Sales Training programmes that deliver a tangible impact, can and do transform organisations and like most things in sales doing the right preparation is key to a successful outcome.  For example: it may sound obvious, but it’s important to understand how sales people learn before starting any Sales Training programme, as too many times companies jump into Sales Training without truly identifying and understanding the problems they are trying to solve.  Whilst any two organisation will never be exactly the same, there are certainly common steps in terms of preparation we can put in place to ensure you deliver the Return on Investment and impact you are looking for.

1.  Complete a training needs analysis before any Sales Training programmes and ensure the content matches the skills you are trying to improve.

2. Don’t force sales people into training programmes because unless they want to improve, they won’t improve.

3. Link the Sales Training to their everyday work so they can actually use and embed the skills before they forget them.

Whilst points 1 and 2 above are probably common sense you would be surprised how many companies either don’t complete them or only give them a light touch. 

Point 3 linking the Sales Training programmes to everyday work is more often misunderstood and is often where most training falls down.  In our experience most people who go on any training course, run the risk of falling back into the same negative behaviours that the employer sent them on the course to stop.  The Sales Training programme is only the starting point on a journey of learning, which needs to be reinforced with coaching and mentoring.  Furthermore, the most effective training is linked to specific projects where the skills learned are applied over a minimum 6-8 weeks.  For example: sending sales people on an Account Management course will be much more productive if when the sales people come back they work on a project to set up Account Management plans with their top 3 accounts.  If they already have account plans in place they could have 6-8 weeks to take the top 5 improvements they have learned on the training and implement them into their own account plans. 

In most cases there is no accountability in place to ensure they implement the things they learned on the Sales Training programme.  If you consider most sales professionals receive between 50 and 100 emails every day, if they then take even 1 day out to attend training the likelihood is they will return to a full inbox and spend the next two days working through it, by which point they have forgotten most of the best lessons they learned.

Sales Training Programmes can and do make an impact but only when they are properly planned, prepared and executed.  Feel free to schedule a no-obligation call now to explore how this might work for you https://calendly.com/iainswanston

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