A well-planned and very effective sales training program is very crucial in developing a productive sales force that will not only help in selling the products and services of the company but will also sell the company’s good name. A successful training program can yield to more effective sales associates and more sales and revenue.

As a sales manager, it is your responsibility to make sure that your sales training programs are effective and suitable to the needs of your associates. Here are the things that you need to consider when designing and conducting your trainings:

1. Objective. Before you design a sales training program, make sure that you establish your goals first. Some managers conduct such trainings when there is a sudden drop in the sales or when they are advised by the top management to increase their sales by up to a certain percentage in a specific period of time. A training may also be conducted based on the observation of managers on their associates’ performance or if they are hiring new associates who do not have any idea about the company or the products to sell just yet.

2. Choosing your mediums. There are so many ways on how you can conduct your training. You can do one-on-one or group training programs, you can use email or the company’s website, or you can do teleconferencing especially if your company has other branches. Assess the effectiveness of each medium and stick to that one that yields to more favorable results.

3. Skill levels of your trainees. Get to know the skill levels of your trainees before you design your sales training programs so you’ll know what exact information or assistance they’ll need from you in order to reach the pre-set goals. Let me give you an example; if you are training your associates to effectively communicate the benefits of the products, they must have exceptional communication skills and in-depth product knowledge. Otherwise, they will not be able to follow your orders.

4. Language. Keep in mind that your main objective in conducting trainings is to inform or empower your trainees. This will not possibly happen if you make it too difficult for them to understand the message that you are trying to get across. As much as possible, use the preferred language of these people and utilize those words that they can easily identify with to easily avoid confusion.

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