How to organize sales training

by Bob Schultz

The easiest way to determine if your sales personnel would benefit from an ongoing education program is to give them the following test:
1. List the logical steps in a planned, sequential sales presentation.
2. List 20 specific features and benefits of your selling situation.
3. List the 10 most frequently raised objections, with a logical, usable answer for each.
4. List five qualifying questions you can regularly utilize.
5. List three closing questions you regularly utilize.

If any of the questions cannot be properly answered, a sales education program will improve your closing ratio.

Salespeople should never measure their performance against the performance of someone else. Rather, it should be measured against what they should accomplish based on their ability.

Training programs should take place over a three-month period incorporating weekly meetings designed to achieve pre-determined objectives.

The first step is to establish exactly what a sales team is expected to learn. Many so-called training programs fail because they only deal with specific company agenda items, such as product knowledge and financing. Although these are very important, they are only a small part of what must be mastered.

Some of the areas of concentration of effort should be:
• communication skills: the essence of selling;
• personal motivation: a must for any sales professional;
• knowledge of the competition: salespeople must know the competition as well as they know their own product; and,
• overcoming objections: total awareness of the method of overcoming all objections.

Training sessions should be focused and fun
The ability to make a qualified presentation in five minutes on your company and its product, giving at least six key features is extremely important.

Kickoff a sales program by exposing staff members to the correct concepts and techniques to be mastered. This can be accomplished in several ways. The sales manager or marketing director can create and present a seminar of approximately 12 to 16 hours. Videotapes and books may be acquired to assist in the process. You may also consider a professional sales trainer to present the program. Weekly meetings, conducted by the sales manager, should then be held to reinforce the material presented.

A typical weekly meeting may include: 
• a motivational message from a member of the sales team, perhaps gleaned from a tape or book;
• a key features and benefits presentation: a presentation on overcoming objections, for example;
• a role-playing situation: a presentation on the anatomy of the sale.

Each of these sections should last from five to eight minutes.

This format can be modified to include product knowledge, financing and other items. An agenda for each meeting should be established at least six weeks in advance with each salesperson assigned a presentation responsibility.

Other tips on these meetings are: 
• start them on time;
• keep them focused;
• tape-record them for later review;
• bring in outside professionals as needed;
• keep them fun; and,
• make sure each salesperson participates in the teaching process.

Sales education is vital. As someone once said, "It's what we learn after we know it all that really counts."

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