Sales Force Management

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10

Sales Training: Objectives, Techniques, and Evaluation

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Military Training and Sales Careers

• What skills
• Can be trained?
• Must be trained?
• Are a pre-hire requirement?
• What previous training has transferability and value?
• Managers must focus on critical success competencies

Source: HR Chally Group (2009).

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• Identify key issues in sales training
• Understand objectives of sales training
• Discuss development of sales training programs
• Understand training of new sales recruits and experienced salespeople
• Define topics covered in a sales training program
• Understand various methods for conducting sales training
• Discuss how to measure costs and benefits of sales training

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Training Magazine’s Top Training Companies

Source: Source: Manage smarter.com July, 2009.

10.1

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Sales Training Issues

• Who should be trained?
• What should be the training primary emphasis?
• How should the training process be structured?
• On-the-job training and experience?
• Formal and more consistent centralized program?
• Web-based?
• Instructor-based?

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Sales Training Objectives

• Increase productivity
• Improve morale
• Lower turnover
• Improve customer relations
• Improve selling skills

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10.1 Challenge of Effective Training: Follow-Up

• Share post-training experiences
• Provide coaching to support the training
• Define management expectations
• Consider changes to compensation system to support training objectives

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Credible Sales Training Development

Subjects itself to

evaluation and

review

Sets specific, realistic,

measureable objectives

Allows for adequate

development and timely,

effective implementation

Modifies to achieve

greater effectiveness

Analyses sales

force needs

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Obstacles to Introducing Training

• Top management not dedicated to sales training
• Lack of buy-in from frontline sales managers and salespeople
• Salespeople’s lack of understanding of what training is supposed to accomplish
• Salespeople’s lack of understanding regarding application of training to everyday tasks

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10.2 Failure – Causes and Cures

• Delivering “fad” vs. “function”
• Off the shelf delivery
• Unreasonable time constraints
• Little reinforcement

Sources: Chuck Mache, “Sales Training that Sticks,” Agency Sales 37, no. 2 (Feb 2007), pp. 58–61. Heather Baldwin, “Rethinking Sales Training,” SellingPower.com, August 2006 online issue. Tony Hughes, “Why Does Sales Training Fail?” Training Magazine, April 2004, p. 27.

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10.2

Analyzing the

training needs

of the sales force

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Shifts in Training New Sales Recruits

• Companies with less than $5 million in annual sales are spending more on sales training per new hire - $5,500 worth of training per salesperson.
• Training in smaller companies has increased from 3.3 months to 4.4 months.
• Smaller companies are placing more emphasis on training than several years ago.
• Companies are spending time and money on training experienced salespeople
• Companies with more than $5 million in annual sales, are spending less money on training

Source: Christen P. Heide, Dartnell’s 30th Sales Force Compensation Survey: (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1999)

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Source: Christen P. Heide, Dartnell’s 30th Sales Force Compensation Survey: (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1999), p. 143.

10.3

Length and cost of

sales training for

new hires

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Shifts in Training Experienced Sales Recruits

• Experienced sales reps are given, on average, 32.5 hours of ongoing training per year at a cost of $4,032 per rep
• Continuing increasing amounts of training reflects a commitment to provide ongoing learning opportunities for senior salespeople
• Companies are spending an increasing amount of time on product training and less on training in selling skills

Source: Christen P. Heide, Dartnell’s 30th Sales Force Compensation Survey: (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1999)

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Source: Christen P. Heide, Dartnell’s 30th Sales Force Compensation Survey: (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1999), p. 145.

10.4

Length, type, and cost of sales training for experienced reps

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Sales Training Topics

• Product or service knowledge
• Market/Industry orientation
• Company orientation
• Selling skills
• Time and territory management
• Legal and ethical issues
• Technology
• Specialized topics

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Product Knowledge Topics

• Critical information for rational decision-making
• Company’s product specifications
• Common product uses/misuses
• Competitive products comparison on
• Price
• Construction
• Performance
• Compatibility
• Technical products require more time on product knowledge training

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Market/Industry Orientation Topics

• Industry fit into overall economy
• Knowledge of industry and economy
• Economic fluctuations that affect buying behavior and require adaptive selling techniques
• Customers' buying policies, patterns and preferences in light of competition
• Customers' customers needs
• Wholesaler and retailer needs

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Company Orientation Topics

• Company polices that affect their selling activities
• Personnel
• Structure
• Benefits
• Handling customer requests for price adjustments, product modifications, faster delivery, different credit terms
• Sales manuals
• Hard copy, online
• Product information
• Company policy information

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Time and Territory Management

