If one allows, training can be a constant in our business. In fact the business of agency sales is a non-stop learning environment. We have opportunities for learning from our principals, our customers, our colleagues and our associations like MANA. As with everything, though, we can do better. Together we’ll figure out how to do just that; how to improve, how to grow and ultimately, how to prosper. If one is open to the opportunities surrounding him or her, the business of agency sales can offer a non-stop learning environment resulting in an improved professional image.
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Principals are often willing to train us in their processes, capabilities and on occasion, sales techniques, time management and methods. Principal training sessions have varied widely from an in-person, PowerPoint lecture-type presentation, to hands-on learning experiences, to Internet- and phone-connected learning. The various types of training from principals have often yielded good results and usually enabled us to service our mutual customers and represent our valued vendors more professionally. Both large and small groups have been hosted by our principals.
Even our customers have trained us. They’ve invested in us in an effort to provide us with a better understanding of their needs, processes, cost-saving quality initiatives, electronic communications needs and logistics requirements. All have helped us to grow closer relationships with our customers while enabling us to offer higher levels of value-added services.
The bulk of our agency’s training in the last decade has been provided internally. We’ve worked on techniques and methods. We hope that this training will enable us to make constant changes and allow our agency to keep up with an ever-changing playing field. We’ve worked with coaches both locally and at a distance. Recently, our agency took advantage of a WAMA-hosted three-day Certified Sales Professional (CSP) training course and sent two of our salespeople, who returned renewed and with a higher level of commitment and energy.
If one believes that training should be constant, then an agency should evaluate what works best for them and then proceed. But be careful: training can be very expensive. However, good training need not always be expensive. MANA provides excellent free teleforum-based training for its members on a regular basis. I highly recommend attending these free, call-in training sessions. Attend a few and judge for yourself if that type of learning works for your agency. Registration will also provide you with an electronic link to listen in at a later date to review ideas or to listen in to the recorded presentation if the original time was inconvenient. If just one or two new ideas or techniques appeal to you, then you found a terrific membership value with this free, MANA-provided benefit.
As a group, however, I believe that all sales reps can do a better job of training our customers and principals alike. In order to survive in a constantly changing marketplace, we all must help to spread information on our method of doing business while providing consistently professional services. This is not a new or unique idea. I’m lucky to be active in our local MANA Chapter. My colleagues here in the metro New York/New Jersey area believe that we must immediately work together and in concert to develop a marketing effort that promotes our method of sales. We’ve discussed various ideas and tools that could help this endeavor. We will continue to fine-tune the idea and hope to be able to follow up on it at the national level.
We invest in training with the hope that our efforts will make us better professionals and yield returns long into the future for our principals, our customers and our agency alike.
