Chapter Summary

A successful training program consists of four phases: training assessment, program design, reinforcement, and evaluation. Training is an important factor contributing to the success of salespeople. A good program begins by establishing program objectives and then determining who should be trained. The company must then identify individuals’ training needs. This is the key to how much training will be needed.

During the program design phase, the company must decide who will do the training, where and when it will be conducted, what topics will be covered, and what methods will be used. While line personnel have distinctive advantages as sales trainers, they often lack the essential teaching skills. Thus, training is often the responsibility of staff sales trainers. Many companies also use outside training specialists to provide part of their training.

New reps need enough initial training to do a respectable job. However, there are advantages to delaying training until the new person has some experience that can be carried into the classroom. Although initial training is often conducted centrally, most sales training is provided in the field.

Training programs cover a wide range of topics, such as knowledge of the product, company, customer, competitors, and business principles; selling and relationship-building skills; team selling; time management; computer-assisted selling; and legal constraints.

Among the many different methods used to train salespeople are lectures, discussions, demonstrations, role-playing, Web-based training, audiocassettes, and on-the-job training.

It is very important that companies provide a method for systematically reinforcing their training programs. Otherwise, salespeople are unlikely to change their behavior.

Increasingly, top management is demanding that training programs prove their worth. Training outcomes generally fall into four categories: the reactions of the salespeople, their learning, their behavioral change, and their performance results.