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If you have ever taken your dog to Dog Obedience School then you know that it’s more about training the owner than the dog. That summarizes the problem with Sales Enablement today - management isn’t giving the sales team what they need.
Sales Reps are motivated to succeed. However, not only are employers not giving Reps what they need to succeed, they don’t even understand for themselves what their sales reps need. Which is why Sales Training needs to shift to more of a Sales Enablement model?
So I ask:
- How will you develop your next sales superstar?
- How will you move them to reach their full potential?
- How will you tap their expertise in order to replicate their skills across your sales organization?
We know that talent & expertise are everywhere. Each individual owns some talent and expertise of their own. The "A" players simply own more of it. In order to remove the chasm between the real sales world and the classroom sales world we must stop cramming our sales reps into a room and forcing them through ineffective sales training.
We must allow them to learn through individualized developmental plans and existing organizational knowledge.
Companies have stories, experiences, successes, failures and lessons learned. These are stored in the minds of employees whether in the cubicle next door or across continents, and they have tremendous value when shared. The truly successful Sales Training captures, creates and distributes relevant, trustable "experiences and knowledge" from customers, members of the sales teams, and sales management and leverages this raw power to accelerate sales growth.
Sales people sell best what they know. Unfortunately, salespeople can spend up to 35% of their time looking for the knowledge they need to be effective. Successful companies develop methods to make expert knowledge readily accessible and searchable so sales reps spends less time looking for information and more time driving revenue.
Now imagine that same world, but where Sales Enablement integrates the mobile world. Imagine access to the network of knowledge using a vast array of mobile devices, Droids, iPhones, Blackberrys and Treos, allowing sales reps to remain mobile
As Ken Powell, VP of Sales Learning and Performance at ADP stated;
“…the recovering economy will require a significant adjustment in determining what to train on and how to train salespeople. He also predicts that sales organizations will risk losing their top sales producers to more progressive companies that have successfully transitioned and adapted to the new realities.”
And, "it is not only the economy that is driving change; there has also been a major shift in the importance of how you sell versus what you sell. In today’s market, 75 percent of sales success depends on how you sell and 25 percent on what you sell.”
The bottom line is that sales stars are everywhere, and the best learn from each other. We must evolve from traditional learning and adapt to learning methods that truly enable our sellers. The sales environment is changing. Sales Reps must know their stuff and beyond. Today's sales organizations cannot stand still; they need to be part of the ongoing solution.