• Sales trainees need to learn to manage time and territories
• Time spent training out of the field is costly
• 80/20 rule applies:
• 20% of the customers account for
• 80% of the business and
• Require the same proportion of time and attention

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Legal/Ethical Issues

• Federal law dictates corporate action or avoidance of action in areas of marketing, sales and pricing
• Sales personnel need to understand the federal, state and local laws that constrain their selling activities
• Statements made by salespeople carry both legal and ethical implications
• Lapses in ethical conduct often lead to legal problems

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10.3 Ethics Training Part of
Sales Training

• Insurance industry suffers reputation of unethical behavior
• IMSA certification requires
• Ensuring salespeople pursue ethical practices
• Ethical practices training for all agents and staff
• Administering an exam for all sales professionals

Sources: IMSA, www.imsaethics.org, Fall 2009. Chris Amrhein, “Building Trust Is the Goal of Ethical Behavior,” American Agent & Broker 79, no. 3 (Mar 2007), p. 12. Robert W. Cooper and Garry L. Frank, “The Highly Troubled Ethical Environment of the Life Insurance Industry: Has It Changed Significantly from the Last Decade and If So, Why?” Journal of Business Ethics 58, no. 1–3 (May 2005), p. 149.

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Technology

• Notebook computers
• Presentations
• Connecting to company intranet or extranet
• Delivering documentation quickly and accurately
• Home offices eliminate the need to go to another office
• Salesperson can be almost totally self-sufficient with
• High-speed network connection
• Computer
• Printer
• Cell phone
• Effective computer use affords sales personnel more face-to-face customer contact time
• Effective use requires training

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10.4 Internet Training

• Increased control over content
• Less costly
• Comprises 25-30% of all training today
• Expected to be 50% within 5 years

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Specialized Training Topics

• Specialized, job-tailored training most effective
• Sample topics
• Price negotiations
• Trade show effectiveness
• Reading body language
• Addressing SCA

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10.5

Common instruction

methods

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Source: Christen P. Heide, Dartnell’s 30th Sales Force Compensation Survey: (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1999), p. 141.

10.6

Sales training methods

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10.5 Creative Sales Training

• Effective training can take place beyond the classroom or computer
• Requirements
• Focus on knowledge, selling skills for success
• Understand deliverables
• Examples
• Boot camps
• Product “immersion”
• Cooking classes

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Keys for Effective OJT

• Teaming - bring together people with different skills
• Meetings - set aside times when employees can get together
• Customer interaction - include customer feedback as part of learning process
• Mentoring - provide informal mechanism for new salespeople to learn from more experienced ones
• Peer-to-peer communication - create opportunities for mutual learning among salespeople

Source: The Education Development Center (www.edc.org)

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Classroom Training

• Advantages
• Standard briefings in
• Product knowledge
• Company polices
• Customer and market characteristics
• Selling skills
• Formal training sessions save executive time
• Interaction among salespeople builds camaraderie
• Disadvantages
• Expensive
• Time-consuming
• Too much material = less retention
• Role playing a popular technique

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Electronic Training Methods

• Online training > $18billion industry (2009)
• Makes J-I-T information possible
• IBM plans 35% sales training to be over Internet
• CD-ROM currently #1 delivery method
• 30% of server-based training over intranets
• Effectiveness not well-documented
• Not likely to eliminate one-on-one training

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Measuring the Costs and Benefits

• Sales training consumes substantial time, budget and support resources
• Relationship between sales training and revenue is difficult to measure
• Relationship between sales training and other broad objectives difficult to measure

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10.6 Training Road Blocks

• Training can’t solve the problem
• Busy, jaded salespeople are not open to learning new skills
• Conflicting methods and philosophies are taught at each session
• The training isn’t relevant to the company’s pressing needs
• The training format doesn’t fit the need
• E-learning is overused, or used in wrong situations
• There’s no follow-up after training
• The trainer can’t relate to the sales team

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Sales Training Costs

• Training funds are often allocated with little regard for results
• Results and benefits are difficult to measure
• Difficult to isolate training impact from
• Economic conditions
• Environmental changes
• Seasonal trends
• Competitive activity
• Etc.

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Source: Thomas Atkinson and Theodore L. Higgins, “Evaluation Obstacles and Opportunities,” Forum Issues, February 1988, p. 22.

10.7

Evaluation options matrix

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Measuring Broad Benefits

• Improved morale
• Lower turnover
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Management’s commitment to quality and continuous improvement
• Measuring changes in skills, reactions and learning assists both new and experienced sales personnel

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10.8

Overall ranking of evaluation measures

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McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2011 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Mark W. Johnston | Greg W. Marshall