THE MANAGEMENT OF SALES

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

WHAT IS SALES TRAINING?

Sales training is the effort an employer puts
forth to provide sales people job-related
culture, skills, knowledge, and attitudes that
should result in improved performance in the
selling environments.

PURPOSES OF SALES TRAINING

Increasing customer satisfaction.
Helping salespeople become managers.
Orienting new salespeople to the job.
Improving knowledge in areas such as
product, company, competitors, or selling
skills.
Lowering absenteeism and turnover.
Positively influencing attitudes in such areas
as
job satisfaction.

PURPOSES OF SALES TRAINING

continued

Lowering selling costs.

Informing salespeople.
Obtaining feedback from salespeople.
Increasing sales in a particular product or
customer category.

MANAGING THE SALES TRAINING PROCESS

The sales training process consists of three phases.
1. ASSESS SALES TRAINING NEEDS
The purpose is to understand the specific goals of training for
individual salespeople, such as improving product
knowledge, selling techniques, or relationship building.
Sales managers should assess the training needs for both:
newly hired sales trainees and existing salespeople.
For example: new salespeople may need training in sales
techniques, whereas experienced or existing salespeople
could need training in negotiating skills.
Assess sales
training needs

Design &
execute sales
training
programme

Evaluation and
reinforcement of
sales training
programme

Methods used for assessing training

needs

Sales managers observation

Sales force survey
Customer survey
Performance testing
Job description
Sales force audit

2. DESIGN AND EXECUTE SALES TRAINING PROGRAMME (STP)

Popularly known as A-C-M-E-E

Approach to sales training

Aims

Content

Methods

Execution

(WHY?)

(WHAT ?)

(HOW ?)

(WHO,WHEN,WHER
E, ?)

Evaluation

(A)Designing the STP

1. Aims of STP
-- increase sales productivity
--increase sales profits,
--lower sales force turnover rate
--improve customer relations
--introduce new products, markets, & promotional program
--improve teamwork and co-operative efforts.

2. Content of STP
Usually the content of the training programme for new
salespeople for initial training include:
1. Company knowledge
2. Product knowledge
3. Customer knowledge
4. Competitor knowledge
5. Selling skills or sales techniques
6. Negotiating skill
7. Sales presentation skills
8. Team-selling skills
9. Time and territory management skills etc.

3. Sales training methods

1. Lectures
2. Demonstrations
3. Group Discussion
4. Role Playing
5. Case Studies
6. Simulation games
7. On-the-job training
8. Absorption training/self study

Lectures
This method is used to provide more information in a
short time to a large number of participants.
Company information, customer and competitive
information and a basic outline of a subject can be
presented by the lecture method.

Demonstration
Demonstration is appropriate for conveying information
on topics such as new products and selling techniques.
Demonstrating how a new product works and its uses
is effective, much more so than lecturing on the same
material.

Group Discussion
It is one in which the trainer leads the discussion and
encourages participation from the sales persons.

Role Playing
Role play is innovative method of sales training used by
many organizations for training their sales forces. Role play
tries to extend the sales trainees experience by presenting
them with a commonly encountered situation and asks them
to place themselves in the role of the parties involved and
then act out the way in which the circumstances might
reach an appropriate conclusion through the play.
The role playing is videotaped or performed live for a group
of trainee observers, who then do critical assessment of the
role play.
This method is most frequently associated with
interpersonal skills such as interviewing, negotiating, and
creative selling, and can be extended to cover any sales
situation.
Role playing is learning by doing.

Case Studies
A case study method is used to present the sales trainees
with a real-life business situation and provide a
considerable amount of background information from which
they are either expected to analyze and compute the
outcome of a series of events or provide a solution to
specific problems.
Trainees discussing a case should identify the issue (s),
Marshall the relevant facts, devise specific alternatives, and
choose the one most appropriate. Most trainers believe that
securing a thorough grasp of the problem situation is more
essential to learning than the rapid production of solutions.
To derive maximum benefit from case discussion, each
session should conclude with the drawing of generalizations
on lessons learned.

