Can anyone supply outline materials for basic sells training. In addition provide a range of practical exercises to help win over hearts and minds of cynical sales professionals. What advise would you provide to aid a succesful 2 day workshop?
Andy Maggs
3 Responses
Facilitation skills + psychology information!!
Dear Andy,
As both an employed sales trainer and a training consultant I have worked with many audiences of the type you mention and whilst they can be a challenging I find they can also be fairly well won over. I use two “tricks” – 1. a more facilitative approach to draw from the delegates what they they already know and 2. Some psychological profiling, which will be new to the delegates – for example social styles/ NLP – then use this to link to basic stuff like questionning / listening/ building rapport etc. Good luck!
Sales Training for your wine people
Hi Andy
We deliver sales skill programmes at various levels. It sounds as though you are looking for something along the lines of Selling Basics which has been designed to ensure that new entrants to the sales discipline operate with confidence in todays competitive markets. However many of our clients have used this particular programme as a very useful refresher for experienced sales people who have never had the benefit of formal training.
How to combat cyniciscm amongst your people? .. Make sure they are totally involved in the design of the programme and that their opinions are valid but you may need an experienced facilitator to help in this area. We would be pleased to help.
Marianne Bennett
Ansa Business Development
Tel 01405 704482
Customize existing training materials
Andy:
I am currently working on a project quite similar to your own. I am designing training specifically targeting sales teams also in the bev/al business.
The most effective training I have found for wine sales people is one which is created for them and by them. Unfortunately, this is a lot of work on your part.
There are plenty of good training books, seminars and articles, on selling but most wine sales people claim that most of the material doesn’t pertain to them… “selling wine is not like selling computers, or services…”… These training tools are a good place to start to find the basics. One of the better ones for your business may be Sales Ability by Porter Henry.
Ultimately, you need to interview your very best sales people to understand how they sell. Then incorporate their knowledge into the training. It doesn’t happen overnight. Customizing existing sales material takes time and effort, but it is the most effective. It also helps if the trainer has similar background and experience in sales.
Good luck