New Year resolutions: Better training

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently conducted a survey to establish employees' attitudes towards training.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it revealed that over 90 per cent of respondents found training to be 'very successful' or 'quite successful'.

Time and time again, training is identified as being a major motivator and, in times of recession, its value to employers and employees alike increases further.

Yet the same survey revealed that only half of those being trained had had any follow-up discussions to rate the course's usefulness.

This lack of follow-up is understandable; after all, training courses take key team members away from their day-to-day tasks.

This puts pressure on the time-poor executives who, inevitably, get back to a mountain of work, leaving the lessons learnt on the course far behind them.

Even if managers and colleagues take responsibility for the work in their absence, this usually has a knock-on effect.

However, if training is not evaluated, quality is not monitored. Your precious training budget can get spent on inappropriate or ineffective courses, where key learning is soon forgotten.

So how can a sales manager make sure that their team is delivered relevant training, rapidly, at a low cost and with minimum disruption?

Bring the mountain to Muhammad
One obvious solution is e-learning, where employees access their training through their laptops at a time to suit them. No travelling, no overnight stays, potentially no need to reassign work. In fact, one of the major growth areas in e-learning has been sales training.

"With e-learning, sales teams can progress at their own pace and select the information that is most relevant to their job, or current focus, saving valuable time and resources," explained Karina Ward, marketing manager at NETg, a provider of integrated learning products and services.

"These factors help training to become a strategic tool rather than a dull necessity."

Another way in which technology is helping employees maximise their training time management is through web conferencing.

Many organisations with a high output of new products or product upgrades have found this to be an extremely effective means of rapid communication.

Using web conferencing technology allows managers to quickly arrange a sales presentation and train team members in it 'instantly', wherever they may be located.

Content is king
However, the delivery of training is just one of the considerations a sales manager must face. Regardless of whether training takes place on or off site, it is a course's content that determines its success.

"Getting the most out of a training programme requires emphasis on ensuring that the content is geared to the focus and growth of the business, and to the individual's own development needs," said Robert Leach, sales director of wireless data solutions providers Transcomm.

He maintained that there are certain skills all salespeople should be regularly trained in. "Account management represents an essential training activity that all sales people should undertake," he said.

"Customer relationship management is extremely important, but requires a good mix of on-the-job experience and formal training."

Another way to secure effective course content is for a sales manager to devote some time to train the trainers. In other words, don't be satisfied with an 'off-the-shelf' training package.

Insist that training is tailored to your business needs. "The clearer they are about your objectives, and the more they understand the individual's needs, the more effective their training will be," said Leach.

Find the style that suits them
Finally, take into account the fact that different salespeople suit different styles of teaching.

As such, you are unlikely to find a single training solution that will work across the whole of your team. Some will benefit from role playing and case studies, while others will respond better to visual mnemonics.

Yet whatever means are used to communicate the message, most training professionals agree that a good training course must include relevant, sector-specific examples.

Ryan Ward, UK sales manager at CRM software provider salesforce.com, said: "The best training I have had is where real-life experience is part of the main content of the course.

"Many courses involve strategic thinking but they often miss one crucial section: gut feeling. Instinctive feelings should be included, as they develop with experience and there is no substitute for them in a real-life situation."

Making your training budget go further:

• Define your objectives. Make sure the trainer knows exactly what areas you want covered.
• Set achievable goals. Agree realistic outcomes for the salespeople being trained.
• Share successes and failures. Encourage your team to give you honest feedback: if a course has been a waste of time, you need to know.
• Expand the feedback loop. Insist that anyone that goes on a training course has to present what they have learned to their peers.
• Monitor change. Institute a review session, perhaps three months after the course, to evaluate how any theory taught has been used in practice.

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