Not enough companies have learned how to employ sales training as a strategic tool. Those that have are leaders in their industries, offering their shareholders maximum return on investment, are able to quickly adapt to changing market conditions, are respected by their customers and provide consistent sales performance. The sales people that work for those companies are motivated and stay in their jobs longer.

Quite often sales managers and executives don’t have the time and experience to do this correctly. Companies with internal training departments often provide guidance, but sales training is quite different from designing and delivering training to other constituencies within an organisation, such as customer care, engineering, or human resources.

The first step for any company deciding to make a change in their sales approach is always an assessment of the situation. What processes and methods are currently being employed by the company? What has their sales performance been? What percentage of sales people are delivering against plan? What are the biggest obstacles to success? How dynamic or stable is the company’s environment? What are the practices and expectations of the buyers? These are only a few considerations.

Designing or adopting a sales methodology is critical. Without that methodology in place, training is a tactical attempt to fix a larger problem. The selling methodology must be developed based upon the company’s unique situation—their market, their customers, how those customers buy, the complexity and price levels of the products and services the company offers, competitive pressures, reporting requirements, the participation of partners, the skill level of their current sales people, etc.

The primary objective of creating an individually tailored Organisational Development Programme has to be: “To achieve consistently superior results through the performance of every key individual“, after all, our people are our most important and indeed expensive resource, it therefore makes sense for us to want to see a full and proper return on that investment.

Specifically, we should seek to achieve optimum performance levels via a process and an all encompassing framework for defining performance standards. This involves assessing, appraising, developing, implementing, reviewing and providing continual feedback on performance.

Emphasis is placed on creating an environment in which the ‘can do – will do’ mentality thrives and becomes the norm – success and achievement are expected and as a consequence are much more likely to happen.

This total approach enables forward thinking organisations who are committed to looking ‘outside the square’ and who are not afraid to mentally cross bridges that that their competitors have not even identified, to enter the land of “me – first” rather than the land of “me – too”. It also offers the opportunity to develop excellence in the performance of the company’s teams and build the capabilities necessary to consistently over–achieve short, medium and long term objectives.

Today’s News:

I know I have many female readers and I have no doubt that most of you will be interested in a site that was recommended to me last week – why aren’t there sites for men like this? Ostensibly, it is aimed at today’s modern business woman

It’s called Coutts Woman and I can tell you it is what my mother would have called “very upmarket” but then again, that is to be expected as Coutts has been the bank of choice for the “very well heeled” for many years. However, that doesn’t really do it justice.

My first impressions were very favourable: The site is modern with clean lines and it is so easy to navigate around – I should tell you that my own technical team were also impressed and that doesn’t happen very often!

All of the sections which include: Features, Travel, Money Matters, News, How to…are extremely well written, informative and relevant.

So, if you are a woman in business or a woman entrepreneur, heed my advice and take a look at Coutts Woman

As we wrap up the week and indeed the month, I am delighted to introduce yet another Top Sales Expert Cheryl Clausen. Cheryl is another recent recruit to the team and you will no doubt have enjoyed her work here on The JF Guest Author Spot. You can read more about her here

Tomorrow: I have a very arduous schedule between now and Christmas, beginning with a trip to the UK for two weeks but I will be posting here as usual, so have a great w/e and do make it back here on Monday. – JF

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