Reading last week's column, you probably gained a renewed respect for the economics of the sales process, and how important it is to maximize the efficiency and selling time of every interactive ad sales person on your team.
Reading last week’s column, you probably gained a renewed respect for the economics of the sales process, and how important it is to maximize the efficiency and selling time of every interactive ad sales person on your team. Their time really is your company’s money.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked here about increasing efficiency, an important first step to improving your team’s ability to generate revenue. But any such discussion is incomplete without a mention of increasing sales effectiveness.
What’s effectiveness? The ability to close accounts and keep them sold, lower call-to-close ratios, get through to decision-makers more quickly, increase average order size, and a whole host of other measures that increase profitability and revenues.
Sales effectiveness improves in direct proportion to the level of training afforded to any sales staff. Sure, raw talent and brains contribute to strong sales results. But every salesperson — from the very junior to the most experienced — can benefit from some level of additional training. Perfection is not an achievable goal in selling: There is always, in every one of us, room for growth.
Here’s the disclaimer: I’m biased. Not only am I personally a huge believer in regular, ongoing sales training, but my firm, J.M.Ryan & Associates, provides sales training to lots of web-based businesses. (We would love to tell you all about what we can do for you. But, you won’t get a commercial for our training courses here.)
What you will get are a set of reasons to provide regular sales training in your sales and sales management teams no matter how senior your staff, how hard it is to free up the time, or whether you hire an outside trainer or run the program internally.
Mastery is a process, not an end point. It requires years of work, both in front of clients, and in a safe space away from your marketplace. In the field and in the classroom, training should be a significant part of any sales management’s agenda.
