Part IV SALES FORCE COMPETENCIES

Part IVSALES FORCE COMPETENCIES Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. Chinese Proverb Chapter 8: Sales Training

SALES TRAINING PROCESS Assess Setting Setting Training Objectives Budget Needs Planning for Sales Training What Where Training Trainers? Topics? to Train? Methods? Developing the Training Program Evaluating Training Follow-Up Training

SALES TRAINING OBJECTIVES Why Train Salespeople? • Increase sales or profits • Create positive attitudes/improve morale • Improved customer relations • Reduce role conflict and ambiguity (turnover) • Improve efficiencies (time and territory) • Introduce new products, markets, or programs

CONVERSATIONS

Table 8-1Cross-Tabulations from Company Records Experience Less than 2 year 392 21 86 2-5 years 593 29 145 5-10 years 565 5 152 Over 10 years 470 8 139 Regions Northeast 528 6 140 Southeast 520 8 161 Midwest 512 18 107 Southwest 421 26 111 West 544 21 131 Average Order Size per Salesperson New Customers Per Salesperson Total Customers Per Salesperson

DETERMINING TRAINING NEEDS* Judgment of: Top Management Sales Management Training Department Interview With: Salespeople Customers 68% 73% 60% 59% 25% * Percent of firms indicating they often use these assessments to determine training needs.

DETERMINING TRAINING NEEDS* Performance Measures: Sales Volume Customer Service Other Measures: Observation of Salespeople Attitude Surveys 56% 51% 38% 28% * Percent of firms indicating they often use these assessments to determine training needs.

STEPS IN PERFORMING A TRAINING ANALYSIS • Interviewed key members or management to find out what changes are needed in performance of the sales force. • Sent an anonymous questionnaire to customers and prospects asking: • What do you expect of a salesperson in this industry? • How do salespeople disappoint you? • Which company in this industry does the best selling job? • In what ways are its salespersons better? • Sent a confidential questionnaire to each salesperson asking: • What information do most of our salespersons need? • What information do you want to learn better? • What skills do most of our salespersons need to improve?

STEPS IN PERFORMING A TRAINING ANALYSIS • Did field audits (making sales calls) with 20% of the sales force? • Interviewed sales supervisors. • Discussed and agreed on training priorities with management. • Determined trainable topics from information gathered in Steps 1-5.

Average Cost and Training Period for Sales Trainees Consumer Industrial Service $5,354 $9,893 $9,060 Consumer Industrial Service 3.40 Months 3.80Months 3.80Months

Average Cost of Training for Veteran Salespeople $5,365 $4,824 $3,947 $3,902 $3,752 Median Spending Under $5 $5-$25 $25-$100 $100-$250 Over $250 Million Million Million Million Million Company Size

ALLOCATING TRAINING TIME Average Product knowledge 35% Market/Industry Information 15 Company Orientation 10 Selling Techniques 30 Other topics10 Total 100%

INDUSTRY JARGON • “What does HCFA say?” • “DRG’s are killing us.” • “Is this level II in the POL regs?” • “The LTC market’s future looks good.” • “The HME industry is changing rapidly.” • How about: Reflotrons Spirometry Holters Oxygen Concentrators Thoracic Catheter

ON-THE-JOB SALES TRAINING • 80% of a new field salesperson’s training should be focused on developing customer profiles, digging out account survey data, and building working relationships in the field. • 15% of time can then be invested in learning about how your product or service is used by existing customers. The field is the place to gain productknowledge, not from an engineer or home office instructor.

ON-THE-JOB SALES TRAINING • Only 5% of a new field salesperson’s time, then, should be spent on developing selling skills. • Again, the place to do this is face-to-face with real customers: • setting and testing real precall objectives • asking for real opportunities to do business. • Understanding what has to be done to build selling skills can be mastered in 15 minutes. Doing it takes years of actual, not simulated practice.

Media Used in Sales Training Classroom with Instructor Workbooks/Manuals Role Plays CD-ROM Audiocassettes Internet 77% 54% 44% 39% 34% 32%

EVALUATING SALES TRAINING

EVALUATING TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS* 86% Reactions: Trainees Supervisors Learning: Performance Pre-vs. Post-Training Behaviors: Supervisor’s Appraisal Customer Appraisal Results: Bottom Line 68% 63% 31% 64% 41% 40% *Percent of firms indicating they often use these evaluations to measure training results.

Sales Training Evaluation Practices Measure Criteria Type Importance Rank Trainee Feedback Reaction 1 Supervisory Appraisal Behavior 2 Self-Appraisal Behavior 3 Bottom-Line Measures Results 4 Customer Appraisal Behavior 5

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

BUILDING A SALES TRAINING PROGRAM • Treat all employees as potential career employees. • Require regular re-training. • Spend time and money generously. • Salespeople and sales managers must take the lead in developing what goes into the program. • In times of crisis, increase, rather than decrease, the training program.

本章主要问题 • 1、在培训前如何预计培训的效果，能否达到预计的回报率 • 2、在如今跳槽现象十分严重，如何做到降低人员流动率，从而不为他人培养员工 • 3、图表8-3中显示出的公司规模与平均培训成本的关系为何呈现出这样一个趋势 • 4、何为陈述性知识和程序性知识？ • 5、培训主题包括产品知识，销售，加强团队合作，客户与市场信息，熟悉公司，技术和营销环境在变化。有哪些侧重点？ • 6、书上举的例子，“不建议向新手讲授高业绩者积累的知识”，为什么？结合认知销售印记分析

Sales Training for Profits • You just came on as vice president of sales for General Industries, overseeing 150 salespeople and 10 sales managers. General's sales were solid, but profit margins were abysmal. General's president charged you with fixing the situation. • During your first few months on the job, you spend much of his time on the road with your salespeople visiting customers. Your mission was twofold: introduce yourself to General's customers, and observe the selling styles of your reps. What you discovered was that price cutting was rampant. Your predecessor, you learned, had managed with the credo "sales at any cost." Unfortunately for General, the practice cost the company profits. • You have to devise a turnaround strategy. Your biggest challenge will be to get 150 salespeople to drastically adjust the way they have been selling for the past four years under the former sales VP. And, you have to get his 10 sales managers to support and encourage the change. You know that your toughest challenge will be managing the drop in sales that may result from your new mandate of "sell on value, not on price cuts." But you’re also worried that many of your reps will leave the company over fears that their commissions will be reduced in the short term. How can you introduce your new policy without creating resentment among the reps? What would you focus on in the “re-training” program? What could you do to minimize the financial impact to the sales force when it loses accounts due to the increased prices?

Veteran Salespeople’s Resistance to Training • Getting a salesperson to buy into a sale training program is difficult. In fact, it is not unusual to have a training session be met with many grumbles and few attendees. A recent survey indicates that 44 percent of salespeople were only "somewhat enthusiastic" about training programs, and 6 percent said training as a waste of time. A general trend found in this data is that veteran salespeople typically believe that sales training is a waste of time. If you were a sales manager and had to reinvigorate your veteran salespeople due to stagnant sales, what could you do to avoid or reduce this resistance?

Part IV SALES FORCE COMPETENCIES