Making training stick: on coaching, performance, and retention
Every sales manager with whom I've ever spoken has had the same experience: expensive training that didn't last. You've probably had the same experience. Having worked diligently to get a training budget, you put together a great training program with a trusted source. Your people loved the program, and raved about how they were going to put the newly-learned techniques to use right away. A month later, you find out that those great new techniques were never put to use! What happened?
Simple. The sales team got pumped up on the "feel-good" experience, then went ahead and continued doing it the way they felt most comfortable. There was nothing in place to reinforce the principles learned in training.
Fact is, the best way to make training stick is for the rep to use the new techniques in a controlled environment, then use it in a real environment to achieve success. After that, management should consistently reinforce the behavior.
Making it work
All training companies allow reps to use the new techniques in a controlled environment in a classroom environment. Where they drop the ball is in not coaching the reps immediately after the class during actual sales calls. In my coaching experience, even the most senior reps go back to the "old way" as a matter of reflex, and we usually rehearse each one individually prior to the coaching session, to change behavior. When the call is made to the actual prospect, the rep finds that the new techniques really work, and the light bulb goes off. Behavior changed by immediate success in a real-world environment!
But that's not all
I always tell the telesales managers with whom I work that effective training has to be effectively reinforced. As a manager, you've got to think about how you'll go about with a consistent reinforcement program, and you'll want to come up with a plan before the training takes place. The most effective way we've seen is for you to coach like we do, with sound educational principles that --- and this this is critical --- encourage reps to want to be coached. We apply these principles when we coach your inside sales reps, and we can train you to do it, in our Inside Sales Managers course, too, as we have with companies such as Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies, Mercury Interactive, and Rational Software.
Don't throw your money away
I sometimes put managers in a mild state of shock when I tell them that without reinforcement, they're throwing their money away. "What?," I know they're thinking, "You're supposed to be selling me on a training solution!" Nope, I'm emphatically proposing training that will be effective long after I've left and gone onto working with another client. The reason we have terrific testimonials is because the managers with whom we've worked buy into the reinforcement process, use it after the training, and enjoy seeing their reps overachieving while using the new techniques they've learned.
Contact us, and we can tell you how we make coaching an enjoyable experience, and share some of our coaching successes with you.