Creating Training Programs for Sales People

Designing and creating training programs for sales people can be one of the most difficult (yet important) activities that business owners or C-Level executives ever have to partake in.

This post will examine some of the most common mistakes executives make when creating sales training programs, along with some “DO’s” and “DONT’s” you should keep in mind to ensure the success of your future sales team.

DON’T Get Overwhelmed. It’s easy to start feeling like there is so much to do with not enough time. Realize that the creation of this sales program does not have to be finished in a day or a week.

DON’T Reinvent The Wheel. There are thousands of companies that have already created training programs for sales people with phenomenal success. Why start from scratch when you can easily leverage the work already completed by sales masters?

DO Read! Why not pick up some Zig Ziglar? Or take another look at the legendary “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie? There is a gigantic wealth of knowledge at your fingertips, especially in this digital age. Harness the resources available to you.

DO Consult. As you’re designing your training program for sales people, take a lesson from the most successful sales organizations in the world, and create consultative sellers. What does it mean to be consultative? In a nutshell, it means asking meaningful, relevant questions, and listening more than you talk.

There’s a reason we have 2 ears and only 1 mouth.

DO Tweak. Just as it’s not possible to create a sales training program for your company overnight, it’s not going to be possible to absolutely nail it on the first time, either. We live in a world of hyper-fast change. Your business is changing at light speed as is that of your customers. This hyper change is inherently going to present itself in your company’s sales training.

DO Embrace Change. Realize that if you neglect to change, or if it has been a long time since your company has changed, you’re probably falling behind. Because the competition is changing so quickly, if you’re doing the same things that you were doing ten years ago, you can’t possibly expect the same results. Know that success comes to those who are most willing to embrace change.

These are some of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past 20 years I’ve been selling professionally. We will be releasing our complete “Sales Optimizer System” which will be tremendously valuable for anybody tasked with creating training programs for sales people.

If you’d like a free copy of the system to preview before its official release, or if you’d like help coming up with your company’s sales training program, contact Art Jacoby here and let us know what’s on your mind.

Other things you may be interested in:

Is your business destined for major success? Take the 90-second business assessment test and find out instantly!

Top small business consultants in Baltimore

Business consultant prices and how much you should be willing to pay

Using growth consultants to devise plans to grow

An overview of corporate growth strategies

Go back to the Business Growth Consultant homepage

Beyond Marketing and Sales Seminars

There are hundreds of free and paid marketing and sales seminars available online and offline. Most are not particularly valuable. So, how do you choose?

Welcome to the World of Marketing Seminars

“Buzz word, buzz word, buzz word!! Trendy, Trendy, trendy!! Learn it here and make lots of money!” Welcome to global marketing and sales pollution.

Common sense, business basics and hard work trump trendy marketing buzz words every time. Much of what’s presented as state-of-the-art marketing is either worthless drivel or plagiarism of concepts that have been around for years. If it looks too good to be true…Well, you know. More »

Get More From Individual Sales Coaching

As a career business growth consultant, I’ve provided individual sales coaching to more than 300 small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) around the U.S. It may not be a surprise to you that the vast majority of salespeople I’ve met do not excel at sales, don’t know what to do to improve, and yet do not seek individual sales coaching.

That’s a mistake. More »

Human Resources Management Coach

No matter who you are, you can benefit from coaching. The question is the type of coaching that you would be best for you and your company. This post covers three major types of coaches:

General Coaches
Human Resources Management Coaches
Business Strategy Coaches

What do you want from a Coach?

The title “Coach” is used by individuals with a very broad array of talents and experiences. It’s best to determine what your needs are before searching for a Coach that fits the needs of your firm. Take the time to list not only what’s pressing on your mind at the moment but also, the types of issues that you confront on an ongoing basis where a skilled other person might add value.

Here are some questions that you might ask yourself to determine what you need: More »

Advantages and Disadvantages of Succession Planning

Here’s an early career lesson I learned about some of the advantages and disadvantages of succession planning:

Many years ago I worked for a large privately held company whose number two executive was the presumed heir apparent for many years. Then, the aging founder and CEO had a change of heart despite very successful performance by that person and named his daughter to be the successor to run the firm. The company was then split into two large independent corporations with the number two person as CEO of a new entity that was no longer owned by the original firm.

