Discovering effective sales training options and investing in them is one of the best ways to develop your sales staff and grow your company. However, given the multiple resources available in the marketplace, how do you select the right training vendor for you? Here are some tips that will help you decide.

Sales Training – Embrace the mindset within your company regarding sales training options. Retain outside sales training professionals to work with motivated home office staff. This serves as an excellent trial run for potential training firms you may want to use for your sales reps, while boosting learning and productivity in the home office.

"You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar"— If you have kids, you know what I mean. You have to run down the street with them, holding on, talking them through it, consoling them when they fall down and skin their knees and convincing them to get back up. Learning new skills in the business environment is the same. Sales Seminars are okay, even informative, but not very effective in instilling new learned behaviors and implementing those behaviors into the way your staff functions. It takes repetition and handholding. Research your sales training options and choose a vendor who offers:

• Sales Training Reinforcement sessions and, better still, coaching workshops and individual coaching.
• Sales Training Self-study homework and audiotape or CD reinforcement in addition to classroom reinforcement. Drive time can become learning time.

Go Live — Thanks to new technology, live sales training with website support is now one of the many sales training options available. Gathering geographically scattered sales staff for training classes can be cost-prohibitive. Rather than requiring reps to take one, two or three days out of their business schedules plus travel time, consider a "webinar." These 45-to 60-minute seminars delivered over the Internet can be very effective.

Sales Training Assessment — Serious training vendors provide testing mechanisms that score participants before, during and after training to measure improvement. Ask your vendor what type of testing is offered before the training begins.

Sales Training Repeatable Skill — Many salespeople operate by their gut; they work off of the prospect’s responses, relying on their people skills to sell. That might be fine for some prospects, but what about those with whom the salesperson just doesn’t "click?" Review all the sales training options available to you and find a training vendor with a systematic approach to selling, one who will connect—and close the sale—even when his "gut" doesn’t.

Also, make sure this systematic sales training approach goes beyond just techniques. Attitude is equally crucial. Your sales training vendor should teach discipline and strategies that lead to consistent and effective sales behavior – every day.

"To train or not to train?" That‘s an easy one! Investing in your sales people will bring a sizable return. Research your sales training options and select a sales training vendor—a sales training partner who addresses the issues laid out here. Al Simon www.simonsayssell.net

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