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Welcome to our eight article in the series “You Can Always Sell More: How To Improve Any Sales Force!” The reality of any sales position is that you can always sell more. In this article we will discuss how to train and coach your sales team to greater levels of selling success. The Frustrations Of Designing A Sales Improvement Strategy Most sales leaders feel frustrated with what to do with their sales team. Most see where their team is today as well as all the skill gaps and exposures in their various team members. The problem though is most also have no idea how to fix them. This type of frustration is completely normal for a sales leader. There is nothing worse than having a clear understanding of all the problems, gaps and exposures in a sales team, knowing you want them to get better but having no idea how to fix or improve any of your current problems. Developing And Defining Your “Selling Best Practices” The majority of sales organizations have encountered two gaps in leading their sales teams. Most leaders push their sales teams to “get better’ without any idea of what “getting better” actually involves (the first gap). They also don’t have any clarified definitions of the goal skills or best practices they want their people to achieve (the second gap). If you want to lead your sales team to a stronger selling position you need to provide them with the detailed steps and structures of how to get there. Defined “best practices” are the “instruction manual” or “roadmap” for the skill or process being discussed. It is the guide to help keep your sales reps consistent in their efforts, effective in the way they apply this “best practice” and thinking in a proactive, multi-stepped manner. Adding consistency and defined standards to processes and procedures will also enable you to track feedback and results. As team leader you would have no way to track or improve what was, or was not, working if each sales rep was prospecting with a different set of steps and processes. To develop a specific “best practice” or clearly defined best way to do something means you and your team have to analyze what is currently working and how consistently it is being followed by your team. Next you need to research what others are doing outside your company with their “best practices.” Now you have enough information to start designing the “best practices” of a selected area. A steps-of-a-sales-call “best practice” can be as simple as listing the five-steps that need to take place during a sales call. For more complex skills or structures your defined “best practices” could be multiple selling steps. Once defined it is then time to test your new “Best Practice” to see if it is indeed the best way to be doing this task. After Designing Your “Best Practices” You Next Need To Prioritize What To Work On And Implement First It is guaranteed you will come up with more “best practices” projects than you will have either the time and funding to complete. There is no one “right” or “best” practice to work on first. Just remember there are a lot of things you have to do to be competitive but only a few that will actually increase your competitive advantage. Try to work on the “big stuff’ first that will have the greatest impact on your quality, customer service, selling effectiveness or competitive advantage. Once you finish analyzing and designing your best practices it’s time to implement these new skills, structures and awareness with your sales team. How Do You Know If Your Training Is Actually Working? Too many sales managers dump a few days of sales training on their team, do little to no implementation coaching and then sit and wait for sales to increase. You can begin observing and tracking their commitment to change while still in your first training session by following the four steps to measuring long-term change in an individual: 1st look for a change in Attitude 2nd look for a change in Effort 3rd look for a change in Progress And finally 4th look for a change in Results As a coach and leader it is our job to help our team member’s work through these four stages of change. You can’t short cut the process by just pushing through to “results.” In our next, and last, article in this series we will complete our discussions of how to strengthen your sales team by discussing ways you can improve your skills and awareness as a leader of your sales team. Want even more ideas? Then read my book “You Can Always Sell More - How To Improve Any Sales Force.” This 300+ page book outlines the entire process described in these articles. Call 800-526-0074 or go to GreatSalesSkills.com. I congratulate you on working on strengthening your team’s selling skills and success. Developing your own training process and “best practices” will help you strengthen the skills, competitive advantage and selling success of your team. May you enjoy the process. Reprint with permission “You Can Always Sell More – How To Improve Any Sales Force” ISBN #0-471-73915-4 John Wiley & Sons. Copyright 2008 Jim Pancero, Inc.
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