Sales Training: Five Critical Issues For Sales Leaders

Millions of pounds have been spent investigating and pursuing ways to grow sales, and no wonder; after all, sales are the lifeblood of any organisation. Yet only a handful of companies have been able to grow their sales steadily not just in good times, but in lean times too, and in the face of ferocious competition.

The Sales Activator®,in partnership with Nightingale Conant, recently conducted careful research amongst 2,663 sales organisations from Europe and the U.S., designed to identify the barriers that prevent organisations from achieving continual sales growth.

The vast majority of companies that have been less successful than the few superstars they found, fall prey to a number of common mistakes. In contrast, the few that have consistently grown their sales have succeeded because they have found ways to avoid these same traps.

Issue1
A Poorly Defined Sales Process That Dilutes Sales Revenues

As the development of a more consultative sales approach within industry grows, then so does the need for a well defined and understood, stage by stage sales process. Increasingly, competent salespeople are counted upon to channel their own activities into the areas that they believe will produce the biggest and quickest wins. But, left to their own devices, salespeople generally don’t develop and pursue a formal plan for moving a prospect interaction forward toward a sale. Instead, with so many potential clients to see, they rely more on instinct. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that key stages in the sales process are overlooked – often leading to resistance, objections and, inevitably, lost sales.

When their efforts don’t pay off quickly, even capable salespeople tend to get discouraged. They may spend longer hours struggling to meet their sales quotas, working less efficiently. The details of what goes wrong differ for each salesperson, but the net result is always the same: wasted time which fails to produce high quality sales and consequently, increased cost of sales.

Solutions:
For sales leaders, this means either critically reviewing or developing a comprehensive, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. Involve top performers and enlightened customers in identifying current best practice and refining the process. Critically, align CRM, sales management systems and compensation structures with the process for maximum results. It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management is in a position to monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results. Only then is the stage set for transformational performance improvements.

Issue 2
Lack of Essential Skills Which Leads to ‘Below Average’ Performance and Consequently ‘Below Average’ Sales Results

This gradual shift in emphasis from traditional selling to consultative problem solving is bringing with it the need for new and improved sales skills.

With an ever growing body of research highlighting the difficulties in gaining effective face to face selling time, prospects are increasingly only granting access to those reps who are able to create dialogue, trust, and credibility with their customers and who demonstrate the desire to build a mutually beneficial relationship.

But traditional training isn’t necessarily translating to increased sales competence and improved sales results. Companies are therefore, unsurprisingly, becoming more reluctant to continue supporting lengthy, upfront training programmes.

So, what’s going on? How should a Sales Director reconcile the fact that many organisations today provide less upfront training for their established sales staff than in years past with the increasing importance of staff development?

Solutions:
The lengthy initial training for new hires that once was the norm was well suited to a world in which the market and sales cycle were both reasonably stable. In today’s more dynamic business environment, development and training are more important than ever before but must be delivered in smaller and more frequent chunks, with less disruption to the daily flow of salespeople’s work and tied more closely to subtle shifts in the marketplace.

Yet training alone does not guarantee peak sales performance. This can only come from a careful blend of training, mentoring and effective, ongoing coaching from front line sales managers who can find effective ways of highlighting and sharing best practice among the team.

Issue 3
Failing to Focus Sales Reps’ Activity Which Reduces Efficiency and Consequently Results
Frequently there are two main dangers that even experienced reps can fall into in terms of activities. First, they simply aren’t doing enough and secondly, but equally important, salespeople often aren’t clear about how to target and prioritise the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product. Many reps will take any opportunity to see a prospect regardless of opportunity likelihood or value.

Salespeople who lack a disciplined, future-oriented plan for prioritising their selling activities, often find themselves spending more time attending to ‘accessible’ potential clients rather than those that will develop their business effectively.

Solutions:
Depending on their mindset, previous experience and natural character type, salespeople naturally tend to gravitate towards the activities which they feel most comfortable with.

This means some will be happier hunting for prospects and chasing the new sale - possibly at the expense of developing relationships and opportunities with existing customers. Conversely, some will be happier developing clients and feel nervous about the hard task of prospecting.

To ensure a proper balance of activities, sales leaders need to create a systematic method of allowing sales people to monitor and plan activities for each stage of the sales cycle.

In addition, by developing simple yet robust qualification criteria to assess sales opportunities at each main stage of the sales cycle, salespeople and sales managers then have a logical basis by which to allocate their precious time towards their best opportunities.

