Companies with business development and sales teams must continue to keep their effectiveness high to ensure a competitive advantage in their market segment. But a common struggle for sales leaders and company owners is choosing the best option for increasing the performance of their team.
So what's the best way to to go about investing in training? I have spent the last 10 years helping leaders grow their sales teams effectiveness. The items below are the steps that I take them through when making investment choices.
1. Engage your sales managers.
Frontline sales managers are the highest priority, for they set the tone for the rest of the team. The return on investment is exponential because they represent a small number of people but directly impact the performance of the entire sales team. You must take tangible steps to ensure that they are growing sales and not impeding them. The latter happens far too often.
2. Assess the status quo.
Always consider conducting an assessment before you make an investment in future performance change. You must know where your team is today if you are to quantify where you plan to go. Develop a profile or competency model that is customized to your team and selling process. The results will be essential as a guide for coaching through the process and will help you judge the impact of your future investment.
3. Define your sales process.
Understand what you are asking your sales team to do. Just giving them the marching order of “go sell” is not the full story. Each industry and company has a unique sales process. There may be similarities with other businesses, but no two are indeed the same. Make sure you take steps to evaluate and document yours. I also recommend a regular review to continue to refine the sales process. Involving your front-line sales managers and salespeople will increase their ownership and engagement in it as well.
4. Differentiate skills versus methods.
After engaging your managers, conducting an assessment and refining your sales process, determine how you want to grow your sales team. Do they need new skills? Or do they need better methods? Skills and methodologies are the two significant sales training buckets. They are both critical, and I recommend an integrated approach for both. Many leaders tackle them simultaneously, but that is not required. I've seen a conventional approach work well. Determine what's best for your team given all of the future events on their calendar.
Skills are more tactical and actionable. They include communication, questioning, time management, territory planning and many other aspects of what is required to be a successful salesperson. Methodologies are how your company chooses to execute its sales process. A shared method that everyone in the sales team is asked to follow will optimize the entire team’s performance. These can include your deal management approach, enterprise account strategy or lead-generation steps, to name a few. There are multiple areas to consider, and understanding the critical growth opportunities that are present in your team is essential before you make any investment.
5. Coach and refine.
Finally, ensuring that you have a coaching and engagement strategy is arguably the most crucial step of any proposed investment. All too often, the assumption is that if we just have a one or two-day workshop, our people will pick up new skills and make the needed changes. I assure you that this workshop is not enough, and even if you saved some money only paying for the seminar, you run the risk of wasting more money without investing in coaching and engagement support.
Technology has presented many new options, ranging from web platforms to smartphone apps. But ultimately, someone needs to own the post-workshop engagement. Recruit and equip your front-line sales managers to do the most profitable work they can. Create world-class coaches first, and then empower your salespeople with excellent skills and proven methods. This complete approach will position your salespeople to become better sellers faster than any "silver bullet workshop."
