Part 2: Finding the Missing Link Will Make Your Sales Development Training More Effective

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about what most growing companies are doing for sales development training, which traditionally consists of an immersion into the firm's product or service offering. Then sellers are told to, "Go get 'em."

As I said before, that's a surefire road to failure. To be successful in today's crazy business environment, sales training and development is a business imperative, not a nicety.

In my 20-plus years as a B2B (business-to-business) sales strategist, I've helped numerous companies  to jumpstart new product/service sales, shorten the "ramp up" time for new sellers and upgrade selling skills to adapt to changing market conditions.

Consistently, I've witnessed a major gap in their sales development training that has significant repercussions on their sales effectiveness. What is this missing link?

Failure to ensure that salespeople have a deep understanding of their targeted customer.

Yup. It's true. Educating salespeople about the customer is getting a short shrift in most sales training and development programs. Yet, without this contextual information, it's very difficult for your salespeople to entice prospects to meet with them, engage customers in discussion and advance the sales process to its logical next step.

Fixing the Missing Link

What should salespeople know about customers in order to increase their sales effectiveness? Here are the questions that you should address in your internal sales training programs:

• What companies are good "fits" for our product or service—and why? 
  Everyone is not a good answer. It's too broad. Focus your sellers on specific market segments or businesses facing the same issues. You want your sellers to develop expertise, not flounder.
• Who are the decision makers we should call on? 
  Your salespeople need to know what positions are involved in making the decision and their role in the process.
• What's going on in their world?
  For each decision maker, help your salespeople understand their goals, primary strategic initiatives, as well as issues or challenges that may prevent them from achieving their objectives.
• What's the status quo?
  Your sellers need to know about how customers are currently doing things relevant to your product/service training. That's what they're selling against, not your competitors.
• Why would they change? 
  In order to get customers to move from the status quo, sellers need to know the business outcomes that companies can realize by switching to your product/service.

You know this stuff! Or you should, if you've been in business for a while. But perhaps you've never realized just how much your salespeople need to know these things in order to be effective.

To upgrade your sales development training, make sure to include this vital customer information. Remember, it's the key to consistent and predictable sales results.

To be successful in today's crazy business environment, sales training and development is a business imperative, not a nicety.