The Most Important Element in Sales Training

Many companies like the sales trainer to teach them how to look for new prospects and close every sale.  Sales managers love to equip their sales force with many techniques to overcome sales objections.  Some bosses demand that sales trainers must impart skills that can be applied immediately so as to reap the rewards overnight.  They want their sales team to get motivated and be inspired to take action.  Without any of the above, sales training would become another of those 'ra-ra' type, i.e. all hype and no result. 

To us, all sales training would cover all of the above and many more. For the specific 9 things that sales training must cover, please refer to this article here.  (To avoid wasting money in sales training, read here).   (Note: PIC now pays 60% cash for your training in 3 months). 

Actually the most important element in Sales Training is not any of the above but one and only one thing - Compel the salespeople to perform.  To do that, the trainer must create a compelling reason for the salespeople to firstly have their own goals and secondly to set up a plan to achieve their goals . We often do this (in Sales Power) in our unique ACT's 5-Ways Sales Leverage Chart (see diagram above).  Sometimes we have to 'wake up' the sales team in an entirely different course like How to Be Driven.  

No matter what we do, at the end of the day, the sales trainer is not important. Nor is the sales program. The most important element in a sales training is none other than the participants.  They must want to attend the training. Despite we being sales trainers and experts in sales, we cannot force anyone to come for training.  Therefore the one and only important element in any sales training is attendance.

By Andy Ng, Sales Coach of Asia Trainers.  List of courses are at here. Related articles:

1. The 71 Costless Ways to Increase Sales
2. The 9 Elements that all sales trainings must cover
3. The most forgotten sales technique
4. Selling when people don't want to buy
5. Successful Selling Strategies in these 7 ways
6. Most sales training in Singapore are wasting money