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ating with procurement professionals, repositioning how they are perceived, or providing a fundamental block- and-tackle sales program. If sales managers are not sure what the priorities are, they can use a com- bination of methods to help make the determination: • Review the business objectives to ensure the training that is in place – or that is being chosen or developed fully – supports the current business objectives.


• Look at results to identify where performance is off. “Hey, you bought an expensive CRM sys- tem…so go ahead and use it!”


• Observe salespeople in action. There’s nothing like seeing for yourself how the team is performing.


• Get feedback from clients. You may get an earful, but what you learn will be enormously useful.


• Ask and listen to salespeople. They’re the ones who really know what’s working and what’s not.


• Find and use a behavioral skill di- agnostic tool to create awareness of strengths and weaknesses.


SECRET #3: CHOOSE “NARROW AND HOLISTIC” OVER “BROAD AND SHALLOW.”


Once you’ve prioritized your training needs, focus on one area (for example, negotiations, opportunity management, or new business development) and proactively manage the coaching, reinforcement, and application of that area, rather than just rolling out a series of programs and training events. If you pick an area that will have the most positive impact on your customer relationship process, you should design a strategic implementation to include up-front planning, strategic execution, and ongoing evaluation across the holistic sales organization. Whichever area of sales training


you are currently focusing on, be sure to include a multitude of delivery mechanisms that allow you to


blend high- and low-cost efforts to address the various elements of the implementation. Because different people learn differently, give your sales professionals choices about how to learn: Web meetings, newsletters, books, e-learning, classrooms, podcasts, blogs, portals, and so forth. While this sounds a bit daunting, you can lessen the complexity of multiple delivery methods by matching the delivery method to the phase of the implementation. For example, use self-directed tools, such as e-learning, for building commitment prior to classroom training. Similarly, use just-in-time knowledge (as on a portal) for the reinforcement of key skills. If you want maximum results, find ways to engage all levels of the sales organization in ways that take into account their environment and the role they play in the sales process.


SECRET #4: GET AN INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT OF YOUR TEAM’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. If it’s true that people can be sepa- rated into pessimists and optimists, it’s also true the vast majority of sales professionals are optimists. When something good happens, they take credit for it; when something bad happens – well, that’s just bad luck. While this optimism is essential to


remain happy in a sales job, it doesn’t give sales professionals the kind of critical analysis tools that would allow them to look objectively at what they, and their team, are doing well or poorly. What’s needed isn’t the “we’ll pull through somehow” attitude that keeps sales team afloat, but an objective view of what’s really working and what’s not. The only way to get that is to look outside the organization. This typi- cally means hiring a professional sales process analyst who will query your customers about how they view your sales efforts. They will come up with a map of what’s needed to address that market more effectively. This is one case where “do-it-yourself” simply isn’t going to hack it.


SECRET #5: HIRE A TRAINING FIRM THAT CAN MEET YOUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES. Skills training must be customized to incorporate the entire profile of what your firm needs to accomplish: strat- egy, markets, solutions, challenges and opportunities, and tools. The training must be highly cus- tomized to your business and your audience so every minute of training reflects what salespeople need to be doing with your firms’ clients. As a general rule, sales training should bring the strategy, sales process, skills, knowledge, and tools together. Ideally, sales training should be interactive, with coaching and feedback and a “learn by doing” methodology. Sales training should also have a


solid reinforcement plan (with tools to do the reinforcing), manageable pre- course work (so the training classroom time can be used for application and feedback), and alternate training methodologies, including e-learning. Finally, the training firm itself should have a proven track record of achiev- ing ROI for its clients, as well as suf- ficient personnel to meet your time frame and rollout needs.


SECRET #6: POSITION ALL TRAINING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LARGER SALES PROCESS. While you may choose to prioritize what training you provide and when you provide it, it’s important to make certain all training fits into an overriding system that makes sense for the sales process. For example, if all salespeople are trained in a systematic way to identify ideal-fit clients and to not waste time with prospects that have a very low likeli- hood of closure, a new skill set will dramatically improve the results of the entire process. Similarly, if all salespeople have a clear roadmap for determining and executing a strategy to win a big piece of business, it will create some dramatic results. Finally, if all salespeople in a company manage their large accounts via a consistent


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