Manchester Sales Training
Training your sales staff isn't something you do once - though some Managers (who would benefit from management training) think it is! Such thinking just doesn't bear any relationship to success in business or how the big - or getting big - companies do it. Let's look at some analogies to see if I can highlight the fallacy of this think.
How about a football team? You could look at your sales team in a similar way. What are they doing more often than the actual matches - why training of course - particularly at the highest levels. Anything less would be madness. Yet how many companies just run with the same old, same old month after month - even year after year and a weekend course might happen once in a blue moon as an idea at times of stress - not as a regular thing - the norm.
How about the military - SAS, even an ordinary platoon - training - you bet - loads of it. In fact, once again and ask any soldier if you don't believe me - they spend far more time in training than actual work - certainly at the cutting edge of the key roles. So what not your sales team? If you don't see it this way at all then that in itself may be the reason why things aren't going as well as they could!
One more analogy - we've done top level sports and the top of the military - where else could you find extensive and ongoing training in a human endeavour? Where would we look? I know - anywhere people are professionally and seriously pushing the boundaries or leading their field - motor sport, science (universities), electronics, cars or computers. You name it and the top level leading companies and people all have one thing in common - they train, study, research and work at it. They do not just arrive to get through another day or find reasons why things are going poorly - they learn, practice, drill and study to stay sharp and stay on top of the scene - they know they have to and that is why they succeed. You may think there are other reasons, you may think it is because they are a big company - but how do they get big and stay there?
Selling goods and services is a highly technical skill. It is very precise and there is much to know, understand and drill and perfect. It most certainly doesn't happen in a day or two. One doesn't "just pick it up" as time goes by either (a sure way to collect all sorts of nonsense and false data). It is a professional lifetime career - it can pay very well and a sales person who is competent can generate 10 times as much business for their company as another. If they work for a company for forty years one can see why training and making excellent sales people is an extremely valuable activity. Perhaps this is why all the big companies do it (and did it?).
For sure some take to it better - have "the right" personality or penchant etc. Well ok, I'll accept that - the same is true for all the other human endeavours - did you ever hear a football manager cancel all the training for his team because they had a talent for playing football though?