All companies are equally interested in developing sales, and all companies do it differently. Sales development requires qualified, well-motivated, product, and sales, training employees. What are the main problems? There are always employees who are not satisfied with the company, and they leave it. There are employees who do not suit the company and it breaks up with them. After that, it becomes necessary to train new employees. In solving this problem, the companies were divided into two camps.
What are the best criteria for selecting sales staff?
Some argue that they need employees with experience in a particular industry. Their experience in product sales must be at least a certain number of years. They must have knowledge of all the key players in the market. Why? Because their market is so specific that only those who have been touched by the divine hand of experience in this market are able to sell. The applicant must have a specialized education corresponding to the direction of sales, and so on. Others do it easier, they say that they are ready to teach everything they can and are ready to create opportunities for newcomers to progressively develop in the field of sales. Which of these approaches is better or more correct is up to the management of the company. Practice shows that both approaches take place in the market.
What are the main challenges in training salespeople?
Everyone agrees that the sales force is the only business that generates profit and directly affects its size. When the sales budget, as the main part of a company’s marketing plan, is effective, then everything is fine. If the sales budget is not met, in terms of implementation, or there are cash gaps from not received receivables, this strains everyone. The reasons for this are often insufficient qualifications of employees. Therefore, it is important to create a training system for company personnel and provide them with a salesforce certification course at the end. This is important for all departments, and especially for the sales department.
What are the challenges that all new hires face?
As a rule, there is no training system. The employee is placed in a new environment where there is no corporate knowledge base. He just joined the company and has a high motivation for development and training. He needs help to adapt, for this, he needs to be given the most truthful information about internal regulations and sales rules. How are things going with different companies? In different ways, everything is different, therefore, the quality of adaptation of new employees is different. When a company only accepts applicants with extensive experience and product knowledge, training is still required. Most likely, the internal regulations and sales technology will differ from the one that was adopted by the company from which he came. If the applicant did not work in this area at all,
What should be included in a training course for a sales employee?
In order to sell your product to target consumers, you need to, as they say, first buy it yourself. To do this, you need to know the product, its strengths, weaknesses. It is important to understand what benefits the consumer receives by solving their problems. You need to know the structure and rules of your company related to sales. Without knowledge of sales techniques and the competitive environment, it will be difficult to work at the stage of objections. All this should be trained by the sales staff. To create a system, it is necessary to develop a training program for both new and existing employees. What are the objectives of the training system, as the basis for sales development? The tasks are obvious and doable:
- Achieving the highest efficiency of the work of employees
- Minimization of training time with a guarantee of optimal quality
- Reducing the number of mistakes, because any mistake in sales is a monetary loss
- Formation of a mechanism for correct perception of the company’s corporate rules
- Increasing employee motivation through satisfaction with work results
- Building a stable sales team with low employee turnover
- Creation of a mechanism for the development of a personnel reserve
How to implement the creation of a training system?
To do this, create a training plan, prepare a methodology and materials. Assign a person in charge, in a small company it is a sales director or a sales manager. A training manager is a good solution, but not everyone can afford it. If human resources are scarce, appoint a mentor for each new employee. At the same time, in order to preserve the quality of training, add an additional material incentive for the mentor to the salary system. Define the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of training, how could it be without it A single source of knowledge, such as the Corporate Sales Book, is well suited for training. It includes four main blocks:
- Information about the company, its history, and its structure
- Determination of target customer groups, characteristics of the market, and competitors
- Information about the product and the rules for its sale
- Description of the rules and regulations adopted by the company
The content of the Sales Book may be supplemented by other sections; in some companies, audio and video materials, books and diagrams, presentations and catalogs are attached to it. All this is permissible and possible if it allows you to effectively train employees.
What do you mean by “effective employee training”?
Proposing the following interpretation of this definition: the company’s training system should provide:
- The autonomy of learning, when you can apply it, regardless of external factors
- The high degree of control over the process and learning outcomes
- The ability to quickly make changes to the process and training materials, to correct errors or introduce innovative ideas
- The possibility of replicating the training system
- Relatively low cost of creating and using a training system
- Ease of use.
