Sales training

1. Gopal Thapa
Nepal Commerce Campus

2.  Training of salesmen is essential to make them skilled.
 Just as a gifted athlete needs coaching and practice to
perform at his best, similarly a sales person also
requires proper training and development.
 After selection, personnel should be given formal
training which includes planned programmes complete
with schedules, lesson plans, visual aids, other teaching
devices and systematic reviews and evaluation.
 Informal training involves the continuous development
of sales people

3.  It is a prime responsibility of the supervisor and includes
working with sales people, finding their activities and
advising them on improvements that should be made.
 It is also known as field coaching.
 Training varies with the sales person's career cycle Sales
persons have varied backgrounds, experience levels,
learning abilities, etc. and therefore have their own training
needs.
 Another factor deciding the type of training is the stage of
the career of the sales person.

4.  Sales person's career cycle is a conceptual
framework which describes the stages through
which a sales person passes in his career cycle.
 There are four basic stages of this cycle.
1. Preparation
2. Development
3. Maturity
4. Decline

5.  For the sales person the emphasis should be on
orientation and training.
 He should know about the environment in which he
has to function and given information about the
company and the products he has to sell.
 Selling instructions and basic selling techniques are all
important at this stage.
 Sometimes experienced sales persons new to the
company must also be acquainted with the policies and
practices of the company.

6.  This is the second stage when the salesman
becomes productive.
 He should be supervised and provided field
coaching.
 He should be able to identify the problems and be
kept away from acquiring bad habits.

7.  In maturity stage, the productivity of the sales person levels
off.
 He works "smarter than harder".
 Sometimes refresher training is required to be given to him
to retrain and acquaint him with new concepts and
techniques.
 They can also be given new challenges and transferred to
new areas, new territories or can be promoted to more
responsible positions.
 Lack of relevant training hampers growth and development

8.  In this stage the sales person is a problem for the
management.
 A lot of motivational retraining is required.
 The productivity of the salesman decreases
considerably and is difficult to avert.
 Training imparted at proper time develops right
working habits and offsets the effect of
 detraining.

9.  Defining the specific and general aims of a
training program is the first step in training.
 General aims are translated into specific aims
phrased in operational terms.
 These can be defined in two ways:
 1. Identify initial training needs.
 2. Continuing sales training programs.

10.  The initial training needs of sales training
program can be identified by the analysis of three
main factors.
 Job Specification
 Trainee's Background and Experience
 Sales-related Marketing Policies

11.  The identification of continuing sales training
needs means to identify training needs of
experienced sales personnel which are felt due to
changes in market, product, marketing policies,
procedures, organization and even in the sales
personnel itself.

12.  The selection of appropriate training method for a
training program depends on the content of
training.
 Few of the important and appropriate methods of
sales training are:
 lecture, conference, demonstration, replaying,
case-discussion, impromptu discussion, gaming,
on-thejob training, programmed learning,
correspondence courses.

13.  Lecture is the method of learning through
instructions from trainer to trainee.
 Trainees mainly watch and listen, although some
versions of lecturing permit questions.

14.  Advantages
 It is more economical as compared to other methods.
 It is the only method to cover the desired training content if initial sales
training is brief.
 It is the only practical way to handle instructions when the training group
is too large
 but it can also provide training appropriately to smaller training groups
through summary of major topics.
 Disadvantages
 1. Teaching is emphasized more than learning.
 2. Only one-way communication between trainer and trainee prevails

15.  The personal conference is an unstructured and
informal method.
 It varies with the personalities of the trainer and
the trainee and the topics discussed.
 The trainer and trainee jointly analyze problems
such as effective use of selling time, route planning
and call scheduling and also handling unusual
selling problems.

16.  The demonstration method of training is where
sales managers plan and carry out a real selling
call on a customer or prospect with the salesmen
they are training present as silent observers.
 The method is most appropriately used for
training new salesmen.

17.  In this method first the trainer describes the
situations and different personalities involved.
 Then the trainee is asked to play the role of those
personalities in different situations.
 In the end both the trainer and trainee appraise
each player's effectiveness and suggest how
performance of each has been improved.
 Thus, role playing can be defined as "a method of
human interaction which involves realistic
behaviour in an imaginary situation".

18.  Learning by doing is emphasized.
 Human sensitivity and interactions are stressed.
 The knowledge of results is immediate.
 Trainee interest and involvement tend to be high.
 Trainees learn to accept criticism from others and the group
soon recognizes that sound suggestions benefit everyone.
 Role player's practice introspection through participating in
the appraisal of their own performances.
 Role playing provides chance to learn valuable tricks and gain
acting experience.

