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Create a Great Sales Training Program

Guest post by: Tim Hagen

Article Overview: Every company has sent their sales reps and employees to sales training seminar; however, most of those people forget what they learned less than one month later. Follow these sales tips and techniques and figure out how sales training reinforcement can enhance your employees performance.

Create a Great Sales Training Program

When it comes to sales training, it’s convenient to take the easy way out, but that typically does not solve the problem. Instead, it wastes the company’s time and money. Training seminars, workshops and e-learning sessions are a great way to kick off sales learning. However, it takes more than just a one-day event to get employees on track and motivated. We have said it many times before (just to reinforce your learning), people forget half of what they learned in a training seminar in just a month, and that’s a fact.

So, what can businesses do to make sure that their money does not go to waste and their employee’s performance enhances? To create a sustainable learning environment, managers need to step up and help reinforce training. Hold group meetings so that everyone can share what they learned that week or what they did to improve their sales. Another technique that works is one-on-one coaching. By sitting down with an employee, a manager can see exactly what they issues are, coach them through their problems and keep track of any problems or setbacks the employee has. Not only this, but a one-on-one meeting also allows for instant feedback so that the sales rep is not continuing their bad habit over weeks or months.

Managers should set goals for their sales team before they send them off to a sales training seminar because the whole point of a seminar is to improve employee performance to ultimately increase revenue and sales. By setting benchmarks, managers can see if the session followed by reinforcement was beneficial. Set attainable goals that you can measure.

Finally, follow up with your sales team. Make sure that they are applying what they learned and what you are reinforcing to the real world. Ask questions, such as, “Name two positive interactions you have had with a prospect or client since the seminar and training reinforcement sessions.” These types of questions will give you a reference point as to your employee’s progress.

By creating an environment in which employees are constantly learning and being coached, businesses can create sustainability and stay ahead of their competition.

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Article Tags: Coaching, coaching employees, e learning, Enhance Performance, great salesperson, Sales Manager, sales techniques, sales tips, sustainable learning, sustainable learning programs, Training reinforcement, training session



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