A soccer team that wants to get better trains continuously. In your training, you challenge your current skill through exercises both individually and with others. This is to be able to play better and hopefully be able to win more.
If we take this example to the corporate world, salespeople also train to become better.
However, it is common for many salespeople to "compete" more than structured "training".
Let's do some math. If you work about 200 days/year and have about 10 training days/year, that is 5% training in a year.
What difference can we then expect from this 5% training? Major actions that affect the result or smaller changes at the individual level?
The structured training (5%) is crucial for building a common sales methodology, momentum, motivation, and language in the organization.
But after that?
It is not uncommon for the internal plan to be that (1) it is the salesperson's responsibility to take advantage of the training and (2) the manager must coach the salesperson to become better.
Structured sales training creates a common sales methodology and language in the organization
I support the above points 100% but unfortunately it is not enough.
A study shows, for example, that a manager needs +3 hours of structured coaching/dialogue per salesperson/month. If a sales manager has 10 salespeople, there will be +30 hours a month that must be spent on structured calls. Something that many sales managers may find difficult to implement.
This is where the internal sales coaches come in and play an important role in the development.
Sales coaches must work to make the sales methodology live and be followed in the organization.
The sales coaches must support the managers.
Internal sales coaches can contribute to increased sales skills in the sales organization
The structured training (5%) creates the prerequisite to change in a common direction. But the big and long-term work begins after that. And that's why sales coaches are so important to sales success.
Maybe that's why a football coach has an assistant football coach by his side :)
Good luck with your sales development.
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