June '18 Selling.2.YES

June 2018

Creating a learning culture (...three easy steps)!

A piece of research about how sellers learn on the job caught my eye recently when I read, from Hubspot, that sellers “attain their knowledge” first from peers/network (53%), then managers (45%), and finally team training (36%). This data may reveal as much about seller trust for their manager as it does about methods of learning that are perceived “best” for your revenue producers.

Yes, formal training programs – be it focused on product, process, skills training – are very important and should be carefully planned and executed by all sizes of B2B selling orgs. But, there are simple things companies can do to help create a positive learning culture that don’t require gobs of resources and management time. Too often sales leadership gets overly focused thinking about “training” while ongoing “learning” initiatives get ignored.

The Hubspot research is interesting, but it says to me that companies need to think carefully about how both “training” and “learning” are executed and achieved inside the sales team.

In lieu of setting up formal training, here are a few ideas that can still teach and inspire your sellers toward higher performance, and that’s okay, because not everything has to be taught in the classroom:

Practice. The most basic principle of skill development is rooted in the art of practice, yet most companies don’t set up or encourage “practice time”. (Do you think Steph Curry practices his long-range missiles once a month and then naturally shoots ‘lights out’ in games?) Where is it written that only managers should run “practice”? Practice time can be an informal group of sellers organizing themselves and role-playing for an upcoming pitch, or it can be a weekly meeting of objection handling role-plays run by senior sellers. Does your team practice enough? Why not? Managers don’t have time to run all the practices, so, encourage everyone to practice whenever and however they can! Group dynamics will create learning value in an organic manner. (Make sure management is running at least one formal session a week before letting everyone run loose and free by themselves with unsupervised practice!
Feedback loop. Do you think Brooks Koepke who just won his second consecutive US Open Golf Championship studies his swing through video play-back once in a while? Or perhaps ALL THE TIME? You can’t expect technical proficiency from your sellers if they’re not getting continual feedback, and while videotaping them might not be reasonable, suggest they secretly audiotape themselves when with customers so they can study themselves at a later time.
Self-study. Just because we’re not in skool no more don’t meen we shud stop stydying! Assign homework! When was the last time you distributed an article for everyone to read? There are TONS of articles, videos, and even BOOKS (remember those) that can help your team better learn selling skills. Create study clubs…better yet, create “learning clubs” that intensively examine topics and subjects; then, participants should report back to the sales org for all to learn. Make learning democratic and social…everyone loves to learn, and everyone loves to share.

As you noticed, none of the above requires a trip to the CFOs office to beg for funds. Most sales leaders get bogged down thinking that all “training” has to be formal and while, yes, some training elements must be highly structured, the above shows there are many ways to “stimulate” the brains of your sellers. It merely takes a slight amount of organization and planning.

I’ve created and participated in all kinds of training and learning programs - including the above “social training” ideas – and can attest there are many creative and cost-effective ways to help sellers learn. BUT, until you reach the “Super Bowl” of training methods – real-time role-plays through real selling scenarios - everything else is just “good stuff that helps”. (Personally, I don’t just want to be “good” and “helpful”…I want to be GREAT and I want to EXCEL.)

Tune in next month, we’ll examine that very sophisticated practice technique few have mastered: role-playing real situations.

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Selling.2.YES is the monthly newsletter published by Core 6 Management Advisors to enlighten, motivate and stimulate all of us sellers and sales managers on topics that need our attention.

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Selling.2.YES

June 2018

Creating a learning culture (...three easy steps)!

Selling.2.YES newsletter

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