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Earlier this year a MANA member reaffirmed the long-held belief of this association that reps continually seek the training needed to succeed when he said, “As the rep considers the task being assigned, the hope is that you have really good principals in those situations where you don’t necessarily have the skill set to perform the function. Your message to the manufacturer should be that ‘We really believe in this but we need your help in terms of training.’ The training in question could be provided through your principal’s internal personnel. The best situation would be that your principals would provide the assistance needed to master a given skill set.”

If nothing else, the preceding words are a perfect example showing how hungry the typical rep firm is for ongoing training — both sales and product-specific training. But here’s the problem: many sales training professionals agree that one of the major factors contributing to the lack of success in a sales training program is the lack of regular, consistent training. The fact remains that training that is conducted when there isn’t anything else to do is virtually doomed to be — at best, and most likely — totally ineffective. Participants in such programs don’t view training as a growth tool, rather they see it as a remedial tool. The lack of tangible results shows that this isn’t the best way to view training.

The undeniable truth is that most agents have more on their minds than training, especially when working in a challenging sales environment. They are making that extra call and continuing to do cold-call prospecting as a way to keep up their numbers. But if an agency has an established training program in place and they really stick with it, they’ll soon see training for what it really is — an ongoing process, not some sort of a quick fix for a sales slump. And this process we refer to isn’t just for the big guys. A planned and ongoing training program is just as important for the smallest agency as it is for any-size company. In the end, what counts is first setting goals for the program, and second, developing a program and sticking to it.

What follows are some tips on how to establish an effective training program for your agency.

Evaluate the Makeup of the Organization’s Sales Team

A valuable first step in this process is to determine and evaluate the makeup of an organization’s sales team. Basically there are four types of sales professionals:

1. Performers — These are the natural-born top producers. They have large egos, are emotional, intuitive, passionate, competitive, extroverted and impatient. Performers don’t learn in training sessions, they learn by doing.
2. Professionals — These people are also top producers, but on top of that they are even-tempered, analytical, logical, and quietly competitive. They thrive in a classroom setting.
3. Caretakers — “Those in a comfort zone” is a label that can be affixed to these people. Although they might show signs of brilliance, they are inconsistent or mediocre producers. On the positive side, they might just be sleeping performers or professionals, depending upon their personalities.
4. Searchers — Individuals in this category probably got into sales because they perceived it as an easy career path. Compounding that error, however, they don’t do what it takes to be successful because it’s too painful.

Identify the Attributes of a Superstar Salesperson

What is it that the perfect salesperson or rep does that makes them so successful? What are their characteristics? What are their strengths and what qualities do they possess?

While most training is focused on product knowledge, it’s important to get specific to your industry and seek items such as solid work ethic, superb presentation skills, and the ability to build relationships. Define passion and goal setting.

Evaluate Each Salesperson’s Skills and Behavior Against the Best Identified Practices

Have each salesperson rank themselves and each other on a scale of one to five (from weak to strong) against the “perfect rep.” Next, have the sales manager rank each one in the same manner. Finally, put all the scores together and come to an agreement on each rep’s ranking in each category. Gaining agreement may have to come in an individual meeting between manager and rep.

Create a Path to Successful Performance

Once each individual’s strengths and weaknesses have been identified and rated according to the ideal, it then becomes possible to customize each person’s training path. Individuals should be trained in their weak areas and their strengths should be leveraged to help the effort. It’s important to make sure ongoing and consistent weekly or monthly follow-up takes place.

Implement Change

There’s no question that it can be difficult to get everyone on board in such a process, but if the first four steps are completed successfully, the percentage of committed salespeople will then skyrocket.

When motivation and commitment are strong, a Caretaker can become a Performer or a Professional depending upon their personality. Professionals can begin to take more risks in their selling game, thus opening up new opportunities. Performers can learn to balance their emotions and spend more time in the selling zone.

Behavior and Skills

A final thought on the subject of training involves the relationship of behavior and skills. While both go hand-in-hand, a salesperson may demonstrate having the required skills in a classroom or training situation, but then when a real sales call presents itself, it’s an entirely different situation.

As a result, any training program should include some system of feedback for all involved. The trainer and the trainee should know of progress and lack of it. This isn’t done for punitive purposes, but rather to gauge the pace and approach for future training.

Behavior is really a system of good and effective habits on the part of the person being trained. Good skills include the ability to get and schedule appointments. The ability to schedule calls close enough so that there is no lost time, but not enough so that the person will be late for succeeding calls. Other good habits include the ability to understand a customer’s problems and to present the products that will do something to solve the problem. And perhaps most important is the ability to cover a territory effectively. We’re not talking about the simple act of understanding and working the geography, although that is important. But we are talking about all aspects of territory management which includes the ability to make good judgement calls when planning a day, week, month or even a year.

Keeping a training program on track is not easy in a sales agency. When business is good, you don’t want to waste the time doing training because there are orders to be raked in. When business is poor, there’s a lot of scouting and bird-dogging that has to be done to bring in the needed cash. In other words, there are always reasons why you should skip a training session. Don’t do it. Doing training, and doing it regularly means that you can handle the good and bad times with little or no panic. It means that you seldom have to scrounge around for ways to get business.

Thankfully there are plenty of educational opportunities that are provided by MANA. Even the quickest visit to the MANA website (MANAonline.org) provides a comprehensive menu of educational programs, publications and teleforums, including everything from “Learning to Sell Professionally,” “Working Effectively With International Principals,” “Developing/Pioneering New Markets” and much more. On top of what MANA offers, there are many other education and training tools available from industry-specific rep associations such as AIM/R, ERA, HDMRC, IHRA, ISA, NEMRA, NMRA, PTRA.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].