Planning a sales training event? Your sales team’s buy-in is crucial to its success.
Your sales team shows up for a sales rally on Thursday morning. They’re introduced to a few strangers who dive into a presentation. The key takeaway? Change the way they’ve always done things. Your team doesn’t know or trust the keynote speakers, and they haven’t had nearly enough time (or coffee) to process what’s happening.
Your carefully planned, expensive training session seems to go in one ear and out the other.
Sound familiar? It’s a common problem—and it shows just how important it is to get buy-in from your sales team before your sales training event.
So how do you sell your sales team on training? Start by making sure they understand these basic points, before the day of the event:
- Who the keynote speakers are
- What topics will be covered
- Why the speakers are a good fit
- How the speakers can help your business
For sales training to succeed, your sales team has to believe that your guest speaker can truly help them. Salespeople need to trust that the outsiders you’ve brought in are experts who understand their business, with the expertise and skill to inspire them.
Sales Training Tailored To Your Team
Cut-rate motivational speakers, inspirational magic acts, and “experts” from unrelated fields will likely leave your team bored—or bewildered. You get what you pay for, and keynote speakers who know how to really transform your sales team are expensive. But how can you ensure you’re getting a return?
Customization.
Making sure your sales team and your speakers have the correct information is crucial. Here’s what we’ve found at Skillway: every training solution should be customized by collaborating with key stakeholders—owners, directors, and often a few top producers—to dive deep into the business and be sure the sales team is getting the right topics delivered in the right way.
Once you’ve worked to develop buy-in from the sales team, you need to deliver on the promise with customized sales training.
Before your sales event, the keynote speakers should fully understand the following:
- The challenges you’re facing
- What topics should be covered, and why
- What you need your team to hear
- What topics should be avoided
- What has—or hasn’t—worked in your past sales training events
Our sales training events work because of the due diligence we put in on the front end. Our training sessions are understandable and relatable because we incorporate language and methodologies specific to your company. We’re able to provide examples that actually apply to your team, and avoid irrelevant terms and suggestions that your team will never use.
Get Fired Up To Fire Up Your Team
With a custom-tailored plan in place for your training session, it’s time to get fired up. When you’re excited about an upcoming training event, your sales team will catch that enthusiasm and be mentally prepared.
Communication with your team is crucial. Too often, leaders will have ongoing meetings with their guest speakers, but forget to share the Who, What, Why, and How with their team. Don’t keep it a secret!
When the leader of a sales organization shows their trust and enthusiasm for the guest speaker at a training event, the audience is naturally more receptive. Whenever possible, you should plan to introduce the keynote speakers on the day of the event, and explain why you are excited to have them as a guest.
Sales Training That Sticks
When you get buy-in from your salespeople before your sales training event, they’ll understand who’s coming, what will be covered, and why—and they’ll be ready to learn. By customizing the event to include your company’s specific challenges, you’ll make sure the information they get is actually useful. And, with an experienced sales coach from Skillway, your keynote speaker will know what it takes to motivate and educate your sales team.
And the icing on the cake? All Skillway sales training sessions are led by our experienced sales coaches, who can help you create an accountability plan—to make sure the training sticks long after the training is over.
Reach out today to learn more about Skillway’s premium sales training solutions. We’ll work with you to develop a custom training event that fires up your team—and help you get buy-in to ensure lasting success.
