Monday, August 14, 2006

4 Steps To Proper Sales Training

David Hotle, teacher, trainer, business coach, and CEO of the Rubicon Institute, offers these four keys for building a successful sales force:
1. Commitment. “Before you begin to train salespeople, they need to be committed to your business. Completely. Particularly in a small business, salespeople should be committed to the extent that they see themselves an integral cog that makes a business go or not go. They need to be willing to invest extra time and effort to get themselves up to speed in training and knowledge of product and sales system. They have to be committed to learning about selling and committed to themselves to develop and grow.”
2. Have A System In Place. Business owners need a selling system the same as they would have a production system. You have to have an acquisition process—beyond simple marketing—that the salespeople will use in order to put money in the bank.
3. Continued Training. Sales training is an ongoing, never-ending, developmental process. That doesn’t mean you have a sales meeting every week. It means that there’s always coaching, mentoring, training, and supervision all working together.”
4. Owner Should Focus On Process. “Results will come if you focus on process. Trust the results.”