Since then, I’ve learned other important lessons about the advantages and disadvantages of succession planning, which I am going to share with you here throughout the rest of this post, but first…

Quick Summary

Key Advantages

The advantages of succession planning include the opportunity to:

• Conduct a SWOT analysis of the business to determine its leadership needs now and in the coming years
• Develop a strategic Leadership Human Resource Plan that includes comprehensive position descriptions, needs analysis and plans to bridge the gaps
• Build relationships with and carefully study the performance and behavior of successors over a long period of time
• Provide a sense of direction, stability and expectations for all key stakeholders: employees, customers, shareholders and vendors
• Retain a critically important employee who might otherwise leave if not formally recognized as the successor

Key Disadvantages

It’s difficult to think that there might be disadvantages to succession planning but here are some things to consider:

• Appointing the wrong person can lead to a variety of problems that result in poorer company performance and turnover
• Pulling the trigger too quickly to appoint someone only to have a better candidate appear later on
• Engaging in succession planning when the business is immature may lead to erroneous conclusions about leadership needs
• A poorly conducted succession planning process will lead to poor decisions, disharmony and ultimately poor company performance as well

Let’s take a second to look a little closer at these key advantages and disadvantages of succession planning.

Advantages (Cont.)

The business SWOT analysis paints a picture of the opportunities and threats in the market, importantly including, what the future of the market looks like and what the special characteristics are that effective leaders will need.

The strategic Human Resource Plan is where the rubber meets the road for solving your leadership needs. It includes understanding your leadership needs, creating an organizational plan, developing comprehensive position descriptions to fill those needs and then comparing that to the experience and attributes of internal and external candidates. Internal successor candidates would then receive training to help them become the leaders they will be needed to be.

The ability to monitor the performance of internal candidates closely and external candidates to a lesser extent is a great advantage of succession planning. Generally speaking, the availability of more data regarding a person’s performance in a variety of situations, the better we can predict their success.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Succession Planning (Cont.) More »

Free SWOT Analysis Examples

Looking for some free SWOT analysis examples to use?

Well, depending on your purpose, the free examples may or may not be relevant to you. One of the most important reasons to analyze a market, a business or a project or process within the business is to come up with information that allows you to make the best possible decision.

Feel free to keep reading for some more details, or just check out some free SWOT analysis examples now.

What is a SWOT Analysis For?

A SWOT analysis–strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats-–is a very useful way to evaluate a variety of business issues. It’s a good method because it helps you take a disciplined approach to collecting and organizing information, weighing the information and making decisions based upon what you see. A SWOT analysis is also easy to share with others, such as your advisors, to see if they reach the same conclusions with the information. More »

SWOT Analysis of Tata Motors

Here’s how the following SWOT Analysis of Tata Motors came to be:

With the bailout of General Motors underway I’ve been doing some research on other automakers to see if there are any interesting stories out there. Tata Motors is a manufacturer that is relatively unknown in the U.S. yet has a compelling story. And a SWOT analysis of Tata Motors offers lessons for every business owner.

More than 800 million automobiles and light trucks are on the road worldwide with more than 70 million new vehicles sold in 2008. Tata Motors, founded in 1945, ranked 19th in global production with 798,265 vehicles. India, as a region, is experiencing one of the highest growth rates in the world.

Tata has been actively acquiring and joint venturing with other companies during the past five years. The purchase of Daewoo Commercial Vehicles (2004), a minority investment in Spanish bus and coach manufacturer Hispano Carrocera (2005), an alliance with Fiat, a joint venture with Brazilian bus and coach manufacturer Marcopolo and with Thailand’s Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant Company (2006).

2008 heralded two major events: the purchase of Britain’s icons Jaguar Land Rover and the launch of the Tata Nano, the “People’s Car” for 100,000 rupees or approximately $2,100. Seating 4, the Nano is a mere 10 feet long and has a 4 gallon fuel tank. These events have given Tata Motors its “15 seconds of fame” or … will we see more?

Here is my SWOT Analysis of Tata Motors

Strengths

Business Consultant Prices & How Much You Should Be Willing To Pay

Business consultant prices are something that come up a lot in my line of work, and they are important. But what’s more important than the price you pay is what you will be getting in return.

Investing in the assistance of outside advisors is a key decision for you. Your time is very valuable and you want to make sure that you get a high ROI.

The most important decision you’ll make is WHO to engage. And to make that best decision work for you, you want to approach it with a good understanding of business consultant prices and how to assess how much you should be willing to pay.

What determines the price?

As in most industries, business prices are determined by a number of factors, none more important than the reputation and track record of the consultant.

Generally speaking, if the track record is there and can be verified by satisfied customers who have been the recipient of tangible results, your ROI will be secure. If they’ve performed before in similar situations, there is a much higher probability that they can perform for you.

