Focus Magazine - Fall 2016 - 46

SELLINGSKILLS Sales Training: Increasing the Likelihood of Success ■ By Michael Hintz I f you do a web search for sales training, it will likely return with hundreds of thousands of hits and including hundreds of great books on the topic. With so much information out there for sales people and their managers, why are training departments continually asked to train? Sales training itself is not the answer. As a consultant who works in this arena, that might seem shocking to hear from me, but it's true. e special sauce that helps sales teams excel is in the follow up engagement aer sales training. If you're in the training industry, you most certainly have heard about how fast people forget new information. Training professionals do several things to help their attendees and sales representatives retain new information longer. ey provide realistic role-plays, gamification and stimulating high-energy learning environments. Sales leadership needs to be involved at all levels of sales training and they are key for maintaining post-training accountability. However, all of the training is doomed to fail unless you and your sales leaders have plans to drive engagement and usage of the new skills aer the classroom or workshop experience is completed. Let's review some of the most effective ways to drive transformation and engagement aer a sales training workshop. Leading vs. Lagging Indicators Avoid the common mistake of focusing on lagging indicators like close rates, sales growth and quota attainment. ose are all potential results, but they show up late in the game. When examining team engagement, we must look at much earlier indicators, like how oen did they use their new skills? If you have a sales process centered on strategic questioning, then look at how oen your sales team used those kinds of questions. If you are focusing on uncovering customer needs, then examine that. Don't get lulled by looking at the easy numbers. Accountability & Incentives Sales leadership needs to be involved at all levels of sales training and they are key for maintaining posttraining accountability. Asking the training staﬀ to enforce sales training is like asking a child's teacher to make them clean their room at home: It's not going to happen. It's equally im- portant to add incentives with this new level of accountability. It can be particularly eﬀective when you attach a financial reward to the leading indicator you'd like to see change. Support and Reinforcement. Make sure that you have an adequate number of staﬀ that are up to speed on the new sales methodology and skills. Everyone can feel unsure or doubt their confidence when using new skills and knowledge. It's very important to have the internal safety net set up for the early adopters. If possible, hold several reinforcement sessions, and link to online resources or videos oen. Make sure you advertise success early and oen. Other people's success is oen the best motivation to someone sitting on the fence and waiting to engage. ■ Mike Hintz is the president of Northlink Consulting. Email Mike at mike@northlinkconsulting.com. 46 FOCUS | FALL 2016 | www.L-TEN.org http://www.L-TEN.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Focus Magazine - Fall 2016