Sales Training for the Employees | David H Nolan

Sales Training

Does Sales Training Work?

Sales training is the process of upskilling a salesperson to the point where they become more valuable to their employer because they become more capable of selling leads generated by the marketing efforts of the company.

When a competent salesperson is given a lead to sell to, the company is reliant for its future success on that salesperson being able to close the sale. To convert the enquiry into a profitable sale and to create a new customer, or to reinforce the brand to an existing customer by selling to them on more than one occasion. This activity is the lifeblood of every organisation that employs salespeople. Without suitably qualified and trained salespeople companies will struggle to generate profits.

How Sales Training Helps a Salesperson

There are different types of sales skills that a highly skilled salesperson will employ to achieve the sales success they are seeking. Some of them include prospecting, cold calling, warm calling, presenting, answering objections, listening, closing, doing follow up, administration, market awareness, product awareness, and teamwork. However, with all of these skills and others that may apply to different salespeople in different environments there is one set of skills that are more difficult to teach and subsequently learn, that are not commonplace among most sales training organisations. Those skills are to do with mindset and motivation.

It is not difficult to find sales training organisations that can teach your salespeople how to use the telephone better, or how to prospect, how to do effective presentations or even how to close a sale and answer objections. These are standard fare in sales training. In fact, any salesperson who has not been taught these basic skills is more than likely going to struggle to succeed in sales. It is the not so common skills that I specialise in. The skills that lift average performing salespeople into valuable salespeople. I teach salespeople how to become valuable.

Becoming valuable means becoming more accomplished at selling than an average salesperson. Many people can learn and apply basic selling skills that are taught by a vast array of sales training organisations. It is the advanced skills that I teach that make a salesperson more valuable to their employer, to their customers and to themselves. Why is this important? Because highly skilled salespeople generate more profits for their employers than lesser skilled salespeople. A highly skilled salesperson, by default, will reduce the average cost of lead generation to profit ratio, they will increase market share which has a negative effect on competitors, and it will provide the company with an increase in its market value. The higher the level of profit a company earns the more valuable it is in the market.

The salesperson is helped in the training process by discovering their true potential. Potential that many salespeople have but never realise. This uncovering of true potential will benefit the salesperson in many ways. They will earn more money. Have more recognition within their industry as sales leaders, they will have more job security, they will become more secure in their own self belief system and they will be better placed to support other salespeople in their organisation. This becomes a win-win for all concerned.

Who Needs Sales Training?

Almost every salesperson will at some time or another benefit from additional sales training. Be it a refresher course on prospecting or closing right through to new skills and processes that develop over time as industries modify their behaviour. Computer skills, online presentation skills, using interactive media, these are all skills that modern salespeople need to keep up to date with. The skills I specialise in are a little more unique. These are the skills that take a salesperson from one level of performance to a higher level of performance irrespective of their basic sales skills abilities.

Imagine you have a salesperson, and they are not performing as well as you believe they should be. You have firsthand experience of their ability and their level of performance but for some unknown reason they are just not getting to the level you believe they can perform at. You may be considering additional sales training for them, but you are not sure that their basic sales skills are lacking. So, you come to the conclusion it must be they lack motivation.

Motivation is the sales managers best friend and worst enemy at the same time. You motivate the salesperson with some form of inducement or reward. Do “x” job and receive “y” reward. Alternatively, you propose some form of punishment. Fail to do “x” job and suffer “y” consequence. Either way, you either succeed in getting the salesperson to perform to the level you desire, or you fail However, there is one constant that I know for sure will occur eventually in most situations. The moment you remove the motivation the performance drops off again. So, you go looking for the next new motivator. Is it to be a reward or a punishment? This is called the carrot or the stick method of motivating. A horse will walk towards a carrot and pull a cart along with it. Alternatively, the horse will pull the cart to get away from being hit with the stick. Stop hitting with a stick or dangling a carrot and the horse will probably just stand still.

Long term motivation is difficult to maintain and can be very challenging for sales managers to administer. With my training this become obsolete. I teach sales skills that engender self-motivation by the salespeople. I like to call this “inspiration” not motivation. Why? Because the desire to succeed, to be a better salesperson, to get better sales results comes from within the salesperson and requires no sticks or carrots. It is evergreen and once ignited can be very difficult to stop. A truly inspired, appropriately trained salesperson will perform at their best day after day after day. This is what I teach, and this is the missing ingredient in most sales teams. High achievers are more often than not self-motivated, whilst low achievers are not.

Is Sales Training Effective

Given what I have spoken about above it is clear to see that sales training is only as effective as the basic skill set each salesperson has coupled with the ability of that salesperson to inspire themselves to higher levels of achievement. Teaching unmotivated people skill is usually a waste of time and money, especially salespeople. When people are not motivated to learn and or apply their learning the training becomes redundant. For sales training to be effective it must be delivered to the right salespeople at the right time.

