Sales Staff Training – But not in Sales?
When it comes to staff development, businesses are very specific about what they want (once they have made the decision to further develop their staff) if sales staff are the focus of development then businesses naturally decide to put their sales teams on a Sales Training course, if the focus is on promoting one or more staff members then that focus will naturally move towards Management Training.
Why choose one or the other, why not consider both?
Lets take a field sales team as an example, this part of any team is invaluable to any company in both hunting for new business and for managing current clients (check out Sales Rep or Account Manager blog) but is sales training enough. These individuals are often responsible for working on their own with limited supervision, in charge of large geographical territories with 10’s if not 100’s of accounts, how does sales training help them manage their time, prioritise their customers and plan their call cycles? That’s right it doesn’t!!
The point I’m trying to get to here for business owners and managers of sales teams is that when you are thinking about developing or looking at new ways of motivating your team don’t necessarily go to the same field and re-plough it; yes there may be a case that some of your sales team may need to do a refresher course in sales techniques and if that is the case then go ahead and do it but consider ploughing a different field; give them the opportunity to develop in other ways and watch their levels of motivation climb even higher, give them some management training.
In my experience with sales representatives and account managers a two pronged approach works very well give them the management tools of Time Management and how to Prioritise their Day. This gives them sound principals in what to consider when prioritising task whilst understanding a bit more about tools that can help them manage time more efficiently along with creating an awareness of the type of things that can negatively effect time management. With this knowledge it is then easier to talk about how to Farm your Client Base more efficiently, what to consider when prioritising who you visit, look at the different avenues out there to ensure you company name is always fore front in your clients minds and specifically look at ways of getting more out of each client meeting.
Hopefully you can see how a two pronged approach to sales and management training can really help your sales teams in the field going forward.
Please feel free to let me know your views on this especially if you have received training like this 
If you want to know more about this type of training for your team, please contact me for a no obligation chat.
