The Disadvantages of NOT Using an External Sales Trainer…

This could sound biased being a Sales Trainer. From my psychometric test results, one of my strengths is being analytical, I will, therefore, write a logical article.

Yes, there are additional costs involved to employ an external Sales Trainer on an ad hoc basis for your business. However, with any training, if your trainee does not apply the skills and techniques learnt – the investment is already lost.

Points to consider:

• Your business has an Internal Sales Trainer/Learning & Development team
• An external Sales Trainer might be from a different industry sector or worked with different sized companies
• The cost involved in working with an external Sales Trainer on an ongoing basis

I might have just convinced you not to hire an external Sales Trainer but do keep reading for the advantages!

Point 1:

1. Your business has an Internal Sales Trainer/Learning & Development team

Ultimately, this would be different from the size of business or industry sector. Where sometimes the Sales Trainer would be the employee’s manager.

If the manager is the sales trainer for their employees, although experienced within the role (probably a previous top performer) – is this the best training experience for your employee? Will your employee fully be themselves regarding their learning and communication style – or will they ‘pretend’ to know the information taught by their manager to not highlight any areas of concern.

An advantage of an external Sales Trainer is they can provide a ‘safe’ space where employees can ask those ‘silly’ questions without having to work with the external Sales Trainer daily, unlike their manager.

As well as during those dreaded role-plays; any challenges from the external Sales Trainer to test understanding will be received light-heartedly by your employee.

The internal sales training will provide your employees with your company’s processes in a standard style, particularly companies who have a high volume of sales employees that require training, e.g. Call Centres.

Let us analyse what employees feel about training:

*In a business study by Axonify, results highlight:

• 81% of employees feel more engaged at work due to the training
• With 89% of employees wanting the training to be personalised
• 91% of employees feel the training would be ineffective, it was not engaging/fun

The advantage of an external Sales Trainer is personalising the sales training every time; they have been hired by your business to deliver training with your specific content, hence they will learn and process it applying a personal experience.

External Sales Trainers are equipped to create interactive activities, competitions, and follow-up tasks.

The external Sales Trainer will objectively observe your employees (on the phone/in the field) before and after training to identify measures and outcomes.

As well as spending hours of time developing a highly engaging material, a tailored learning experience for your employees. Inevitably the external Sales Trainer aims for strong feedback from your employees as this could determine the duration an external Sales Trainer works with your business.

Point 2:

2. An external Sales Trainer might be from a different industry sector or worked with different sized companies

At proposal meetings with clients, I have been asked before – what is your experience within my industry sector? Have you provided sales training to a similar-sized company before?

Yes, it is true, an external Sales Trainer from the same industry will certainly understand your product/service terminology and the marketplace, i.e. the customers and competitors.

And working with similar size businesses provides insights into internal operations and procedures.

The disadvantages with the same industry training as the only training resource are that your employees will mostly receive a company viewpoint on how the selling should be done, i.e. what has worked before.

The current times have now changed, where updated selling processes and techniques require to be formulated and implemented.

Advantages of an external Sales Trainer – they are versatile and agile in their knowledge and training methods following working with various types of businesses that had different requirements. An external Sales Trainer can provide selling advice (unique methods/techniques for prospecting, etc.) to meet the demand of an adaptable market.

Of course, a good external Sales Trainer will work with you to achieve your training requirement objectives. Sometimes, an unbiased perspective is beneficial.

Point 3:

3. The cost involved in working with an external Sales Trainer on an ongoing basis

For point 3, there is no right answer to convince your business to part with money, especially if you have your own internal sales training methods. The main question your business will ask is – What will my ROI be? And this is something that can be challenging to measure regarding training, specifically in the short term.

Therefore, I am providing evidence for the outcomes I had for an Internal Sales Executive from a global SME (£20 million+ with 300+ employees) who worked with me as their external Sales Trainer:

“I am so happy that you were able to help create a system in order to help me get in front of the right people as this is something that has caused me the most insecurity and anxiety as a salesperson and isn't really something that is readily taught so I am very grateful for that.”

The value of sales training is in the employee’s perception.

Sales Training does not just stop after a half-day/full day session with an external Sales Trainer. An ideal method for retaining new information – is to learn content in manageable chunks. Your employees will treat a training session being the time for this, without losing focus of their daily tasks.

The advantage of this training schedule (regular with intervals) for your employees are they will process and apply learnt content adhering to their specific learning styles, as well as revisit the information in preparation for the next training session!

Synergy is built between your business and the external Sales Trainer and the employees have established rapport with them – Just some advantages for having an external Sales Trainer…

Jamie works with companies globally to enhance the employee's B2B selling capabilities for generating and converting prospects. Jamie also improves the sales process and strategy to increase your gross sales by winning and retaining clients. 

If you would like to have a more detailed discussion regarding external sales training for your business contact Jamie on:

Jamie Martin BSc (Hons), PGCert (Managing Director & Founder) of Correct Careers Coaching – A Modern Sales Training and Sales Strategy Business.

Find out more about Correct Careers Coaching by emailing [email protected], calling 07599 332178 or visiting the website, www.correctcareerscoaching.com.

Source

*https://axonify.com/news/axonify-releases-third-annual-state-of-frontline-workplace-training-study/