We’re all more sophisticated in terms of what and how we buy, and that is true of our customers too.  Buyer behaviour has changed radically. We’re now able to research what we’re looking for, before we even think of approaching a sales person to get more information. We all have different considerations when we choose our preferred supplier and price might not be the overriding consideration. There are various value propositions that speak to us and convince us to buy from a specific supplier.

To match the changes in buyer behaviour, it’s imperative that companies train their sales people to a higher standard, ensuring they have professional sales skills, a good attitude and knowledge of their competitive market.

Training a sales team is like training any team and it’s shocking to think that most amateur sports teams are better run than most sales teams. The reason is simple: a sports team expects to be taught how to be the best and they’re willing to learn and practise.   A savvy sales manager knows this and will teach the team how to win, using case studies and showing them how to act in recognisable customer scenarios. In these scenarios, every member of the sales team is shown what to do and how to do it.  Exactly the same formula used by top sports coaches when their team practices their set plays.

If your sales team  doesn’t get to practice, rehearse and train in the safety of the sales meeting, how do you they improve their sales skills and improve their sales knowledge? The answer: in front of live customers, the leads that have cost a fortune to generate in the first place.

Every business needs to have a winning sales team.  It needs salespeople who can handle leads effectively, with commitment and confidence. They need good sales knowledge, skill and consistency and be able to take their buyer on a journey and win the sale.

Businesses must take a firm grip of their sales strategies and start building a proper structure into their sales function. Sales needs to be taken seriously and regarded professionally, with recognised skills and knowledge.

We can’t expect sales people just to get it, we need to show them what best practice looks like, if we want them to improve. Sales knowledge and sales skills don’t just happen, they need to be learnt and practiced, preferably not in front of real customers!

Need help with your sales team?  www.salesenabla.com

It’s not unusual for a sales team to rely on a couple of star performer to achieve its target. The company’s happy, the super sales stars are earning their bonuses and if the underachievers are lacking drive and ambition, well that’s just how it is.  As long as the targets are hit, it ain’t broke so don’t fix it. Training can wait until tomorrow, because today, it’s not a priority.

So now it’s tomorrow and one of your stars is moving on, your market’s being disrupted by a new player and your key product has been edged out by a competitor’s better technology and design.  In any ‘wait until tomorrow’ scenario, any of these factors will put you at risk if you don’t have a consistent sales process. You’ll find it difficult to minimise the damage to your competitive edge and suddenly your targets won’t be so easy to hit.  So, how do you introduce a consistent sales process and get the whole team performing to mitigate these risks?

The simple and obvious answer is training.  The whole team needs to know exactly what’s expected of them and how to deliver it. They must be trained to use a consistent and successful sales method based on your actual sales results.

In any team, whether it’s sales, sporting, creative, research or rescue, the key to success is consistent known behaviour, leading to the achievement of a shared goal. Introducing a defined sales process when your experienced sales people are already getting the results you want can be awkward. It’s tempting and much easier to let them do their own thing, but it’s a short term, high risk strategy.

When you’re identifying your sales process get your sales team involved. Deconstruct how your star performers achieve their results.  Give them to opportunity to show leadership and mentor your under-achievers.  Introducing a sales process they recognise and understand, will demonstrate the value of training for the whole team.

Training is the key to successful team work and even the most seasoned professional needs to hone their individual skills, keep up-to-date with market changes and be free of bad habits to be fully effective.

Regular communication to explain why, as well as what the company goals are, will motivate the team. They will understand the importance of their contribution to the success of the business, if they know why they’re being asked to achieve targets and what those targets mean to the company.

A great team knows the rules, knows what they’re aiming for and trains hard to put in a winning performance.  Preparation, analysis, commitment and a culture of trust and camaraderie all create a positive culture. Working in a supportive environment will contribute to increased performance and the team will achieve greater results than each individual could manage on their own. A great team has no weak link or star performer, it has a mix of skills, experience and recognises how different assets create a winning environment.

In the vibrant, competitive, usually extrovert environment of a sales team, there will always be differences in ability and personality clashes, but measuring sales performances and rewarding and recognising achievements, will start to illuminate the value of consistent work practices.  A balanced team that allows each person to focus on individual goals and leverage their strengths, will ensure any weaknesses will quickly be covered by someone else.

In other words, a well-run team is always greater than the sum of its parts.  And yes, you have arrived when your sales team work as a confident unit using a consistent process to achieve your sales targets and increase your growth and profit.

