Your sales team is the front line of your business, representatives for what you represent. And good salespeople begin with good training — on a continuous basis. Here are three ways you can be sure your salespeople are evolving and improving with each passing day.
Training should include learning about themselves. Of course, representatives will learn about your company and its products or services. But your training is not adequate if it doesn’t involve team members doing some self-reflection, as well, says an article in Entrepreneur.com which quotes a blog by Eddy Ricci.
“The more they learn about themselves, how they make decisions and how they sell, the more effective they will be in communicating with prospects and clients,” he writes.
Pair up new salespeople with mentors. You don’t want them to get discouraged, especially during the first 90 days, often the most risky time in a new hire’s tenure.
“Assign an experienced salesperson on your team to mentor one or more new hires,” advises John Treace in an article at Inc.com, and ensure this mentor keeps an open dialogue doing with the new person. This mentorship costs nothing and will help reps with customer questions and other concerns.
Give feedback — good and bad — for all salespeople. “Do not allow the windshield or the cube wall the salesperson looks at all day to become the source of their feedback,” writes Mark Hunter at TheSalesHunter.com.
New hires and veteran sales representatives both need to know you’re watching over them. Bad habits need feedback and acted on a timely fashion, before they become ingrained. We all have areas where we need to improve. Support needs to be expressed as well,” he says. n
