How to Create a Sales Training Culture

Professional selling is, essentially, the process of first identifying the needs of a prospect or client that can be met by your products and services, then communicating to the client the ways your product and/or service meets those needs.

Unfortunately, too many owners and managers operate as if sales training is a pill the staff takes only occasionally and, more often than not, is accompanied by the motivational support of "go sell."

As we enter what, by all accounts, will be an extremely challenging economic year, never has the requirement for a structured and disciplined approach to integrating sales training into your organization become such a priority.

Differentiating your business from the big-box stores, online retailers and the client's prior experience with specialists is going to hinge more on the people experience you provide than the product assortment you offer.

The human opportunity walking through your door arrives not because you're the cheapest, but because the shoppers are hopeful that yours will be the company to finally deliver on the promise of a home technology lifestyle that meets or exceeds their expectations.

Co-authors Joe Pine and James Gilmore put it best in their new book "Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want." They write:

[I]n a world increasingly filled with deliberately and sensationally staged experiences -- an increasingly unreal world -- consumers choose to buy or not buy based on how real they perceive an offering to be. Business today, therefore, is all about being real.

To truly understand what clients want, it takes being "client loyal," according to Troy Bolotnick, owner of Bolovision in L.A. This means, he says, infusing the necessary discipline, focus and mentoring into your organization, and executing those behaviors on a daily basis.

Only a committed manager can lead a culture to consistently create client advocates, clients so satisfied they're motivated to act on your behalf within their own network of contacts.

Here are a few dos and don'ts when it comes to sales training:

Do create a sales training program. "Schedule activities, conduct weekly trainings, track learning and pay bonuses for achieving targeted levels of customer satisfaction" stresses Dan Moore, owner of Blue Grass Home Entertainment in Lexington, Ky.

"I include techs and installers in the customer satisfaction program, and I provide them with business cards to personalize their client contacts."

Don't confuse product or technical knowledge with sales expertise. "Technical knowledge is like nuclear weaponry," says CEDIA Hall of Fame trainer and Sound Advice founder Joe Piccirilli.

"The customer wants to know you have it, but don't ever use it unless you want to blow up the sale."

Do set clear goals for improved sales behavior and results. "Emphasizing proper sales processes and techniques is important. But it's equally important to have a sales plan targeting key outcomes," advises Steve Firszt, owner Fast-Forward Business Coaching.

"Only then can you have a viable measure of whether the processes and techniques are actually productive."

Don't hire strictly on past industry sales history and experience. "It all starts with hiring the right people, and ours is a relationship business," says Roger Koehler, owner of Electronic Integration Experts in Denver.

"Successfully managing relationships is a by-product of a driven, confident and engaging personality. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink unless he wants to."

Do lead by example. Just as a coach is needed to optimize a professional athlete's performance, even Tiger Woods, your team needs to be observed, coached and mentored on a consistent, ongoing basis.

Take the lead in demonstrating what it takes to consistently create client advocates.

Don't let others train your staff outside the curriculum. Just as every aspect of your team's behavior impacts the clients' experience, be sure to be aware of and understand the content, message and intent of all third-party trainings.

Your staff will assume you support the learning if you approve their attendance.

Today's news is full of companies struggling for survival, slashing costs, trimming personnel and fighting to reposition their customer image.



In the emerging knowledge economy, information about the company creates most of the company's differentiated value.

In the fading industrial economy, consumers had little information relative to companies (generally, limited to spun marketing), were isolated from each other and had no collective voice.

Consumers now have unprecedented choices of products, services and lifestyles, with differentiation achieved through customer experience, not products and services.

Moreover, those customers share their experiences much more often with the availability of online search and social networking, forever amplifying the communication and balance of good news and bad news.

No one writes a letter of dissatisfaction to the company anymore; they start a blog.

An integrated professional sales program is no longer optional to survival, it is absolutely critical in differentiating your business, your staff and setting a path for growth in a down market.

A popular saying about the CE business is: "When the economy's good, business is good, and when the economy's bad, business is good."

It's just that the low-hanging fruit now requires a calculated leap as opposed to a simple stretch.

Bill Johannesen is the managing director of Vision Werks Consulting LLC and can be reached via http://www.VisionWerks.com.