1. What does it mean to learn how to sell?
Is it enough to read 10 books about sales, learn the stages of sales, types of customers, “killer” phrases? What does it mean to master the skill of selling? And how do you learn to sell a product? These questions do not let the “young” sales manager sleep peacefully, and in this article I will try to give exhaustive answers to each of them.
To learn how to sell, you need to develop the basic skills of a seller to automatism, which are the key to the success of any sale. Of course, theory is needed, but a sales manager who has developed the skills to make a deal is valued much higher than a theoretical manager who knows all the theory by heart, but cannot put it into practice.
2. The essence of manager training on simple examples
I would compare sales skill to driving skill. At least in the fact that most drivers do not know the theory, just like most sellers;). How do we get rights? We learn the theory for 3 months, then we forget this theory. Only the basic skills that we use every day remain. That is, we notice the sign “give way” subconsciously, without concentrating. Everyone remembers how difficult it is to drive when you know how to drive and know the signs, but driving has not yet become an automatic skill. It is the same in sales: many managers who have been trained in sales techniques enter the market with a heavy baggage of knowledge gained in trainings and courses, but they still have not learned how to sell, because they have no real practice in applying the information received.
I have been boxing for about 5 years. A very large part of my knowledge and skills never turned into an automatic skill. I can’t use in combat what I’m good at training in front of a mirror. And the sales manager undergoes training in one to three days, enters the “ring”, inspired by the knowledge gained, and finds himself in a deep knockout. The worst is about to begin! A thinking person understands that everything he has learned cannot be applied in sales. If, nevertheless, the talent in him is stronger, he discards everything that he was told in training, takes a couple of simple tricks and achieves results. And now attention – this manager becomes the head of the sales department. How will he feel about the theory?
3. Pitfalls of manager training
Have you wondered why in a year the average driver does not remember even 80% of the rules? Everything is trite – it’s just that in reality he uses no more than 20% of knowledge. These are the rules that a person needs every day so as not to get into an accident or run into a fine.
It’s the same in sales. There is a lot of interesting information about sales, negotiating tactics, preparation, classification of clients. BUT! Most coaches don’t teach managers how to sell a real product – the ability to drive and look at signs at the same time. Funny? I don’t. When I first started working as a head of sales, I tried to find sellers in the market who had at least basic sales skills. And everyone who even a little bit knew how to apply theory in practice cost crazy money. I had no choice but to take talented novice managers and train them to sell myself. I killed 4 birds with one stone:
- He hired a person relatively inexpensively, because he did not know how and could not appreciate his own talent.
- I received a person with burning eyes and great potential.
- The person is not yet spoiled by great success and is ready to learn.
- Also, I didn’t have to “treat” those clumsily learned formulaic phrases and a bunch of other frankly harmful moments that came from poor training.
So for the first time I plunged into the system of training sales managers. At first I tried to teach my managers by inviting coaches. I recharged at trainings with them, learned a lot of new things, but sales did not grow :(. The euphoria after the training subsided after a week, the daily turnover did not allow me to develop specific techniques and techniques. sales.Then I began to doubt the trainability of managers.Then I realized that I do not use the new points that I learned in the training.And yet, the question of how to learn to sell still tormented me.
4. Why are trainings often useless?
Then I came to the conclusion that training from most trainers only provides information, and it can also be obtained from books. The coach simply acts as a kind of storyteller – a kind of live video book :). But what about the actual application of skills? This moment the coaches leave to the discretion of the managers themselves and their leaders. The trainer cannot be responsible for unconscious students who cannot apply the information received. I have almost come to terms with the ineffectiveness of training, and, moreover, they cut my budget for training new managers. What am I doing? I am creating my own training system for sales managers. BUT!? The one that really teaches you how to sell. Maybe, of course, there is nothing of its own in it, and there is