Sales Training Needs to be More Prescriptive

"A Darwinian-Style recalibration (of skills) is underway where the perception of an individual’s value is more important than the product they sell or the company they represent.”

If you are thinking seriously about delivering sales training to your team in 2010, you should invest the time to understand the differences between traditional sales process curriculums, and something that will give your salespeople an immediate boost over the competition as well as a differentiable advantage moving forward.

The biggest problem with training today is that it doesn’t reflect reality. In other words, ‘just because a salesperson wants to ask a bunch of questions, doesn’t necessarily mean customers will openly share with someone they don’t yet know or trust.’ Similarly, just because you have a good story to tell about your product or service won’t guarantee you an audience with decision makers in key target accounts.

Yes, selling has gotten more difficult over the last several months, but there’s hope. The truth is, asking questions isn’t the most important skill. The real skill is the salesperson’s ability to cause prospect and customers to “want to” engage in a productive conversation about their needs and your value. Let me say it this way: If someone doesn’t "want to" share with you, then it doesn’t matter what questions you ask, and the conversation is over.

As for the training itself, a sales development program must be prescriptive, by definition, if you want it to meet the specific needs of your sales team. For example:

• What range of experience exists within your current sales staff?
• Do you leverage an inside sales team in addition to traditional field reps?
• Are your people paid on commission, bonus, or production incentives?
• Is the effectiveness of your recent marketing initiatives trending upward or downward?
• How much time do sellers spend farming existing accounts versus hunting for new business?
• How many salespeople in your organization? Does that include pre-sales & subject matter experts?
• Has the typical sales cycle elongated or shortened over the last few quarters?
• How reliant is your value message on words like “truly,” “really”, or “better?”
• Are internal champions able to convey the full value of your offering when you’re not present?

Though there are lots of ‘refresher’ courses to choose from, teaching people how to sell is no longer the goal. The objective of a customized sales training course is very specifically to teach sellers how to “outsell” the competition, and how to do so in a environment where competitors are aggressively ratcheting up their sales and marketing efforts to offset the effects of the economic slowdown’s impact on their business.

Put it this way, if you went to a doctor who started prescribing medication without first understanding the specific context of the problem, you would be well advised to run as fast as you can the other way. The same goes for generic training courses!

If you haven’t already experienced the benefits of QBS, then I would like to personally invite you to participate in a QBS positioning assessment as a starting point. Having trained thousands of salespeople at hundreds of client accounts, give us a call…”The Doctor is In.”