That suggestion is heavy, but true. I recall selling at various Fortune 100 companies where training departments spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars for sales training and speakers – usually at annual kickoff. With a frenzy matched only by the Crimson Tide fan base, sales managers and AEs alike eagerly listened to tips, took notes on technique, filled out account templates and formulated exciting sales activity goals. No sooner did everyone get back to the office, however, and the all that great learning quickly began to disappear like the optimism of us Notre Dame Fans during the first quarter of Monday night’s BCS game. Okay, maybe one or 2 lessons stuck, but for the most part it was business as usual for most of the sales team – the manuals, books and templates stuffed in a credenza only to see daylight during an office move.
Don’t waste your precious training resources. Ongoing training is key is cultivating skill and best practices for both new and seasoned sales professionals. Whether on line or in-person, classes and seminars are the “seeing” and “hearing” components of learning. Even so, management can’t expect the information to stick long term without the “doing” component. And that’s where post-training coaching comes in to play.
One-on-one or group coaching set up at regular intervals to facilitate your team’s ongoing assimilation of the materials is critical. Making sure sales actually implements what has been learned by setting training-related targets and checking against actual outcomes ensures what has been learned is not lost amid a sea of good intentions and budget dollars spent. Coaching keeps your sales team accountable for training goals and their achievement by helping reps overcome internal and external obstacles. “Doing” is the link that will guarantee success and that training money is well invested – leading to increased sales and revenue.
SEEING + LISTENING + DOING = RESULTS
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