Top 25 Prerequisites for Successful Sales Training and Development

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

Before an inside or outside expert can help you develop your sales force, there are at least 25 milestones that must take place or the initiative will probably fail. Development has much less to do with content, curriculum, and methodology than it does with the person, or people who will do the developing. I am not saying that content, curriculum and methodology are unimportant! They are very important. I am saying that much like everything else you do, the people have more impact on the success or failure of the initiative than the tools being used. When I, or members of my team are involved in developing a client's salespeople and sales managers, we make certain that the following milestones take place very early on - in our very first session. We must:

1.Help them feel safe

2.Get them to believe we can help

3.Get them to want the help

4.Develop credibility

5.Understand their challenges

6.Be viewed as a resource, not a threat

7.Develop a relationship

8.Add value through the effective strategies and tactics we share

9.Encourage them

10.Challenge them

11.Question them

12.Demonstrate, through role-play, exactly how a strategy or tactic plays out

13.Entertain them

14.Engage them

15.Make them want more

16.Provide them with several perspectives

17.Give them assignments

18.Be committed to their success

19.Get them to commit to their success

20.Poll them often for their lessons learned

21.Make sure they understand their assessment results

22.Prepare sales management to coach to the training

23.Have systems and processes in place to support the training

24.Create a no excuses environment

25.Get them to practice.

There are many more things that take place along the way, but when these things don't take place day 1, it's an uphill climb.

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Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

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Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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