Sales Force

Training
Manageme
nt
A White Paper
 Sales Force Training Management
Why Sales Force Training?

Nothing ever remains static in the business world. The rapid technological
progress, cut throat competition and the sweeping forces of globalization are
changing the way we sell in some very fundamental ways. Training your sales
force to keep up with these changes and still be effective is no easy task.

Organizations have to make sure that their investments in sales force training
programs are producing the envisioned results. This white paper provides few
insights into sales force training management.

Make Your Sales Training Programs Learner-Centered

Training programs that follow instructor-led or instructor-centered models are

mostly ineffective. Adults have a deeper psychological need to be self-directed
than adolescents and expect others to view them that way. They also assume
more of the responsibility of their learning. Their learning is more problem-
centered than subject-centered.

External motivators like high grades and teacher approval matter less to them
than internal motivators such as high self-esteem and desire to develop their
skills. A training program that gives more control to the learners and that which
closely corresponds to the real-world applications has greater chances of
achieving its intended results when it comes to sales force training.

Align the Sales Training Programs with the Organization’s Sales Process

An effective sales training program should address the skill development needs
of the sales people. Examine your sales process deeply. Make sure that it
corresponds to the buying process of the targeted customers.

Identify the gaps in the skills of the sales people in their ability to perform to
the required level in following the company’s standardized sales and marketing
processes. See where your salespeople’s skills fall short to that of the
competition and develop training programs to address those gaps.

Listening skills to identify the sales opportunities and understand customers,

presentation skills to take a more consultative approach, questioning skills to
probe for more information, prospecting and qualifying skills to identify
convertible leads, objection handling skills, time management and territory
 management skills to improve productivity and closing techniques to seal the
deals are some of the most important skills a salesperson needs.

Depending on what you sell and your business, you can also impart more
specialized sales training programs that concentrate heavily on consultative
selling, partnering, customer relationship management, partnering, account
management, telesales, solution selling, and value added selling, etc.

Address Leadership Development Goals through Sales Training Programs

Design sales training programs based on the concepts of situational leadership.

Such programs should outline the objectives of the training program in a
clearly intelligible way, provide a well-structured learning experience, and
model the application of the learning content to the real world scenarios.

The program should also test for its understanding, facilitate the application of
concepts, and have the learners demonstrate and integrate the learned concepts
in the overall sales process.

Involve Your Salespeople

Involve sales people in identifying the sales training needs. The ones who go
into the field know what most bothers them. Identify the gaps in sales
opportunity identification, opportunity qualification, sales objection handling,
prospect handling, and have your trainer concentrate on them. Know what they
need. Don’t just guess.

A Sales Training Program Should Impart all the Required Knowledge

Make sure that your sales training programs impart adequate product
knowledge, customer knowledge, competition knowledge and internal
knowledge. At the end of the training, the learner should have a clear
understanding of all the features and benefits of the products and services being
offered by the company. He or she should be able to explain the offering to the
prospective customer in a way that relates to the prospect’s needs and wants.

Your sales people should understand different stages of the buying process and
use their skills to present the products and services in the best possible light.
Training programs must also teach sales people how to identify sales
opportunities and explain how their products and services can help the
customers.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors’ products is

just as important as understanding your own product line. Since customers are
 more likely to compare one product against the other, sales people might face
questions about how their product fares when compared to other products and
they need to be able to answer such questions.

Internal knowledge about sales channel and sales process management is also
very important. Never let the customer lose his or her way through the
corporate inter-departmental maze. Every sales person should have a clear
understanding of his or her role and those of others across the entire spectrum
of sales process.

Choose the Training Form that Best Fits Your Organization’s Needs

Organizations have a range of options in choosing the forms of training – from

more formal classroom training to coaching and on-the-job training. Choose
the one that best fits your requirements. While classroom training presents a
structured environment where a large group of people can be trained at once,
mentoring and on-the-job training provide a more direct and personalized
learning experience.

When the training applies the program content to the real world sales
environment, it enhances the credibility of the sales training programs and also
increases the value of the program to the learners.

Know How to Choose the Right Sales Training Company/Coach

Choosing the right sales training company is very important. Opting for a
wrong program or wrong trainer can result in loss of valuable money, time and
other resources. Check the credentials of the person or the company providing
training. Always insist on providing clientele list and talk to the references
provided to see if the trainer’s programs actually produced any tangible
increase in productivity.

Take a look at trainer’s instruction materials and see if they are of any use to
your business activities. Try to get customized training programs that best suit
your requirements than generic training programs. Assess the trainer’s ability
to understand your business activities, needs, and problems and modify his
training programs to match them. Make him focus on the skills you need most
according the needs of your sales cycle.

Continually Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Sales Training Programs

Always evaluate the effectiveness of your sales training programs to see if they
are really worth it. There are four ways to evaluate a sales training program.
1. Evaluating the Reaction: Ask the participants if they liked the training? Did the
program address their needs? Do they feel empowered after the program? Did
the program provide solutions to their problems? Does the program correspond
to the real life situations they face in the field? Use various feedback forms and
surveys to know their opinion in detail. Motivation of the participants is very
crucial to the success of any sales training program.

2. Evaluating the Learning: What new knowledge was acquired? What new skills
were imparted into the sales people? How were the unproductive behavioral
patterns changed for better? Tests, case studies, pre-test and post-test exercises
are some of the frequently used methods to evaluate learning outcomes.

3. Evaluating the Post-Training Behavior: Using surveys and other feedback from
the sales people and their managers from the field after the training program is
finished is a better way to see if the training programs really changed the
behavior of the sales people for better? Though it takes more data and time to
collect the necessary information, this approach to evaluate the effectiveness of
training programs is more useful to the company in the long run.

4. Evaluating the Results: The final and the most important tool to evaluate the
training effectiveness is to see if there is any tangible increase in the
productivity output. Metrics like increase in sales, increased levels of profit,
shorter sales cycles, and lower operating costs give an idea of effectiveness of
the sales training program. Sometimes it may be difficult to link the specific
business results with the training programs, but it is worthwhile to gather the
data.

Finally aligning the learning objectives of the sales training programs with sales
performance, compensation and other incentives produces more tangible results
than programs that focus solely on learning. Such an approach increases the
seriousness with which salespeople go through sale straining programs and brings
the best out of the investments on sales training.