How To Train Sales People For Better Results

Want to learn to teach someone to be a better salesperson, quickly? In the financial services world, sales training is often accomplished through shadowing or joint work. While these methods can work, they often lack the quick, successful results that are desired.

The reason? They don’t teach the basics. They require that the person being trained has the ability to watch you and pick up on the many different techniques that you’ve learned over years of training and experience.

Think about all the skills that come into play when you step into a sales conversation. How many skills and techniques do you use? The list is probably large and may include:

• Matching your tone and even words to your prospect
• Asking open-ended questions
• Listening not to just what they say, but also their body language
• Mirroring your body language to your prospects
• Ability to profile – such as DiSC, Myers-Briggs, etc.
• An agenda (even if it’s not documented) that you follow
• Language to handle objections
• Knowing when to close the sale
• The ability to recognize needs the prospect doesn’t know that they have
• Building rapport
• Knowing your products and how they fit your prospect’s needs

This is just a small list of all the skills and techniques you’ve honed over the years. It’s almost impossible to ask someone to watch you and to be able to repeat what you do. That would be like asking you to follow Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, or LeBron James around for a day and then repeat what they do. Will you pick up on a few tips and tricks? Maybe, but you won’t be able to do what they do.

If you’re looking to train someone in sales, chances are you’re good at what you do. You have a level of expertise that can’t be transferred to someone else without breaking it into small pieces. You must step outside of your role of “expert” and become a “coach.” This doesn’t mean it will take years to train someone in sales. With the right training and onboarding program you should be able to train someone quickly and efficiently. If you want to know more, contact us about our Inspired Action Series: Building Sales Skills that Get to Yes.

In the meantime, consider these two training tips to get started:

• Have your trainee create flashcards. They can be a mix of product knowledge, sales objections, and even questions a prospect might ask. You never know when a prospect will ask a question or throw out an objection so it’s important to mix these up. Take just 20 minutes a day to go through these with your trainee and have them practice them during self-study. This helps build confidence and language.
   
• Use dreaded, but effective, audits. When possible, record your trainee. Either in calls or meetings with prospects or in training. Spend an hour a week listening and providing feedback. When your trainee hears themselves and gets instant feedback on small techniques like pace, tone, etc., they will learn much quicker than to simply repeat what you do.

Unless you want to burn yourself out, the best way to grow your business is to bring in others that sell. By breaking your sales training into small digestible pieces your new employee can master them quickly and demonstrate their new abilities to you. Small successes will give them confidence and when they master the essential basics they will begin to achieve success. The quicker they achieve success the more confident they become and the quicker your business grows!