The onboarding of salespeople has proved to be an elusive sport. Sales training best practices are always under construction. Ask a VP of Sales if he or she is totally confident with their company’s sales training process. Chances are, they’re looking for the next best thing to solve that sticky situation.
It was not so long ago that the best tactic for onboarding was totally tactless. It was a “throw everything; see what sticks” sort of thing. A barrage of outdated loose-leaf papers, unreadable handwritten notes, insufferable 100-page PowerPoints, and other unworthy pursuits characterized onboarding. More often than not, none of that stuck. Salespeople compensated by making up their own rules. They came up with their own sales playbooks.
By now, most sales team managers realize that onboarding with helpful, thoughtful, useful information enhances sales performance and creates effective salespeople. But, what’s creeping in now is a “set it and forget it” mentality. The industry recognizes that effective sales training means revenue. That’s a step in the right direction. But, just because you’re delivering sales training in a more neatly wound, tightly packed format, doesn’t mean that salespeople will retain the messages presented in their first weeks of work. Most companies find that sales reps revert to their personal, unpredictable ways shortly after an effective sales training.
But, when initial sales training becomes one part of a larger sales maintenance process, the reps can retain information and implement strategies effectively and sustainably. Those who manage sales teams must act as gardeners of effective people. That means consistently helping salespeople to locate the weeds that pop up in their process, helping them to pull the weeds out, and replacing the weeds with fruit-bearing habits.
You wouldn’t plant a seed and expect corn to land at your table, salted and buttered. In the same vein, become accustomed to fertilizing your sales people with continuous training. The sales enablement platforms of today are the single most valuable tools in this sustained training ideology.
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