What I have learned about sales training....

Over the past forty five years, I have sat through a number of sales training programmes here in Australia as well as the UK and Europe and have found that a lot of trainers are academic magicians. They know the theory, the closes, how to overcome objections and so on. But they're academics and they haven't worked in the real world or front line.

Therefore, I have developed my own very simple and very few steps of a sales training programme. It's not rocket science. It's about understanding and respect. I make my comments based on personal experiences, but I am sure that you've all had similar ones too.

There are a lot of programmes that instruct you on how to sell by using and following a script and a process. One that invokes a certain response from a customer so you can ask another scripted question to invoke another response and so on and so on .........

That's all very well and good but the humanity is lost. You know where people get to talk with each other and not get into a combative scenario - you know, "If I do this, will you do that?". I know it is perhaps a little difficult for some, but with help, people can become more relaxed and more able to confer better with strangers. Let's face it, at the beginning, most customers are strangers. It's easier to show the seller how to relax rather than to teach them a script.

I have found that everyone - sellers and buyers - are different. They have different ways of communicating, perhaps don't have an easy relaxing style or just find it hard to converse.  Maybe it's their culture.  That's why a script is no longer valid in so many situations.

My simple sales training programme steps are as follows;

Knowledge - you must have regardless.

1     Have product knowledge of your product/service versus the competitors

2     NEVER knock the competitor

3     Know how to positively compare yours with theirs (features and benefits)

Once you know your product/service, then the only thing you have to really concern yourself with is this:-

Contact - the bit that feeds you

4     You're in the PEOPLE business (NOT whatever product/service it is that you're selling)

5     Your customer is paying your salary. NOT the company that employs you.

Once you've fully grasped and understood the full meaning of points 4 and 5, then you can go out and be yourself and fully realise that without the customer, you won't eat tonight. Treat the customer as God! Lose him and you starve.

I've said it before and will continue to say it - If I am your customer, I am the one who is paying your salary and if there’s no me, there’s no company and you've got no job!!!

Cheers

John Blair