Continuous sales training is an important issue that gets overlooked. If you were to line up 100 CEOs in a room and ask them, “how important is continuous sales training?” you would likely get 100 hands in the air. However, if you asked how many of them put aside a budget for training, you’d maybe get two hands up. This is the unfortunate case in many different companies. There is a discrepancy between the view that sales training is essential, and the actual amount of training provided. Bob Urichuck discusses the need for continuous sales training with John Golden.
This expert sales interview on sales training discusses:
- The standard hiring and training norms
- Quick fix solutions that don’t work
- How to take ownership of sales training
Fallible Hiring and Training Norms:
Often, an organization thinks that hiring someone who has sales experience is the answer to having a team of qualified, well-rounded salespeople. However, this viewpoint does nothing but perpetuate an untrained staff. Most people with experience come on board with a good knowledge of the basics, but they aren’t up to date on new techniques or staying current with best practices. They don’t have the proper foundation: training. Even when a company acknowledges that training is essential, the job often falls to the sales manager. Sales managers are typically promoted from being a salesperson. The caveat is that most good salespeople are unconsciously good at what they do, and have no idea what makes them good. This makes it difficult to teach.
The Quick Fix:
Companies will bring in a sales trainer as a retroactive response to try and fix a dire situation. Trainers come in when the company is in trouble, and stay for one to three days. However, this does very little. Most of the information provided in that one to three days is gone within a month. And, without continuous development, the lack of training continues until the next crisis presents itself. This retroactive means of training, only when there’s a crisis, ultimately costs companies money in lost profits, as opposed to fronting the money proactively for continuous sales training.
Take Ownership of Sales Training:
So what do you do with this? There are poor hiring and training norms, and the only solutions implemented are those that are reactive quick fixes that don’t solve the problem. “When you engage with an organization, you have to sell them on the idea of how important sales training is, and how it has to be a long-term investment as opposed to just a short hit,” said Urichuck. To take ownership of this process, ensure that you have someone in-house that does training or coaching, and that sales managers are involved in maintaining and reinforcing what was taught by the training team.
About Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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