Other factors besides reputation and track record weigh heavily as well. Rates vary by

• Size of customer,
• Markets served,
• The degree of specialization,
• The potential value of the work and
• The marketability of the consultant.

Let’s take these factors determining business consultant prices one at a time.

Larger companies tend to pay higher consulting fees than smaller companies. The consulting firms that serve them have high marketing costs and overhead and therefore have a higher rate structure.

Certain markets allow higher rates and this is closely tied to the level of specialization. For example, heavily regulated industries such as financial institutions and technology generally prefer to work with consultants who have specialized in understanding their issues.

Specialization can also be a differentiator that rationalizes the price you should pay for business consulting services. For example, there is a strong demand for intergenerational consultants to help companies understand their multigenerational workers better in order to motivate and retain them.

The potential value of the work is a key determinant of price. If your potential gain from every additional sale is $100,000 profit, you will pay more for consulting advice that wins that business than another company who gains $100 from an additional customer.

Unfortunately, the ability of the consultant to market themselves is another key variable in determining price. I say unfortunately because ultimately what you care about is getting results, not in being wowed. Unless they are a pure genius who stands out dramatically from the crowd, consulting fees will be higher for those who market themselves well.

So, how much should you pay?

The key to making a good decision is to calculate the ROI on each consultant you interview and choose the one that delivers the highest ROI. You’ll have to make some assumptions to do this but that is the rigorous thought process that gets you the best result. Its not the business consultant prices in isolation that matters, it’s the RETURN on them that’s the key!

With a now thorough understanding of how prices are determined, ask the consultant to provide you with an ROI projection. A simple ROI calculation would be to take the total incremental earnings you will receive because of the assistance of the consultant and divide it by the total cost of the consultant.

A better calculation is to time-adjust and risk-adjust the rewards and the cost using a net present value calculation.

So, calculate your ROI on your consulting options, choose wisely and prosper!

Go from Business Consultant Prices back to the BusinessGrowthConsultant.com homepage

Finding Small Business Consultants in Baltimore

Local companies approach me frequently asking which small business consultants in Baltimore would be the best fit for their organization. This post aims to address most of the frequently asked questions involved in selecting a small business consulting firm and points out common roadblocks and pitfalls that can be easily avoided if you know what to look for.

What type of help does your company need most?

Perhaps the most important question to answer from the outset, whether you’re looking for small business consultants in Baltimore, Washington DC, Northern Virginia (or pretty much anywhere in the world, come to think of it) is what type of help you need. More »

A Far-Sighted Business Growth Strategy Will Help Your Future In A Recession

During periods of market slow down, the executive leadership of a business  is able to make choices about how they will react to the future, and the position where they would like to be once the economic down turn ease and the market begins to bounce back to what it was before.

By changing their perspective and strategy planning to have a long term perspective instead of realizing only the production of a short term positive uptick to the profit statement, it is possible to grow a business even during tough economic times. A foundation to success in this area, however is that the management in charge are true leaders and are prepared to look beyond the short term  prospects and work toward positive change for the future. It goes without saying that if the company is in a strong position before the downturn begins, combined with good leadership during the period of recession, that venture has a better chance of surviving the challenges with not only streamlined processes, but with a greater market customer base, due mainly to it stepping into the space left by companies who go out of business in the meantime.

The attitude toward a long-term business growth strategy needs to be a part of managerial mindset  in times of plenty as well as times of hardship and needs to result in the implementation of changes which will be advantageous over a period of economic cycles and not only from the short-term stance. The ability to handle recession in this way is the mark of true leadership abilities and the trademark of success.

The use of redundancy is an obvious example of knee-jerk reaction to company failures in a declining market. While it’s immediate effect is to release cash flow into the company which may be sorely needed, the long term result is that once the recession passes, the company then needs to re-establish the knowledge and experience base that it has just discarded. Across-the-board axing of staff positions may seem like the obvious thing to do, however it will be undesirable in the long term vision.

Realise that the wider social implications of major redundancies such as those that we are seeing in the international economy currently, actually makes a recession last longer, as it affects the entire status of a country’s economic infrastructure.

It is far more beneficial to reduce your cash flow by optimising processes than getting rid of people, particularly if you want to grow during or immediately after a recession. This way you retain the human resource necessary to quickly and effectively respond to opportunities in the market.

The techniques  brought in by consultants can usually help you identify quick wins in this area, and the money thus made available can be used to fund growth related activities such as buying your competitors stock or developing new market offerings.

The old proverb of buying when the market is depressed is most applicable in this situation, and businesses should be preparing for this situation when the going is good.