Simulation Games
This method resembles role playing, uses highly
structured contrived situations, based on reality, in
which players assume decision-making roles through
successive rounds of play.
Trainees make decisions on sales forecast, pricing,
advertising, size of orders and the like. Thereafter the
trainees are given feedback regarding the outcomes of
their decisions.
Business games generate a lot of enthusiasm due to
competitive game playing. However, they do take a lot
of time for generating decisions and from making the
whole process effective.

On-the-job training
Also called the coach-and-pupil method. In this training
method, the new salesperson accompanies the senior
salesperson for some period of time to observe the
senior making several sales calls, including sales
presentations, overcoming customer objections and
closing sales. Later the new salesperson makes calls,
initially on easier customers, while the senior
salesperson or supervisor observes and coaches.
This method places the sales trainee or the new
salesperson in a more realistic sales situation than any
of the other methods.
Mentoring and In Job rotation are the most popular
on-the-job training method.

Absorption training / self study

Absorption training is done through supplying product
manuals, books, articles, and CD-ROMs to salespeople,
who read or absorb these materials without immediate
questioning and feedback.
This method is useful to introduce basic materials to be
covered in more detail at a later date or to strengthen
previous training.
Audio cassettes is one best form of self study sales
training method.

4. Execution or Organization for sales training

The Execution step of ACMEE involves few vital
organizational decisions as:
1. Who will be the trainees?
--New and existing salespeople
--intermediaries
--sales managers
2. Who will conduct the training?
--Line sales personnel
--corporate staff trainers
--outside training specialists

Cont..

3. When should the training take place?

Training begins the first day of work.

It continues throughout the career.

Sales meetings serve as important training

methods.

4. Where will the training site be ?

(a)Centralized training: training programs at the
central offices, or at the manufacturing plant etc.
centralized training centers have excellent
facilities and equipment as well as highly skilled
people to teach.

(a)Decentralized training: it takes place at branch or

regional offices as a part of sales force
instruction, or on-the-job training.

(B) Execution of the sales training program

Execution or implementation of a sales training program
is the most complicated part of the sales training process. It
involves, preparation of training time table, arranging internal
and external trainers, making travel arrangements of
participants, arranging the conference hall and teaching aids
etc.
The person responsible for the entire sales training process is
usually the sales training manager or the sales trainer, who
have a vision, energy, and persistence to plan or design
training program on both short-term and long-term basis.

3. EVALUATION OF SALES TRAINING

PROGRAMME
The second E in (A-C-M-E-E) is evaluation step which
focuses upon measuring sales training program
effectiveness.
While evaluating, the company must decide what outcomes
will be measured, how these outcomes will be measured,
and when to measure these outcomes. These outcomes/
components fall into the following four categories:

Steps in the Evaluation

Determine what should be measured.

Determine the information collection method.

Determine the measurement methods

Analyze the data, determine the results, and draw

conclusions for making recommendations.

WHAT SHOULD BE MEASURED?

Components to measure:
Reactions
Learning
Behavior
OTJ results

What should be the information

collection method?
1. Questionnaires
2. Interviews
3. Tests
4. Observation
5. Company data

When should be the measurement

methods?
1. After only
2. Before/after
3. Before/after with control group

Table: Framework for Sales Training Evaluation

Outcomes to
Measure

What to
measure?
(specific items to
measure)

How to measure? When to measure

(Data collection
(Information
methods used)
measurement
methods used)

Reactions:Training objective
achieved?
Participants
perceptions/reactions Training worthwhile?

Questionnaires
Interviews

After the training

Learning:Knowledge, skills or
attitudes learnt

Knowledge
Skills or
Attitudes

Tests
Interviews

After the training

tests/interviews
Before & after test

Behaviour:Change in behaviour

Trainees change of
behaviour

Observation by
supervisor/
customers
Self-assessment by
trainees

After training, over

one year

Results:Performance results;
benefits more than
cost of training?

Sales
Profits
Customer
satisfaction

Company data
Managerial
judgment
Market survey

After training,
quarterly , yearly