique videos and product information videos they can watch, even if they’ve seen them all before. These can be fast refreshers that take only a few minutes. Utilize them.
Role Playing
This is another great way to hone the close, work the product knowledge, and build confidence. Sales people can work together to role play a sales situation with one acting as the prospect and the other as the salesperson.
Like pop quizzes, these can be done just about anywhere and don’t take much time at all. If your business has a sales floor, these random role play groups can actually build customer interest rates as they see other “customers” asking questions about products that they may be interested in. That’s a technique that retailers have used for years.