subject: The Four Core Reasons To Invest In Sales Staff Education And Learning [print this page] We are still right in the center of a worldwide economic recession and for numerous companies this means money continues to be tight. A number of organisations have responded to this difficult situation by slashing their advertising and marketing and training budgets. But this can be a very short sighted plan to adopt. This post will take a look at the four reasons why you have to continue to commit your budget on supplying your sales team with frequent sales training courses.
When asked what it is that helps make an organization successful these days, many supervisors will point to the quality of their sales team and to the dedication of the sales support staff. It is widely recognised that well-trained sales staff are more likely to retain key clients than poorly-trained ones. Indeed, most organisations will deliver an intensive period of sales training to all new starters to ensure that they understand the best way to manage their clients.
This being the situation, why should you want to offer additional sales training? The answer becomes very apparent when you start to consider how easily bad work behaviour can develop and spread throughout a sales team. Let us take the example of driving a car. When we 1st passed our driving test we knew how to do the correct things, such as having both hands on the steering wheel. We still needed to practice before those things became habitual. Over time, and with no additional instruction or training, our driving ability actually deteriorates. This is because we begin to do things just a little bit wrong, maybe steer with just one hand on the wheel. Slowly and gradually, these new bad habits become ingrained and we may be heading for a nasty crash.
The same is true in selling. Even the very best sales man or woman will begin to do the wrong things and take short cuts, unless the correct things are re-enforced with frequent sales training. So the first reason to put money into training your staff is to preserve best working practices that generate the right results.
The second reason why on-going training of staff is necessary is the need to build on the existing knowledge and skill set within your team. New knowledge, guidelines and techniques become available almost daily. This means that your peoples' existing knowledge quickly becomes outdated, making them significantly less effective.
The third reason for training your staff is to do with rewarding them. At work human beings need to feel valued and 1 of the best strategies to do this is to show that you are investing in them. Training is, arguably, the most tangible way to demonstrate that you're investing in your people.
The last reason for training is to do with motivation. It is well known that sales people do the job best when they're extremely motivated. Whilst some sales subjects can at first appear to be a little boring, a good instructor should have the ability to make any subject matter interesting and fun. Staff training as a result also functions as an excellent motivator. People come back from their sales training course energized and wanting to work much harder.
