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If you’ve ever wondered why your sales teams struggle to consistently achieve sales targets despite investment in sales training, development and management, you’re not alone.
Despite their best efforts most organisations are failing to achieve their full potential because:
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most sales training has at best a short-term effect on performance because of a failure to consistently implement, apply and reinforce what is learnt
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sales managers (often top sales achievers themselves) lack a proven methodology to be truly effective at getting top performance from their sales team
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salespeople often find it difficult to maintain the correct balance between prospecting, presenting, negotiating, closing and client nurturing which can lead to sales ‘feast and famine’ and lost opportunities
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sales leaders and managers find it hard to run sales meetings and training sessions that are relevant, motivational, and impactful for both highly experienced and inexperienced salespeople.
So what's the best way to develop sales skills?
In a recent article, Peter Gilbert, Managing Director of HR Chally*, states; "The very best sales training is largely based on realistic simulations that mimic the situations and environment that salespeople
encounter on a daily basis." He continues, " Learning activities must leverage the types of experiences that get salespeople interested and engaged. They present challenging, competitive situations that dare the salespeople to fight for a win."
In studying the specific types of learning that produce the best results for sales people Gilbert advocates that sales training should critically be;
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Face-to-face and team-based: The programs must respond to salespeople's needs for face-to-face interaction.
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Relevant: Learning activities reproduce real-world situations in which salespeople must repeatedly persuade customers as they move through their multi-stage, multi-party decision-making process.
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Fun: The learning event should be entertaining, enjoyable, and amusing.
He concludes; "Salespeople learn best from fast-paced, customised simulations. Simulations are representations of real-life situations. Simulations permit people to confront the same sorts of challenges and
opportunities as in real life, yet in a safe environment where they can experiment and learn."
Views direct from the front line - sales training at Shell
Reflecting on the broad area of sales training, Elza Muller - Learning and Development Manager at Shell - says; "I have almost come to a conclusion that we waste our money and time training, no matter how good the program/consultant,
and for the following reasons:
No one learns who has not chosen to Time is such an issue in business today Learning is becoming far more job technically specific Difficulty in shifting line managers from the old style management to also include the leadership coaching role Little difference in behaviour viewed post programs Cost of training in a continent like Africa re. geographic spread-travel and accommodation is an added 40% onto training investment. Consultants however, are not able to deal with business issues in training, this often hampers the effectiveness of the individual/group learning."
On embedding new knowledge and skills, Peter Gilbert states; "Team discussions and full group debriefs allow participants to absorb, contextualise, and expand their knowledge and skills, making them their
own. Most importantly, simulations that are fun engage people, and engaged people learn faster."
A new approach to sales training and skills development
So how do sales leaders address these critical issues of skill and knowledge if 'traditional' sales training approaches simply can't offer the level of flexibility and interaction needed to embed learning?
The answer lies in designing and providing a new generation of development toolkits which sales managers can use with their teams. These toolkits can give the manager total flexibility to address the specific development needs of his
or her team based on the situation at the time. In addition, they should provide the opportunity for a high degree of team interaction as well as best practice learning materials which can be delivered in a fun, energetic and bite sized fashion.
A complete Sales Team Development toolkit
The Sales Activator® has been specifically designed to address the critical shortcomings of 'traditional' sales training. It is a totally self contained system which gives the sales manager the tools, framework and learning content to
take charge of their sales team's development on an ongoing basis.
Commenting on Shell's experience of using The Sales Activator® to overcome the weaknesses of sales training, Elza Muller continues; "Your product addresses most of these:
People learn without realising and get the added benefit of learning from additional input from delegates who have years of experience It can be done as and when there is a team meeting No extra resource is required The coaching role can be shared across teams, within teams spreading the skill of coaching The business manager is present dealing with the system and context issues around training The product holds the opportunity of being converted into any technical business area e.g.. finance, logistics etc. Same structure and game, different content AND IT IS FUN!
Congratulations! A great product from an obviously enormously creative mind - not to mention the triangular dice."
The Sales Activator® offers a real treasure trove of resources and a wealth of learning and development opportunities for sales people. This toolkit includes well over 70 hours of flexible sales development sessions you can implement to improve the performance of
your sales team.
Click for more information on The Sales Activator®
Sales Performance Research
*Source: BizCommunity.com 29 Jan 2006
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