1. Four Steps to Sales Training Success Get the Most Value from your Training Investment

2. Introduction Sales training rarely works as a 1-day event. All day workshops and annual sales meetings are a thing of the past. The internet gives sales professionals access to free sales training content Taking reps out of the field to sit in an all day workshop that won’t promote change simply does not make sense Sales professionals need training Delivery methods need to catch up with the needs of businesses The key is to get the most out of the training you can afford

3. Step 1: Base Training Base training usually comes in the form of a workshop, webinar, and/or e-learning course. Sessions MUST be short. All day events are easy to schedule, but rarely do people stay engaged and attentive. Base training must be electric, captivating, and most of all a base foundation for more to come.

4. Step 1: Base Training Traditional training should only be used for the purpose of foundational training. Adults learn and retain more information in short sessions versus all day events. Adults learn faster when material directly pertains to them.

5. Step 2: Practice If sales people do NOT practice they will not improve. The best form of practice is the dreaded role-play. Reps tell me all the time “I hate to role-play”. That’s like an actor who says I hate to rehearse. Facilitating practice or role-play sessions is critical for people to develop positive and consistent selling habits.

6. Step 2: Practice Here are some brief examples of how you can make your practice sessions interesting and fun: Break into groups of three and have two members at a time roll- play a specific sales activity. The third person serves as a monitor who provides verbal feedback as to how each participant did. Create a score sheet depicting very simple selling techniques such as the number of open-ended questions, number of closed ended questions, or the number of benefits driven. Have reps break into groups of three and have each person document the results of role-play sessions for the other two people. The score sheet is then given back to each rep to make them aware of the habits they need to improve.

7. Step 3: Coaching The greatest opportunity for any sales organizations is to have managers coach. Most managers do NOT know how to coach. They meet with their reps and call it coaching, Telling a rep how to do something is NOT coaching. Coaching is about the rep coming to grips with what they need to do to have better performance and encouraging them to develop a willingness to take action. We can yell, inspire, and even beg reps to get better, but in the end it’s always a decision they need to make.

8. Step 3: Coaching One major coaching technique any organization can use is group coaching. Group coaching facilitates coaching in a large group format with all your sales team members. Here’s a brief list of examples of how to use group coaching: Present a specific case study that one of your reps is encountering and breakreps into groups of two or three to suggest specific solutions Disseminate an article for everyone to read and have each person be prepared to be called upon at the next staff meeting to review the article. The key to any coaching activity is to facilitate and ultimately prompt salespeople to take some form of action that facilitates learning and/or practice. It is essential management facilitates a lot and talks very little.

9. Step 4: Feed the Mind The key to feeding the salesperson’s mind is to facilitate learning using simple things like books and articles. A critical component of doing this is to build in accountability. For example, distribute an article and have each salesperson e-mail you two things they learned and how they will apply it to their everyday habits. There are many resources for finding suitable content for your sales team. Salesresources.comis an excellent website with many leading authors that provide sales articles on a variety of topics. Industry-leading magazines like Selling Power and Sales and Marketing Management also provide multiple types of content for you to use to feed the mind of your sales team.

10. Summary DO NOT simply deliver all-day workshops as your sole source of training. If executed properly training is designed to do two things. build performance, skill sets, and behavioral attributes needed to be a successful staff member, and build bottom-line results. Most training options only offer the first step in the successful training process. It is important that you do research before committing to a program. When you begin your next sales training initiative remember the four-step process to training success: base training, practice, coaching, and feeding the mind. To Read the full whitepaper from Sales Progress visit: http://www.salesprogress.com/four-steps-to-sales-training-sucess/

11. For More Free Sales Training Tips and Research visit our blog at: http://www.salesprogress.com/coaching-leadership/ Sales Progress views training as a process not an event. Our programs extend far beyond the one-day workshop or webinar, to create sustainable change in a sales professional’s habits. Our innovative programs put into place everything you need to get the most out of your training investment. For more information on what Sales Progress has to offer please visit our website, http://www.salesprogress.com, Or give us a call at 866-933-1077.