Universal sales Trainings have been used by major companies to improve the performance of the sales teams, also to make sure they all speak the same language. This has a lot of benefits since it means that the majority of the salesforce will be focusing on the same targets which can be set as priority by the management team. However, as it normally happens with generic trainings, this method is efficient to determine the “what” is needed and to measure it properly, but it is not as effective on the “how” to make it, since that maybe very specific to the market, especially in a B2B environment.
To be specific about it, an example helps to clarify the statement made above. Many companies in the world have adopted two specific sales Trainings that are very well accepted and highly helpful. Miller Heimann’s multiple Training programs and Neil Rackham’s SPIN selling. Two examples of Miller Heimann’s excellent methods are Strategic Selling and Conceptual selling. Both focus on the added value of the solutions provided to the customer and how to unlock different challenging situations during a long term selling opportunity. The marvelous thing about this method is how simple it can be adopted and understood by the staff. A similar statement can be made for SPIN selling, a method that is focusing also on adding enough value but more on the conversation style and how to avoid objections instead of handling them. The problems around these trainings is not relared to their content or veracity of efficiency, it is more related to the efforts to make them also effective for the workforce, on the implementation and follow up. The worst outcome of the training would be a “forgotten” one after 1-2 months of the training.
The programs mentioned above are not ideal for all types of markets and products, but they can be implemented in many. The task for managers and founders is not really to pick the absolute best training program or to spend millions of dollars on them, but to make sure that they are well suited to the staff, market, company situation, product or service, etc. The suitability will normally not be offered by the Creator of the training, especially not for small companies and a consultant will probably cost what is worth, meaning that to make the investment will not be easy to decide.
What is the alternative to small companies?
Unless the founder or the management team have a great business education and experience in sales, it will be difficult for them to enable the adoption of a sales training on their own. Less likely will be easy for a leader in sales that is not proven yet and is learning on his/her own how to generate customers and market demand.
The alternatives here are simple: the company decides to hire a senior leader in the commercial department to take care of such adoption and execution or it hires a consultant to take care of that. Other alternatives are through the board or equity options for leaders in the market that are willing to help. The advantages of the latter is the lack of confidence on a stranger, which can be mitigated by working on specific goals that make the vesting of equity conditional.
School of robotic sales
Is there a school where salespeople can go to learn about selling robots? Do robots sell themselves? Not yet. The debate if that will be ever possible is not on the scope of this article. However the robots need to be sold and adoption needs to happen. The reasons for the need of this adoption are many and the most important is: aging population. A sales training about added value makes especially sense for this market since the adoption of robotics goes slower than expected. Many founders and startup managers believe that this slow progress is related to the lack of understanding/believe of the C-suite on the reality of the issue or the value of the solution.
Therefore Humanoids exist. Besides being multipurpose robots being able to adapt themselves to many situations and applications, they look like humans, making humans more suited to believe and trust on the solution.
If the proper sales training would be provided to the salesforce in charge of adding enough value to applied robotics or other kinds of general purpose robotics, humanoids might not have the hype they have nowadays.
