Sales Training Competency Models
Why are sales competency models a good idea in your sales organization?
So, what’s ailing your sales organization? What keeps you your Sales VP up at night?
Perhaps a salesperson doesn’t have the time or ability to perform all the work that needs to be done? Maybe the rewards in place are not giving salespeople the proper incentives? What are some causes of the skills gap in the sales team? What can an organization control or not control when it comes to unleashing what salespeople know and what salespeople do to be successful?
Find out ….
Usually, a gap in performance that your organization can control stems from the absence of the right activities, beliefs, or competencies that will lead to the desired level of performance. These are the building block of a sales competency model.
Activities are visible outputs that a salesperson creates. These outputs can take the form of something communicated, something thought, or something created.
Beliefs are internal thought patterns that lead a salesperson to accept something as “true”, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons (i.e. that all salespeople are bad people, etc).
Competencies are comprised of a sales team member’s knowledge, ability, and skills:
- Knowledge is acquisition of the right information necessary to perform
- Abilities are defined as the quality of being able to do something, either physically or mentally (like drive a car).
- skill is the proficiency, facility, or dexterity acquired or developed through training or experience (like driving a car very well).
As a learning or development professional, you have a unique ability to understand why a skills gap exists. More importantly, you have the tools necessary to define what the sales team member can control within that gap or what the organization must do to help. Sales trainers and learning and development professionals should objectively and appropriately define specific ways to close the skills gap by addressing the root cause (activity, belief, or competency). To accomplish this, they create learning solutions that help sales team members take advantage of formal and informal learning activities.
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Sales Training is a Waste
All too often, well intentioned sales leaders enroll their sales representatives in expensive sales training programs only to see little or no return on their investment in increased performance.
This is largely attributed to the practice of training professionals finding it convenient to reuse the same content across disparate environments, while ignoring the reality that one size does not fit all in the real world. In many instances, employee’s careers are assessed negatively when they fail to improve their sales performance after attending sales training.
Canned
Not many managers would go to a doctor who treats all patients the same way. While each patient may not be well, the cause and treatment are different for each patient. The cause of under-performance or poor performance of a sales person or team can be very different from one person or industry to the next. The sales process for telesales will be very different to consultative relationship selling, for example. Sales leaders must take time to ensure the sales training is tailored to their specific employee and industry needs. Great training content delivered to the wrong audience is of little value.
Not Practical
Airline pilot training requires many hours of theory; however, a typical pilot will spend many hours in flight simulations practicing and learning how to apply the theory. In many sales training classes participants sit for hours listening to an instructor outlining the latest 10 step process in closing the sale, without any time devoted to the trainee practicing the skills. In a learning environment adults retain only 5% by lecture and as much as 75% by doing or practice! Carefully interview the training company to ensure your employees will not experience a lecture fest and enough time is devoted to practice.
Limited Post training Support
Most studies indicate that it takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to break a habit. When I travel abroad and have to drive on the other side of the road it requires great focus and concentration to break the habit of driving on the right…and my life depends on it! Many principles taught in sales training classes are new to some participants and despite their best intentions, on returning to work, revert to old habits.
Adding insult to injury, employees armed with new sales techniques return to work to be supervised by someone without any understanding of the new concepts and cannot provide any coaching support. In some instances, supervisors discourage newly trained employees from using new approaches they do not understand and encourage employees directly or indirectly to return to techniques the supervisor is more familiar with. Resources invested in first ensuring trainees have adequate support mechanisms in place to coach and motivate employees on return to the workplace are well spent.
Someone once said
“In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice they are not.”
Chris Collie
President, Chris Collie Associates
AVP, Leadership, Education & Development, Interval International
Chris Collie Associates
5717 NW 82nd Avenue, Tamarac, Florida 33321
954.303.7275
http://chriscollieassociates.com
info@chriscollieassociates.com