Sales Training-Ugh!

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sun, Jun 06, 2010

I happenned to be with Mike McEachern, the CFO of Brainshark, one of our favorite customers, the other day, and we got around to talking about plans for the weekend.  Among the countless normal “HoneyDo” tasks that all of us are faced with every weekend, Mike was making sure that he squeezed in sufficient time to put 50 miles on his road bike.  Mike has been a serious biker for a number of years now ever since he started participating in the Pan Mass Challenge, one of the biggest charity rides in the country.  In the winter, when the snow and nasty cold don’t favor his training requirements, he hits the ice every week with a local hockey team.  When I asked Mike why all the physical conditioning, the answer was simply, “Just to stay in shape.”

Yesterday, as part of my regimen for my first summer living on the beach, I went for a long early morning walk and watched runners, kayakers, surfers, speed walkers and a group of yoga enthusiasts all using pieces of the beach while taking part in their individual personal improvement training programs.   It didn’t appear to me that there were any Olympians training out there yesterday, but every day, I notice hundreds of active beachers pushing themselves through their own personal training programs.  Some like Mike may be preparing for an event, but, in the majority of cases, and I know in my daily trek to the gym at 5:00 AM, it’s merely part of what makes me tick and keeps me on edge for what are typically “engaging” days, to say the least, with my customers.

So, if so many of us take part in physical conditioning-to some extent-why is that we don’t demand that same discipline in training our salespeople on a consistent basis throughout the year?   If I follow the concept of physical training to “just stay in shape”, which is what most of us are doing when we head off to the gym or the beach or the road, then why not apply this to an annual Get-In-Shape program for the most important athletes in any company-our salespeople?  

The classic reasons why most sales managers do not do this are:  (1) Most managers don’t think of it and assume that their salespeople (I hear this all the time) “are professionals and know what to do”.  (2) The word “training” conjures up mind-numbing programs with bad textual content and droning instructors, so we drive the idea to the furthest reaches of our priority lists, and (3), they just don’t know where to turn for instruction given the variety of needs among their salespeople.

First, even the best A-level salespeople need consistent training.  If they’re truly an “A”, then your job as manager is to figure out how to make them an “AA” producer.   The truth is that most salespeople will average out as “B” level players, which is fine, as long as their managers are developing year-long improvement programs for them.

Second, I have never found any sales organization that didn’t benefit from repeated training programs on the classic subjects such as ”Objection Handling”, “Selling to the Corner Office”, “Negotiation Principles” and “Closing Techniques”.   If you just ran formal programs, with testing and role playing, in one of these subjects each quarter, you would definitely be pushing most of your team to shed some of the pounds that they’ve put on over the years.  There are countless subjects for improvement, and in some of these such as “Selling Higher”, you could easily develop a fun, highly engaging and instructive year-long program on this subject alone.

And third, just to follow up on that last thought, training today, with all of the online Learning Management Systems and specialists combined with mixed media opportunities can easily be made to be a highly interactive process  with lots of opportunities for self-directed follow up.

So, as you’re thinking this week about your upcoming summer plans and just maybe making use of the superb weather to get outside and do a bit of conditioning for yourself, think also about how you could bring your salespeople through the formality of conditioning themselves between now and the end of the year to make sure that you’re fully prepared for the second half ramp up.

I’m off to walk the beach and then test out the new Cannodale later this morning since Mike inspired me to maybe think about the Pan Mass Challenge this year.

Have a great day and…Good Selling!

Jack
Head Coach, Derby Management, LLC
jack@derbymanagement.com
617-504-4222
October’s Sales Management Boot Camp:
http://www.brainshark.com/brainsharkinc/vu?pi=zHOzsw9tsz1Trz0

Tags: sales management, sales management effectiveness, improved sales management, sales management training, sales training