Produce lasting results and a top-performing sales team.
Sales training and video games are a lot alike. You start playing a new game, make it about 30 seconds, and then fail. But you keep trying. Slowly, you start making it longer because you figure out how the game works, and you know where you failed last time and don't let it happen again.
Companies go through the same process with sales training. They know they should be getting more out of existing sales resources, so they roll out a training program. It doesn't work. They make adjustments and try again, but they still don't have it figured out. By the time they do, it has taken years of trial and error.
Ultimately, strategy guides help you win. For games, a good strategy guide helps you learn the keys to the game, where the pitfalls are and how to avoid them, and how to find all the extra bonuses along the way.
For sales training, winning happens when you have salespeople performing at their peak. The best salespeople:
- can do what they need to do at a high level of proficiency
- will do what they need to do
- know what to do every day
- get it all done consistently and efficiently.
The following is a strategy guide to implement sales training that gets maximum impact. Specifically, these seven areas are the most commonly overlooked by companies that are learning how to win with sales training:
- Align business and learning needs.
- Train product and sales knowledge to fluency.
- Focus on attributes as well as capabilities.
- Define, support, and drive action.
- Deliver training that engages.
- Reinforce learning and expectations.
- Hold people accountable for execution.
Align business and learning needs
Sales training has virtually no chance of producing lasting results if business leaders base their objectives and expectations of results on wishful thinking versus strong analysis, and fail to analyze the real learning and development needs of their team.
Too often sales training is seen as an event and not an investment of time, energy, and financial resources intended to produce a specific business outcome. Without the proper business expectations, it's impossible to design an initiative that will have a lasting impact. You often get ridiculous expectations of business results attached to a brief training class.
For example, one consulting firm asked RAIN Group to deliver sales training to its 750 consultants in a particular division. When we asked the firm's leaders what expectations they had for the results of the training, they said that an average consultant brings in $2 million, and there's no reason they can't change that average to $3 million. After all, the top 20 percent do better than that.
We knew that to achieve this goal it would take more than a four-hour training session, which was the maximum they could devote to the effort. And they were clear that this was the result they wanted. So, we declined to pursue.
This isn't to say that all sales training needs to be a big corporate initiative. Sometimes you need a skill boosted or calibration to specific behaviors. In these cases, briefer, less involved initiatives are typically the way to go.
The important thing is to align your business expectations and learning needs so you neither get disappointed that you don't achieve your results, nor over-invest in areas that don't need the effort.
To make sure you set the right expectations for your sales training program, ask and answer the following questions.
- What is the business outcome that we believe we can achieve?
- What does our sales team (including sales management) need to do to achieve that outcome?
- What is the gap between where they are now (Point A) and where they need to be (Point B)?
- What kind of initiative will it take to get our team from Point A to Point B, and keep them there?
Train product and sales knowledge to fluency
I earned As in Spanish all through high school and college, and passed numerous tests, but I still couldn't hold a conversation in the language. The problem is that I wasn't fluent. That's the same problem with sales knowledge. Salespeople must be fluent to be able to use knowledge appropriately in their sales conversations.
Most knowledge training trains to accuracy. Salespeople take a test and pass, and then move on to other things. The problem is that accuracy is not enough by a long shot. If salespeople know something but they're too slow or not confident, they don't use the knowledge in conversation.
One company went through four sales training methods over a six-year period because it didn't get the cross-selling results it sought. The company thought the salesforce didn't know how to ask good questions and couldn't "excite executives to pursue new ideas, products, and services."
So the company kept conducting training on how to ask questions and deliver messages of value. It turns out the problem wasn't skill at all; it was knowledge. The salespeople knew how to ask questions, but they didn't know what questions to ask because they didn't know the problems they could solve and the improvements they could make. They didn't know their client's business, product, and services set well enough to position its value.
Salespeople need knowledge fluency in these areas (and more) if they want to put their skills to work. Fluency is defined as accuracy plus speed with appropriate breadth and depth. Train to fluency, and your salesforce will use the knowledge in their interactions with prospects. Anything short of that, and they won't.
Focus on attributes as well as capabilities
It's not enough to give your team the capability to sell. You have to assess for attributes, and work with your salespeople accordingly to develop, strengthen, and change them as needed.
Attributes are not skills. They're characteristics, tendencies, and beliefs. When sales leaders don't assess for attributes, sales training fails because even if sellers have the skills and knowledge they need, they don't put them to use.
When people hear this line of thinking, some argue such points as, "You can't light the fire in someone's belly if it's not there." Agreed—but sometimes the pilot light is on and just needs fuel such as direction, coaching, action plans, confidence, and positive reinforcement.
