Sales Team Training Needs Analysis
All training begins with a transfer of knowledge. Through assimilation, understanding, practice and refinement, knowledge is converted into skill. Without a solid understanding of the sales process, it isn’t possible to develop good selling skills.
Flawed or non-existent knowledge results in poor skills and a below-par performance. That’s why we utilise the Sales Success Profile (SSP) selling skills questionnaire to identify those parts of the sales process individuals understand well and those parts where their knowledge is lacking. The questionnaire provides an excellent short cut to identifying training needs that can be verified absolutely by in-field assessment.
This information enables us to develop bespoke training and coaching to meet the specific needs of each member of a client’s sales team. By avoiding the provision of unnecessary or irrelevant training we can deliver the maximum benefit to a client from any given level of training investment.
Another way of using SSP to maximise the return from your training budget is to gauge if training will be of any benefit to your low performers. Poor performers with high SSP scores clearly understand the sales process but cannot be putting that knowledge into practice. Therefore, it is doubtful additional training will prove beneficial and any time and money spent on training is likely to be wasted. One needs to look for reasons for a below-par performance other than lack of training. Most likely these will be found amongst the ‘Will Do’ characteristics that are largely personality-based. |