sales training blog - startup sales mentor

So here you are, a coach with a plan. So now it is the first day of practice and you are just beginning. Yes, you have on trainers; a whistle is around your neck. You have a stop watch and a log book for times. You have an idea of what you want to accomplish, BUT NO ONE ELSE DOES! It is time to really prove you are a coach and not a manager.

One of the more challenging roles you will plan is that of the educator. You have to educate your team in several areas:

1. Your goals and expectations, for the team and individually
2. The company’s expectations of the department
3. The plan for succeeding as a sales rep
4. Old and new ideas on how to sell
5. Systems
6. And if you are rally a coach, how to be a better person

So again, you should lay out your schedule for training and know each when you intend to train to what. Share it with the people you intend to train, thus preparing them to share insight and experience. Here is an example (The posts I will put up over the next few weeks regarding the training series):

1. How a coach trains
2. Habits for success
3. Talented Prospects
4. Qualifying Pt 1 Getting to know the people and place
5. Qualifying Pt 2 Learn that pain
6. Qualifying Pt 3 Learn the desire
7. Objection Handling
8. Knowing your buyer
9. Pipeline theories, what works
10. Gaining commitment
11. Planning and prioritizing
12. CRM and other efficiency
13. Value propositions
14. Closing - Assumptive ABC and other easy plays
15. Closing - The long haul, consultative and done
16. Closing - The set up and draw in, emotional buy
17. Closing - Other details that make a champion
18. Keeping a customer
19. Product training
20. Communicating with other departments
21. Maintaining demeanor
22. Training new hires

By sharing this with you, I have already prepared you for the ideas I will present, thus enabling you to think back on what you have already learned.

As a coach, you want an open forum, where people share ideas and get involved in the training. If you are doing all of the talking, or your team is only speaking up when you pull info from them, it is near impossible to get across a viable message. Role play early and often, and mix up the groups. Make some of the exercises fun or silly, and les about learning. The goal is to get people engaged. Make the lessons your suggestions for success, and by no means dictate or deliver mandates. These are the tools of the manager, the coach shows you the way, but never drags you down it. If someone needs to be dragged, they should get cut from your roster.

Be sure to note who is having trouble with the lesson material. You have two options here, you can build mini-coaches by asking you stars to check back in with these reps on a regular basis, or you can undertake the work yourself. Both have benefits as they build different sorts of trust within your team. The key is, DO NOT TRAIN ON A SUBJECT THEN MOVE ON. Watch it flourish in a few reps then SING THEIR PRAISES. This is how coaches build support for theory, fact, and activity.

If you have the resources, take your trainings off-site. Not all of them, but at least once a month. Also, record them! If you can, video tape them, but at the very least record the audio. Use the recording to train yourself, as a good teacher is ALWAYS LOOKING AT HOW TO IMPROVE THE LESSON. Even if you have done the training a dozen times, someone is going to have fresh input, and at some point you will not have delivered data as well as you could have.

A final suggestion: Training should be for at least two hours, but never more than a day every other week or 2-3 days straight. I am of the camp that believes that multi-day trainings are not as effective as two hour blocks twice a month. There are many several organizations that lock you away for a week for intensive training, and their talented reps find success. Most people however do not have the retention skills, and a lot of data is lost. A coach wants to get everyone on the same page, more so than throwing so much stuff out there that some of it sticks on everyone.

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