Successful sales organizations do not limit training of their sales staff to the initial entry training or implementation of new products, but educate them continuously instead. Eight ways to incorporate the development of sales people into your daily routine have been described by the customerthink.com server.
1. Find a concrete time to educate your sales team
It is important to schedule time for education; otherwise you will actually never do it. You can, for example, define a regular part of meetings - and it does not have to be a long time.
2. Decide what skills you want to develop
Write down the skills you plan to work on in your sales team, and find people in your organization, who will become "owners" of relevant skills and will help develop others.
3. Involve managers from other company departments
Someone from the marketing department can for example teach salespeople to understand the social networks. Product managers can help in how customers use your products. Just invite them to your meeting and ask them to share experience.
4. Teach the salespeople to share the best practices
Use the same principle as in section 4 to set up sharing experiences internally within the sales team. In this way you will work both on sales and presentation and communication skills.
5. Create your own library of best practices
It is not enough to share experiences orally because you soon forget a lot of information. Therefore focus on documenting best practices and building custom libraries for example on the corporate intranet.
6. Collaborate with marketing and customer services
Ask representatives of these departments to participate in training events of sales persons. Communicate with them about upcoming campaigns and mutually learn how to bridge both major and small gaps between your offers and customer needs.
7. Collaborate with other sales teams
Participate in personal and online communities in your field, read technical books and web sites and discuss new trends.
8. Work with feedback from your customers
Invite your current or potential customers to directly assess your sales skills and advise you on what to improve. Follow places, where your customers meet and talk together.
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