Are you thinking about sending your staff on a sales training program? Before you decide on a provider, it’s important to consider how you can get the most out of this investment.
Here are three steps you can take to ensure you’re getting a good deal.
1. Conduct a pre-training evaluation
Many people believe sales training starts when the course does. In fact, companies that get the most out of sales training programs do a lot of preparation in the lead up.
One of the best things you can do to maximise return on investment is to conduct a pre-training evaluation. This is an opportunity to review your sales processes and identify what changes you hope to make.
Some questions you can ask yourself as part of the evaluation include:
- What are my team’s strengths and weaknesses?
- Who is in most need of sales training?
- How can I prepare my team before the course?
- What outcomes am I hoping to achieve?
Ideally you should also look to answer the following questions from this process:
- How much more effective can we be?
- What will it take to accomplish that?
- What is there growth potential and how long will it take to accomplish that?
- What will be my return on investment from embarking on a sales training programme?
The point of this exercise is to develop a clear understanding of your objectives for investing in sales training. If you do not understand your ‘why’ at the beginning, it will make it difficult to measure the training’s success rate.
Your answers to the audit questions can also provide direction to your chosen sales training provider. The better they understand your goals, the better they will be able to tailor a course to your unique needs.
2. Shop around until you find the right provider
Once you’ve identified your reasons for investing in sales training, it’s time to choose a provider. Don’t be tempted to settle for the first training company you come across – it’s important to do your research and be selective. After all, not all providers are created equal.
Just as you asked yourself some questions during the pre-training evaluation, you should ask potential providers a few thoughtful questions to separate the great from the average. Tell them what you hope to achieve from the training program and ask how they can help. Request testimonials or references from each potential provider. And ask some generic questions to get a feel for how they work and their company values.
3. Measure return on investment
Make sure you have systems in place to measure the impact of the sales training program. You can measure impact by a variety of factors, such as staff enjoyment/morale, staff improvement, sales statistics, and more.
If a sales training program is truly effective, this should show up in the numbers. Many employers send their staff on training courses on a regular basis, yet this has no real-life impact on how much they are selling. If someone’s performance does not improve after a sales training program, was the program still worth the investment? This is a question only you can answer, but by measuring the results at least you will have a clear picture on the financial impact of each training course.