19.  The case is a set of data (real or fictional, written
or oral).
 Miniature description and summary of such data
presents issues and problems calling for solutions
or action on the part of trainee.
 Example: When the trainees are given cases to
analyze, they are asked to identify the problem
and to recommend tentative solutions through
group discussions.

20.  This method is somewhat similar to role playing
with a unique feature that it uses highly structured
and contrived situations based on reality and
players receive information feedback.
 Advantages
 Participants learn easily because they involve themselves in
game play.
 Players develop skills in identifying key factors influencing
decisions.
 Games have built-in information feedback features.

21.  Some minimum amount of time is required for
playing, usually, three to four hours, which is not
sufficient to provide desired learning experience.
 Since the game designs are based on ordinary
decision making process their rules often prevent
play on unusual or novel approaches.
 Poorly designed games may actually hinder
instead of helping.

22.  In this the salesmen are coached and instructed by skilled co-workers or by
supervisors or by the special training instructor.
 They learn the job by personal observation and practice as well as
occasionally handling it.
 This method involves three steps. First, the coach who is an experienced
sales person begins by
 describing particular selling situations, explaining various techniques and
approaches.
 Next, accompanied by pupil, the coach makes actual sales call, discussing
each with the trainee afterward.
 Then, under coach supervision trainee makes sales calls, each one being
followed by discussion and appraisal.

23.  Programmed instruction involves a sequence of steps which are
often set up through the central panel of an electronic computer as a
guide in the performance of a desired operation or service of
operation.
 It involves breaking down information into meaningful units and
then arranging these in a proper way to form a logical and
sequential learning program or package for use with the machine.
 But programmed instructions have not been widely adopted for
sales training due to their high cost of operation and other
constraints.
 It is most appropriate as an interim training method when
trainees are scattered geographically but are assembled
periodically for lectures, seminars, role playing and other
instructions.

24.  Execution is the fourth step of the A-C-M-E-E
approach of sales training.
 It involves the following four key decisions:
 Who will be the trainees?
 Who will be the trainers?
 When will the training take place?
 Where will the training site be?

25.  The general criteria to identify trainees are:
 Reward for good performance.
 Punishment for poor performance.
 Convenience of trainee and trainer.
 Seniority: The greater the seniority, the greater opportunity for added
training.

26.  The trainers who impart training during different training phases are:
 Initial Sales Training: If the initial sales training is a line function then
training is assigned to top sales executive but if it is a staff function then
the responsibility of initial sales training is given to personnel director.
 Continuing Sales Training: Responsibility for continuing sales training
resides with the top sales executive..
 Sales Training Staff: In large organizations the sales training director
reports to the top sale executive. The director conducts some training by
himself and the rest is given on decentralized basis by district sales
managers.
 In small organizations top sale executives have assistant sales managers or
district managers to impart the training.
 Outside Experts: Sometimes outside experts are also hired to conduct
portions of sales
 training programs relating to sales techniques like selling by telephone,
prospecting, etc.

27. Initial Sales Training Programs:
 Timing for initial sales training programs depends upon the number of
new personnel trained each year and this in turn depends upon the size of
the sales force, sales personnel, turnover and management plans for
changing sales force size.
Continuing Sales Training Program:
 The principle of an effective sales training Program is that learning must
be continuous-new information must be assimilated and other concepts
modified in the light of new developments.
 This requires that each sales person's training should continue as long as he
is on the job.

28.  Retraining helps in:
 (a) New refinements of selling techniques.
 (b) New product applications.
 (c) New customer problem.
 (d) New selling aids.
 (e) Overcoming the forgetting tendency of human
brain.

29.  Training programs are held either at centralised or
decentralized points.
 The centralized program generally provides better product
training but higher costs are incurred in bringing trainees to
the central point.
 But decentralized training has even more serious defects.
 It cannot be executed properly unless supervised by top
management.
 Hence, an adhoc basis for centralized and decentralized
training should be adopted by top management

30.  This is the last but not the least step of the training program.
 Evaluation involves the comparing of the training program's aim
with the results and measuring its impact on the sales person.
 There is no direct method of measuring the impact of training but
certain methods could provide indications whether the results are
positive or not.
 These are:
 Market share percentages
 Written Tests
 Observers which work with sales personnel.