We should have trainings which help us think

Last week I wrote an article (and recorded a podcast) about product training, trying to approach the topic from a different point of view.

In fact, I suggested some questions that could be added to the process of training creation so that sales people can elevate the conversation, taking it to a more strategic level.

 

Today I’ll focus instead on a different topic, related to the essence of sales training – or, to be more correct, the true value of sales training.

In other words, what should sales people get from sales training?

What is really valuable to them considering the work they do?

The reason I focus on this topic is because we have all seen the exponential growth of online courses in recent years.

For any discipline/topic, there are lot of online courses which  differ in length and topics covered, some of them certified and some not.

 

For our purposes let’s consider sales, our profession (or the profession of most readers): depending on what you want to learn (Prospecting, Negotiation, Presentation etc.) there are thousands of resources to study.

What I have noticed however is that as the number of available courses has increased as much as their ‘tactical’ posture: perhaps in an effort to do more than others and provide more content, many authors have been too detailed.

 

In fact many of them have specified task by task the behaviour to have, what to do, what to say and what to write achieving a strange result: that of the magic formula.

In other words, they have created training programs by which if you use that script, talk to that person, use that question, use LinkedIn in that way, you will definitely sell.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the reality is really different from what is projected in these courses: sales is subject to many variables, and few things are certain.

In fact it’s one thing to use a methodology or a framework but it’s quite another to know exactly what to do in a hypothetical situation, running the risk of exposing ourselves to variability that we don’t how to handle.

This is precisely why anyone producing online courses should adopt a different method.

 

Instead of focusing on the techniques to be learned, we should give the salesperson the tools to elevate his or her work to the next level.

In other words, we should give her the tools to think about her work.

In fact, we should devote ourselves to training that helps her to think about the situation she is facing (Negotiation, Prospecting, Presentation or anything else) by giving her the skills to evaluate it, analyse it and to develop executable plans.

Alternatively, we will always settle for training that looks good on paper (or better said, looks good on video) but don’t work in reality.