Training an in store sales team
Training an in store sales team
Gone are the days where quarterly classroom sessions or a weekly route trainer-led visit could cut it.
Products and services are more evolved. Customers are more informed. Your sales team is a lot more tech savvy.
What does that mean for you?
- You will need to find a way to keep them updated on new products, their features and their benefits
- Your frontline is going to have doubts. On selling techniques, on products. How will you address them?
- You will need a way to test skills acquired.
- You will have to plug their knowledge gaps.
Here are a few tips to help you.
1. Find a reliable channel or repository for you to share information. Ease of access is going to be important. Your team should be able to find the training and information they want with a quick search and access it at their convenience.
2. You should nominate a day for learning. Every week.
Your team should be able to expect a new course to arrive on this day. Communication is going to be key.
3. Think leaflets and not encyclopedias.
Remember, your team is not parked in a comfy office space and do not have the leisure of spending more than a couple of minutes on training. So think bite sized. 1-2 minute videos, 1 pages, 5 slider-voice enabled e-learning modules.
4. Regular short assessments. Keep them short. Assess regularly. This will help on two fronts. Firstly, it will help you analyse their strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, you will be able to course correct your learning plan. You will be able to create a learning plan that your team actually needs.
5. Keeps things interesting. Award points or completion. Award badges of merits. These tools help increase adoption of your learning plan.
6. Test skills. And, find interesting ways to do it. For instance, an organization-wide video pitch contest could help test whether your team has understood the features and benefits of a product and can apply it in on-ground scenarios.
7. Find a channel to provide feedback. On their pitches. On their soft skills. This channel should be two-way. Which means, your team should be able to see your feedback and respond. Also, include structured scale-based feedback, so that they have clear mathematical points of improvement.
8. Communication. Without proper communication, your efforts to enable your team will not reach its full potential. Teaser, launch poster, reminders, automated nudges will alert your team on new courses deployed, on their performance in courses and their completion targets.
Define a clear plan that includes or addresses these points and you will be on your way to enabling and creating a learning plan for your in-store sales team.