Need help getting your sales team on the same page?  www.salesenabla.com

Start by identifying that you do actually need new sales people. Make absolutely sure that you’ve exhausted your internal skillsets before starting on the expensive journey of hiring, have you considered all the options?

• Additional Sales Training
• Clearly communicated Sales and Marketing Plan
• Individual and Team goals aligned to your company vision
• KPIs that encourage the sales behaviour you want to see
• Getting an external eye to evaluate the team

Before you pick up the phone to the recruiter, set up a role/responsibility matrix; the who does what in your current sales set up and get down to the granular level to clarify the strengths and weaknesses in your sales process.

It you’ve made the decision to hire new people, it’s vital to be clear about the role you’re offering. Sales roles are notoriously varied and without clarity about what you need, candidates will be able to fudge their way into a role that might be unsuited to their training and experience. There is a world of difference between building leads and managing/upselling existing customers.

Be clear about why someone would want to work for you – remember that competition for good sales people is fierce and hiring is a two-way street, they choose you as much as you choose them.

Create a job description that clearly outlines the role being offered, and spells out the essential skills and training you expect candidates to have as a minimum. It is unlikely that a candidate will be an exact fit, so it’s prudent to review their current skillset and assess if the training you’ll need to provide will get them up to speed.

To help you construct a job description to attract the right sales person for your company, examine your sales staff, assess them objectively and think about who has the best track record and the most consistent selling ability and why. When creating your job description consider:

• What specific skills and training does a candidate need to have as a minimum?
• What personality characteristics will help them achieve results?
• What style of sales do your customers respond to?
• Check the sales environment – is a different style required to meet current expectations?
• Think about whether you want to replicate the type of sales people you already have
• Do you want to add a different style of person to your team to appeal to different customers?

Think outside the box, there has been significant movement in workforce patterns towards agile and flexible working methods.  Perhaps your ‘role’ could be filled by one or more part time people. And don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re not just advertising a position you’re looking for a solution to achieve your sales objectives.

If you’re lucky, there’ll be sales training once you’ve got won a position, but how do you prepare for that first interview and how do you persuade a company you can do the job?

You can start off in a relatively easy job and work your way up, using the experience you accumulate as your ‘training’.  In other words, learn on the job.  Experience teaches us what works and shapes what we know.

Learning will teach us what to do, but we can only get experience from actually doing it. So, which is more important? It’s impossible to say, because there are too many additional factors that come into play to influence the different outcomes. The saying: ‘If only I’d known then, what I know now’ describes looking back and wishing our experience could be retro added, to protect us from the mistakes we made.

What is certain, is that learning from mistakes will be significantly lower, if there is proper training.  The value of training cannot be underestimated. Really, who wants someone learning by their mistakes on actual customers?

Sales people are in a unique position, precisely because there is no specific ‘learning’ path to teach selling skills and techniques. There are no exams to take, no quick starter courses to catapult you up the ladder, no certificate to prove you know how to do the job.

Experience then, becomes the key to success but, and it’s a big but, experience can be limited to a specific sphere and not transferable.  The way to achieve consistent results in any sales environment, is to make sure your sales people are selling the way you want them to.  They’re not all going to be the same type, they might be confident and experienced with a great track record (perhaps why you hired them), or they might be straight from school, with zero experience and a hefty dose of first job anxiety. Whether you have a mixed bunch, or they all have similar experience (or lack of), how do you get your sales team all selling the way you want them to?

Simple. You tell them. You train them. You measure their results, and you reward them for doing things the way you want.  The better your induction and onboarding, the better they’ll be set up for success.  Regular training will teach them new skills if they’re new to the workforce, or if they’re experienced staff, it’ll be a refresher to get rid of any bad habits.

A good sales process, which matches experience with proper learning, is the key to ensuring all your team achieve their potential and maximise your company’s success.  If you think this doesn’t apply to you, because your team aggregate is ok and your top performers are doing well enough to cover the less experienced people, consider what might upset the balance of your team and affect your bottom line:

• There’s a sudden disruptor in your market
• One or more of your top performers leave to join your competitor
• You lose a couple of long term customers

One or more of these will happen at some point and they are all outside your control.  You can minimise the risk to your business, by introducing a sustainable sales system with regular training and performance management.  In addition to staff development, it’s important to reward and recognise the behaviour you want to see.

Muhammad Ali could’ve been talking about sales with this quote:

“I hated every minute of training, but I said: ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.”

While gaining their experience in the field, give your sales people regular great training and you might just build yourself a team of champions!