One technology services company dragged its people kicking and screaming to sales training for years, and never got much for results. The organization never wanted to leave anyone out, though, because it had an inclusive and collaborative culture.
After assessing its team for attributes, the company learned that about 45 percent of the team would never sell, no matter how much training they got. When they talked to these folks and asked them if they'd like to steer clear of selling, they were thrilled.
Then the company focused its efforts on the other 55 percent—and had more resources to devote to this smaller group—and finally saw real results.
Assess and then develop attributes, and you'll unlock skills that are already there. Put knowledge to use, and get the best effort from everyone.
Define, support, and drive action
Many companies focus on sales process and methodology at a high level. Sales processes and methodologies are essentially guides for behavior. They help you know when to do certain things (process) and how to do them well (methodology). But they're often not specific enough to guide daily action.
According to Gallup research, slightly more than half of 12.5 million respondents "strongly agree" with the statement "I know what is expected of me at work." In other words, less than half are not sure what's expected of them at work.
When sales training focuses on helping salespeople build (and write down) goals for themselves, it:
- guides action that is directed toward specific, desired outcomes
- provides a shared framework for evaluation and measurement of success
- maximizes motivation and commitment (driver attributes), increasing the odds that the salesperson takes the actions to which she commits.
After setting goals, develop action plans to achieve those goals. Everyone should have an action plan, but don't build action plans without first focusing on goal setting.
After implementing the RAIN Sales Coaching program, which has goals and action plans at its core, one company reported that several days before group coaching meetings there would be a flurry of sales action. It learned that nobody wanted to show up to the meeting without having completed their actions.
Just this simple construct of setting actions and following up in group settings boosted activity. The activity boosted results, and everybody benefits.
Deliver training that engages
Trainers routinely downplay the impact of immediate post-training reactions by participants. Ever since Donald Kirkpatrick outlined the four levels of training evaluation, everyone's been shooting for Level 3 (behavioral change) or Level 4 (business impact). They say Level 1, reactionary "smile sheets" aren't that important.
Actually, they are. Delivering a poorly designed and poorly received training event has greater effects than just wasted time. Bad training discourages salespeople from participating in future programs, and has a negative effect on sales team morale. Engagement in the concepts or process never happens. No engagement means no learning and, thus, no improved behavior.
Reinforce learning and expectations
Months after a sales training event, salespeople might say:
- "I don't remember what was covered in the sales training program."
- "I don't know enough to use the tools and apply the advice."
- "I didn't get enough practice to feel confident enough to give it a try."
The best companies—the ones that get the best results and sustain them over time—are nearly twice as likely to provide concept and expectation reinforcement to their teams after training.
Despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, sales training is still largely focused around two- or three-day events. The problem with event-only training is that the effects of events fade (see Figure 1 below). As much as participants might have loved the program, without reinforcement, it's the rare salesperson who goes home and curls up by the fire each night to review his sales training binder.
Even when training goes well, without ongoing reinforcement, it fades. Adult learning is an ongoing process. Only through repetition and practice will your salesforce internalize the training and put it to use consistently.
Hold people accountable for execution
Selling is a process. It has inputs and outputs that are readily identifiable and measurable. If you can improve efficiency (getting more things done) and effectiveness (getting things done with greater success), you can improve output. In this case, output is sales performance.
If you don't hold people accountable for execution intensity, consistency, and quality, then as well as you might train them and reinforce learning, you're leaving results to chance. You have to measure and evaluate what people are doing, measure whether it's creating the intended effect, and hold people accountable.
Measure what's happening and what results you're getting, and you'll know where to improve. Hold people accountable for actions and outputs and you will improve. And those who won't or can't get on the bus to success will find something else to do either by themselves or with your encouragement. That will open up the door for someone who can and will succeed.
A skilled salesforce
When everything comes together, and you succeed in each of these seven areas, you'll have salespeople who:
- can do because you helped them to develop the right skills and knowledge with the right size and type of initiative
- will do because you assess and work on their attributes as well as their capabilities
- know what to do because you help them build goal and action plans
- get it done and keep getting better because you hold them accountable and coach them to improve.
And, in sum, you'll have sales training that achieves maximum impact.
Salesperson Knowledge Breadth and Depth
Salespeople need to know more than product and service specifics. Knowledge employed by most successful salespeople includes
- industry dynamics, trends, and players
- company positioning and overall value propositions
- categories of common customer needs by customer persona
- impact of solving various needs, including rational and emotional impact
- products and services, including how they solve needs
- competition and how they compare
- sales process, strategy, teams, and handoffs
- post-sale fulfillment processes
- account development and expansion.