Using the pharmaceutical industry as an example, according to Jon Parton, Director of Global Branding at AstraZeneca, "Rather than merely targeting high volume physicians, reps will need to analyse physician behaviour, demographics, and attitudes to segment the markets and target those most loyal to the brand, friendly toward reps, and responsive toward certain messages."

Those organisations who have been able to get increasing performance improvement from their sales teams have developed solid methods of qualifying and rating their prospects at the initial stages and at various points through the sales cycle, based on criteria appropriate for their sales and marketing strategy. These top performers have also taken time to help reps focus their selling time on the typical 20% of those available who can deliver 80% of the results.

Issue 4
Allowing Self-Limiting Beliefs to Constrain Salespeople’s Performance Which Causes a Reduction in Sales Results
A hugely overlooked area of sales force development, limiting beliefs impact directly on sales results. In addition, the concept of ‘transference’ shows that the salesperson’s state of mind is often instantly transferred to their prospect/customer, influencing in a powerful way the outcome of a sales call.

This means that the challenge for organisations is to constantly create a highly resourceful state in their
salespeople. This is extremely important because when salespeople lack belief in themselves, their product, or their organisation, it can not only lead to serious bouts of ‘call reluctance’ but they unconsciously transmit their attitude to prospects in a variety of subtle and sometimes overt ways.

Yet while most sales leaders grasp the concept of activity management, skills and knowledge development, far too many feel powerless to help their salespeople turn their negative beliefs into positive ones.

Solutions:
The good news is that beliefs do change. Given the right opportunity and environment, sales team colleagues can exert a hugely positive influence in overcoming negative beliefs. In addition, the sales manager or coach has a vital role to play in positively and constructively challenging limiting beliefs as they surface and building the self-worth of each individual member of the team.
Those organisations who have found practical and effective ways to tackle beliefs and are able to change their reps’ self-limiting beliefs into empowering ones have found an unbeatable path to success.

Issue 5
Failing to Choose and Develop a Sales Leadership Team That Nurtures and Develops Their Sales Reps’ Potential

Arguably the single biggest influence on the performance of any sales team is the team manager. Yet the single most common mistake that underperforming organisations make is promoting their number one sales rep into the role of sales manager, thereby depriving themselves in a single stroke of their best producer and hamstringing their salesforce with an ineffective manager.

The skills required for managing, coaching and developing sales teams are totally different from those for selling. As a result, it’s not uncommon to find newly promoted sales managers who regret having taken a management position and may even leave to get back into sales.

In addition, the majority of sales managers say they do not have sufficient time to train and develop their sales teams. They are so focused on sales results and so accustomed to achieving success through their personal pursuit that they overlook their greatest potential source of power: the power to increase sales performance by developing their people.

Even when they do recognise the importance of developing their representatives, many sales managers find that they lack the skills and resources to do it effectively. To make things worse, most sales teams consist of a number of individuals with differing levels of experience and ability, so the whole issue of team development becomes too daunting to contemplate.

Solutions:
Successful sales leaders look for management candidates who can demonstrate an ability to help others strategise, work effectively with customers, and build their self-confidence.
Training and development is structured to help build critical coaching skills within sales management teams.
Finally, innovative coaching resources and toolkits for sales meetings provide a wonderful opportunity to offer appropriate team development.

The most successful Sales Directors of all bend over backwards to make sure that the development resources they give their managers are easy to use, are designed to appeal to and engage salespeople regardless of experience level, and, above all, can be used in manageable pieces so that sales teams can absorb, share and implement new ideas.

Summary – top tips from the experts:

> Develop a comprehensive, step-by-step consultative sales process. Involve top performers and customers and align CRM, sales management processes and compensation structures for maximum impact.

> Use sales training, mentoring and coaching in bite sized chunks to share best practice and develop consultative sales skill.

> Develop and embed an objective, realistic method of evaluating and rating customers and prospects based on strategic value.

> Train sales managers to spot limiting beliefs in salespeople and create the opportunities for colleagues to reinforce empowering beliefs in each other.

> Recruit and develop effective people-centric sales managers. Critically, build their coaching skill and provide innovative and easy-to-use resources for developing the team during regular sales meetings.

Further reading: For free tips and help on sales training, The Sales Activator® system and sales performance improvement, visit Nigel's website.