Selling is a skill, one that is crucial to the success of almost any business organization. That's why companies spend large sums of money, and a lot of employee time, exposing their sales staff to the wisdom and insights of professional sales trainers. These companies know that they are making an investment, that they are building the skills and techniques their sales forces need to identify and qualify prospects, to turn prospects into customers, and to turn new customers into loyal, repeat customers.
All this training is about "how" -- how to talk to prospects, how to listen for customer needs, how to present benefits. And there are some excellent consultants out there who really do help sales representatives to master all these "hows" for a greater impact on sales revenues.
But "how" is only part of the sales interaction. The "how" must be wrapped around the "what" -- the hard data about the products and services being sold. That's just as important to the sale, but too many companies don't provide the quality training needed to get a good return on their product knowledge investment.
If you look at several companies who have hired professional training consultants to build sales skills, you'll probably find that only a fraction of those companies outsource training development on product knowledge. And they achieve significantly poorer results through this neglect.
Why do they develop the product knowledge components in-house? Because they have staff "experts" on the products, the clinicians or engineers or programmers or other specialists who actually developed the product or service. They tap these experts to share their knowledge sometime during the training session.
Often, that's a mistake. Just look at your own experience . . .
Did you ever have a brilliant math teacher who did very little to help you understand mathematics? Or a language teacher who spoke fluently, but didn't produce students who could speak the language? Have you ever met a doctor, an engineer, a programmer, or, for that matter, an insurance agent who knew what he or she was talking about, but couldn't get it across to you?
These experts are on staff because of what they know and what they can do. When they were hired, no one thought about whether or not they could really be effective at teaching non-experts, working in the very different context of sales. Their idea of what information is important, and what is not, is valid in the laboratory or the design center, but it is often wildly inaccurate when applied to a sales call.
In short, they are experts in the product, but you need experts in communicating about the product.
If you want your salespeople to boost revenues and beat the competition, invest in professional talent on both the "know-how" and the "know-what" sides of the equation. That doesn't mean that you have to completely outsource your product knowledge training.
It does mean you have to recognize the importance of high-quality training about the product, and get the help you need, whether that's instructional design, content development, or training delivery.
After all, your competition is also paying professional sales trainers to take care of the "how". Your sales representatives are probably learning the same skills that are taught to your competitors.
The sales force that effectively shares the "what" with prospects is the one that will pull in new customers.
Over the past couple of decades, Best Training Practices owner Will Kenny has played a key role in enhancing product launch and sales training results for companies in a wide range of industries. He is highly effective at bridging the mindsets of the product/service developers and the marketing/sales staff. We focus on teaching sales reps the "what" they need to share with their prospects -- including what to leave out of the conversation -- working with other sales training professionals who develop the "how", the skills and techniques of the effective salesperson. Best Training Practices can be found at http://www.besttrainingpractices.com/, offering free articles and The Training Tipsheet, our free biweekly e-zine.
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By Will Kenny
