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Companies spend billions of dollars every year on sales training and, frankly, a lot of that money is wasted. Here are some quick pointers to make certain that you're spending your sales training dollars wisely.
Entrepreneurs often wrongly assume that they can increase sales by getting the assistance of a top training firm. However, every training firm has its own strengths and weaknesses, and their area of expertise may not match what's needed.
There's nothing wrong with getting people pumped up and motivated, but a speech (no matter how inspirational) can't fix problems like an inability to close, or weak presentation skills.
Most sales failures take place because of a lack of ability or practice in very fundamental skills –questioning, presenting and closing.
Set a goal to spend at least one-third of every team meeting on sales training. You'll increase everyone's numbers more by improving skills than with product training alone.
If you understand how those skills help move an opportunity through the sales cycle, you can identify exactly where additional training is needed–either on a group or on an individual level.
While it's fun to bat around sales theory, it's only useful if tied to actual behavior. That means practicing, in a controlled way, so that the skills are really learned.
Sometimes sales training involves eliminating bad habits and integrating new ones. That means you need to make sure that the training sticks and continues to be used.
Sales training should ideally involve a contest, a competition, and/or prizes. People who sell pros are naturally motivated to win, so turning sales training into an opportunity to win makes full participation far more likely.
This article is based upon a conversation with Dave Stein, CEO of the ES Research Group.
Learn more sales training tips in the free Salesforce ebook below.