The right time to deliver additional sales training is when salespeople demonstrate they are reaching a peak in their performance standards. Peak performance usually occurs when a salesperson is at the limit of their abilities and the introduction of new skills or processes may benefit them. Trying to introduce advanced skills too early to a salesperson can be overwhelming and even have negative effects. However, the training that I do can be delivered to salespeople at all levels of experience and skill.

The effect of my sales training can be measured over time against a set of benchmark performance standards determined prior to training commencing. This means it is possible to monitor the improvement in sales performance for those being trained. This makes it possible for entire sales teams to be improved on an individual level. This is opposed to group sales training where sales teams are taught generic skills that may or may not have value to each individual attendee. Groups sales training can therefore have different levels of effectiveness dependant on the attendees.

Here is a short list of things to measure effectiveness of sales training:
The salesperson.

increases sales conversion rates.
conducts more sales presentations.
appears busier.
meets and or surpasses budgets.
inspires others to raise their level of performance.
is not looking for individual motivation.
is more punctual.
is more reliable.
learns more product knowledge.
demonstrates increased product knowledge.
raises corporate value.

Sales training is effective when employed correctly for the right people and delivered by the right people.

How Much Does Sales Training Cost?

This is one of those questions that cannot be easily answered. The reason for it being difficult to answer is that different organisations place different values on different things. If you are looking to measure the cost of sales training on a dollar, for dollar basis with income then it is relatively easy to measure. Likewise if you want to measure the cost of investment in sales training against increase in profitability, that is also not so difficult. However, there are many hidden values of having highly skilled salespeople that are a lot more difficult to measure, in fact, some are almost impossible to truly measure.

If your salesperson improves their sales performance, there will always be a negative effect for your competitors. This is because the buyer that is in the market prior to a sale being made may choose between your offering and that of one of your competitors. If they choose you, then your competitor has lost that sales opportunity and what ever marketing costs they expended to generate that lead were lost to them. You, on the other hand should have received a positive return on your marketing investment in that instance. You should have also generated some profit whereas your competitor ha slots profit due to the expenses incurred in lead generation. If this occurred over enough time your competitor will be forced out of business.

Another way in which having a more successful sale team benefits the organisation is in the area of corporate value. If your organisation is valued using a multiplier effect as a ratio over profitability, then if you raise your profitability you by default raise your corporate value. Imagine if your corporate profit was $300,000.00 for last year and your business is valued on a multiplier of 3 times profit. Your business would have a market value of $900,000.00. However, if your profit increase to $350,000.00 for this year due to the increased performance of your sales team then using the same multiplier of 3 times profit your business market value would be $1,050,000.00. This is an increase of $150,000.00. How much is the sales training worth if it can deliver this kind of result. That is not to mention the additional $50,000.00 of earnings. That is a net gain of $200,000.00.

As you can see from these two simple examples the question of training cost is more difficult to answer than we might think. There is also another cost to consider. That cost is the cost of not doing sales training. What would it cost you if you do not upskill your salespeople? The answer to this question is very difficult to answer. Suffice to say it is more prudent to upskill your salespeople and control the likely result than to do nothing and be vulnerable to the market, your competitors actions and an overall business environment.

What Should Sales Training Objective Be?

Sales training objectives should be about increasing your overall business value due to increases in market share, improved profitability and long term growth of the business. It may be that prior to engaging in sales training you consider working with a professional business coach to identify some of the more general business principles that surround your organisation. Things such as your USP, your target market, your current sales messages, your systems and procedures for handling sales leads including the use of a CRM etc.

When employed on the back of a sound business foundation advanced sales training the likes of which I am referring to in this post become very powerful tools designed specifically to help increase profits and drive business growth.

One other key objective that is often overlooked is the objective of employee retention. It is an extremely expensive exercise for any organisation of any size to replace salespeople who leave their employment. A basic search on Google will show total costs of replacing salespeople to range between 60% of their employees’ annual wages up to 12%. If you pay a salesperson $120,000.00 per annum, that means that if they leave the true cost of replacing them could range between $96,000.00 and $132,000.00! That is a huge cost for any organisation to bear. Imagine if you had to replace more than one salesperson? Investing in quality sale training is no doubt something every organisation should have a s regular occurrence and when done correctly will enhance profits and reduce staff turnover.

To discover how you can increase your sales team’s performance, make more profit, add to the intrinsic market value of your business and reduce all the distresses and costs associated with sales employee turnover please get in contact with me. I would welcome the opportunity of discussing how my personalised sales training can help you and your sales team reach your new targets. Simply click on the link below to book a time for an obligation free, confidential chat to see just what I we can do together.