A classic mistake with sales training is to do it every so often like once a month or quarter. You’re too busy trying to hit your numbers and firefighting that training often gets pushed down the list of priorities until we have an urgent issue. Most sales training, when conducted this way, is often in the format of a whole day or half day of internal training, consultants or an external trainer. Problem is, training will not have an impact in isolation. Done this way it’s such a small part of your team’s work week, month or year.
Think about training like you would exercise
If you don’t work out regularly you get unfit, fat and out of shape. The same goes for sales training. You can’t just go do a 10k run or play a match without doing anything for weeks. Sales training needs to be like a successful exercise routine: have a good frequency, be varied and be the right length based on your goals.
To get fit you create a plan to do it. To train your team for peak performance, you need to do the same. Here are some simple tips you can use to introduce your new approach to sales training.
Create a training plan. Start somewhere and commit to it
You cannot wing it each week or it will not happen. Your plan should include scheduled group training as well as individual self-paced training. Create a plan so everyone knows where they stand for the week and the month. This way your team won’t book calls and other meetings in the slots you create for group training. You need to nail them down to the time and everyone needs to know it’s Monday at 10 am or Friday at 3 pm, that’s when we do this…or both. This may sound simple but just having it added to everyone’s calendars will make a huge difference.
