Let’s say that your sales reps have just completed their Initial Sales Training or your more tenured sales reps have just gone through a refresher sales training…now what? As their sales manager, what is your role now?

It has been said a sales manager could go to work every day with absolutely nothing on their agenda and still stay completely busy all day long. In fact, many sales managers describe their job as part-time accountant (watching their sales numbers and trying to figure out their projections) and part-time fireman (dealing with dozens of problems and issues that come up every day).

But what about continuing to develop their sales reps’ skills after they’ve gone through sales training? Even though they have just gone through training, does this mean they are now “Robo-Reps” and no longer need further development?

It has been said that 87% of all sales training fails. The main reason is lack of follow-through and reinforcement of the training by the sales manager.  So what should the sales managers do after their sales reps have been trained? The answer is keep it going. Sales training should be the foundation that allows the sales manager the opportunity to continue the process of developing their sales team.

However, in order to make this happen there needs to be a culture of continuous improvement established within a sales organization. That means that the people at the executive leadership level encourage and expect their front-line sales managers to be hands-on with their sales reps…and to inspect what they expect. It also means the sales managers know what to look for before, during, and after the sales interaction and how to properly provide effective coaching and feedback.

In many sales organizations, sales managers are sometimes uncomfortable providing the necessary coaching and help the sales reps need because they themselves have not been given the necessary training. Ironically in many cases, the sales managers are not even asked to participate in the sales training sessions. When this happens, it’s easy to see how the sales manger can settle comfortably into being just an accountant and fireman.

The greatest opportunity for improvement for any sales organization when it comes to reinforcing sales training is to make sure:

1. The sales managers know the sales call process first

This may mean taking the sales managers through the sales training as sales reps first. Give them the opportunity to understand, practice and role-play the same specific sales scenarios that the sales reps will go through. When coaching anybody on anything, the coach must completely understand the process first…and know what to look for. One way to make sure the sales manager knows what to look for is to make them practice it.   If this is done with the sales managers on their own, it gives them the opportunity to try and fail and learn without the fear of having their sales reps present and risk the chance that their credibility will be damaged.  However, once they do have the opportunity to practice and perform well, they will be much more confident in their ability to help their sales reps improve their performance. Also, when it’s time for the sales reps to be trained…the sales managers should attend that training as well. This allows the sales managers to go through it again (and repetition is the key to learning) and also shows the sales reps that they are taking the training seriously.

2. The sales managers must know how to coach to the process

Have your sales managers gone through any training on how to deliver effective coaching and feedback? Unfortunately, in many sales organizations sales managers are thrown into the job and asked to manage a group of sales reps with little or no direction on how to effectively help their employees perform at a better level. Each sales rep has different coaching needs based on ability and style. The sales managers need to be able to effectively assess each sales rep’s individual coaching needs. Their ability to give effective advice that helps the sales rep improve is one of the most important skills a sales manager can possess. Without knowing how to accurately identify each sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to help them improve those skills…it’s virtually impossible to achieve improved long-term sales results. This requires the sales managers going through professional coaching and feedback training.

3. The sales managers must schedule time to coach to the process

As soon as the sales reps have gone through any type of specific sales training the reinforcement of that training must begin immediately. Every day that goes by after the training where the sales reps are left completely on their own, it becomes more difficult to stop the sales rep from going back to their old behavior. The sales managers must schedule a specific and significant amount of time every week to work with their sales reps individually. This may include some pre-call checks with individual sales reps to brainstorm ideas before sales interactions, observing live sales calls with individual sales reps, and/or conducting post-call debriefs with individual sales reps to follow-up on agreed upon sales approaches to discuss the outcomes. It should also include establishing where each sales rep needs help based on those observations and gaining agreement with those reps on specific approaches to improve skills. This is even more effective when upper management takes part in this process by following up with the sales managers bi-monthly to discuss individual sales rep skill improvement.

Final thought: If a sales rep has the ability and the desire to work hard enough to be successful, then it is the responsibility of the sales manager and the sales organization to make sure that they succeed. One way to do this is to make sure that the sales rep’s training is kept going by reinforcing it on a regular basis. It’s the only way to successfully create a sales team that will perform well in the long run. 

Around the world there are hundreds of sales companies hiring and training salespeople to sell search and internet products to small and medium-sized business owners. Going back just a few years ago, some of these companies made money solely by reselling search solutions, such as Google AdWords (and possibly Yahoo! and MSN paid ad solutions). Today, many of these same companies are offering more and more internet advertising solutions. Some are now offering social networking solutions (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.), mobile solutions, directory solutions, print solutions, and the list goes on and on depending upon the sales company. In short, many of today’s sales reps are mini-ad agencies and are struggling with trying to both understand how all of these potential internet solutions work, as well as which products to offer to which advertisers in which situations. Read more…

At a search engine marketing (SEM) conference not too long ago, someone said, “It’s a land grab out there. The company that gets to the small business owner first and signs them up with any type of search engine marketing program…wins!”

Since that time many other companies that sell SEM packages to small business owners have used the same strategy. The main emphasis for many of these companies has been speed. Call on as many businesses as you can, sign up as many as possible, and the more productive the sales force is the more successful the SEM reseller company will be. Read more…

Recently, The Kelsey Group posted an interesting article, Is the Sales Approach Part of the Yellow Pages’ Woes? In the article they site “the 2009 sales results definitely highlight the need for a sales approach revolution.” They go on to say, “if we take the time to listen to the needs of the small business, I think a different story of why directories are losing revenues might emerge.”

There were many excellent points mentioned in this article. One of the contributing factors to the sales rep’s struggle to take the time to listen to the needs of the small business may be not knowing what questions to ask (which we have observed first hand). This article may be able to offer some quick training tips. Read more…

Many times when sales reps are hired to sell Google AdWords, or Yahoo, MSN, or other SEM (search engine marketing) solutions, they are trained to go out and tell the small business owner why their companies’ SEM solution is superior to their competitors…and they tell the same “value story” the same way to every business owner. One of the reasons companies who hire sales reps to sell SEM take this approach, is that it’s easy to teach, and it can be repeated over and over with every sales interaction. It then becomes a numbers game. Make lots and lots of sales calls and a certain percentage will buy. The problem with this approach is that small business owners have become very skeptical with sales reps who call them on the phone or show up at their location and make promises about the how well their solution will work…and they don’t know anything about that individual business owner’s current situation or anything about their industry.  In many cases, the reason this approach doesn’t work is due to a lack of trust and credibility.
Read more…

If you want to be the online directory that succeeds in the long run, train your sales reps to make the “Right Sale”…not just any sale. When your sales rep returns to the office and proudly announces, “I just made another sale”, how do you react? Do you shake their hand, congratulate them, and then tell them to go get two more? Or, before showering them with praise and encouraging them to make another sale, do you ask them for details about that sales interaction? Are you interested in how that sale was made, or more importantly…if it was the right sale? Making a sale is the goal of any sales interaction. It’s a great feeling for both the sales rep and the sales manager, but there are consequences when a sale is made and not sold correctly.

Read more…