With all the discussion about how sales training may not necessarily contribute to sales success, many training managers will still have to implement sales training, simply because it will be very difficult to explain to management why sales training as been taken out.

However, management will also want to find out how “Return on Investment” they are getting from their sales training, and will want training managers to address specific areas of improvements for their sales people. Hence, I get a lot of training managers telling me that they would like to help their sales people be more “professional” when selling.

When I asked then them how do they mean by “professional”, they couldn’t give an answer.

Well, to help training managers, and even senior management define what is meant by “professional” sales behaviour, here are some attributes provided by HR Chally after decades of research worldwide.

If you want to train Hunters to be better Hunters, you may want to focus on one or more of the following attributes:

* Effective networking (and being resourceful to source for qualified leads )

* Qualifies prospects with standard probes (rather than chase after leads with low chances of materialising)

* Closes through logical, incremental steps (questioning, understanding customers’ decision making processes and requirements etc.)

* Problem-solving (for customers)

* Opportunistic (able to seize and create sales opportunities when there are none)

* Commits time and effort to ensure success

On the other hand, if you want to train Farmers to be better in what hey are doing, here are some other areas of consideration:

* Optimises results by increasing sales to existing accounts

* Promotes customer relations by soliciting feedback (and able to act on any negative feedback received)

* Educates customers through structured training

* Maximizes results by systematically managing an account plan (the key word here is “plan”)

* Works the system for the customer (making sure customers’ needs are fulfilled)

* Responds at any hour

As you can see from the above attributes, most sales training are centered on cultivating Hunting skills, and Farming skills are by far rather neglected. Hence, if you have sales people whose job is to generate more sales from existing customers, you may want to focus more on the latter attributes.

There are also different attributes available for staff who handles Strategic Accounts, leads and manages sales people, and even for senior management. Contact me info@psycheselling.com if you need any of these.