5 Reasons Investing in Sales Training Pays off in Spades ??
The new year is the perfect time to invest in training for your winery or distillery sales team!
Since the sales team is the privacy driver of revenue for wineries and distilleries, any investment in this area will pay for itself many times over.
With this in mind, here are five important reasons to consider:
1) The return on investment happens very quickly
Effective, well-organized sales training delivers an immediate lift in sales. It’s really that simple.
While an instant bump in revenue is excellent, what matters most is the long-term effect.
According to HireDNA, investing in training for your sales team can have up to a 353% return on investment!
Put another way, for every dollar invested in improving the skills of your sales team, returns $4.53. Quite compelling, indeed.
The wine and spirits industry tends to devote too much time to product knowledge training and not nearly enough in to “technical” skills such as:
Many salespeople still use a selling style that went out of fashion in the 1950s. We are talking about features and benefits selling that emphasizes presentations, overcoming objections, and closing.
“Modern” sales techniques focus on making efficient use of time, bringing real value to the business relationship, and “scale” sales efforts beyond one-to-one, in-person selling. It’s more about business acumen and less about product knowledge.
A great way to ensure a quick payoff in your investment in sales training is to forgo plane tickets, hotel rooms, and meeting room rentals in favor of online, self-paced training augmented with live coaching via Zoom.?
There is absolutely no need to bring everyone together in person to conduct sales training. Besides the obvious cost savings, it’s critical to recognize that each person learns at their own pace.?
Every team of salespeople has their “tortoises” and “hares.” Attempting to train everyone in the same room simultaneously means some will be bored, and some will get left behind.?
If professional athletes need coaches to perform at their highest level, it is equally true that salespeople need coaching and training to perform at their highest level, too!?
2) It is a powerful competitive advantage
You can rely on this: most companies do not invest in enhanced skills training for their sales team members, creating an instant advantage for YOU.
According to Dooly.ai, only 17% of companies say they have an effective training program.
Sales training statistics are disturbing at best. Consider that 25% of sales reps believe they need more sales training, and high-performing sales organizations are two times more likely to provide ongoing training versus low-performance ones.
It is fair to say that these numbers are even more discouraging within the wine and spirits industry, where an “outgoing personality” and strong product knowledge are the primary considerations when making hiring decisions.
If your wine or spirits brand desires to boost sales performance compared to your competitors, sales training investment is your ticket to the winners' circle.
While others are placing too much emphasis on product knowledge and “closing skills,” your organization can enjoy more distribution in more (and better) accounts, dramatic increases in depletions, and retention of your most valuable customers.
The environment in which we sell today has never been more competitive, which is only likely to worsen. Having great products in beautiful packaging at the right price merely gets you to the starting line.
If you want to compete effectively, you must make sure your sales team is well-trained!
A wise mentor once said, “You can’t eat like a bird and sh_t like an elephant.”
3) Retention of your top performers
Failure to create a strong sales culture where best practices are shared and success is publicly recognized and routinely celebrated will only chase off your best-performing salespeople.
Great salespeople love to be challenged, strongly desire to improve, and are super-competitive.?
Yes, you could leave it up to them to seek out their skills-enhancement programs on their own (and may do just that), but why not be more intentional about it? Why not show them you value them by investing in top-notch, leading-edge training?
It's worth mentioning here the tendency to spend time and money trying to get your worst-performing salespeople to improve. But the smartest strategy is to do the opposite.?
The very best salespeople are highly coachable and committed to self-improvement. What better way to leverage these tendencies than to invest in their success?
Being a salesperson can be a lonely job. The saying, “You’re only as good as your last sale,” is alive and well, unfortunately. A salesperson who does not feel valued will most certainly begin to look elsewhere for employment.
Ironically, it is easy to ameliorate this dilemma by doubling down on your best performers by providing the training they so strongly need and want.?
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4) Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
This might be one of the most powerful arguments for investing in sales training.?
Your sales team is in front of customers every single day. Yes, they are continually seeking new customers, but a smart salesperson knows where their bread is buttered, and that is why they spend so much time and energy defending their turf.
Your company can assist and enable them by teaching them to make better use of their time to gain new customers AND retain their best existing customers.
The natural corollary will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty if you prioritize the people who work for you. There is an undeniable trickle-down effect.??
Consider this comparison:
Winery A tells their salespeople to be on the street x number of days per week. They tell them, “No one ever made a sale sitting in the office.” Then they burden them with useless, manual, repetitive admin tasks and wonder why the sales goals aren’t being met.
Winery B recognizes that the two greatest “assets” every salesperson has are their time and the goodwill of their customers. They set their salespeople up for success by training them and supporting them in using technology-enabled sales strategies.
In both scenarios, the CUSTOMER feels the difference. The customer suffers when salespeople aren’t adequately trained.
Everyone wants more customers, but only some are willing to take the necessary steps to set their salespeople up for success.
Putting a well-trained salesperson on the field is the single best way to retain your best customers. Full stop.
5) It helps you ramp up the productivity of NEW salespeople quickly
The turnover rates among salespeople are quite high. HubSpot research shows that turnover for salespeople hovers around 35% per year.
According to Harvard Business Review, annual salesperson turnover among US companies is twice the overall US labor force rate.
The implications are clear: Maintaining a stable sales workforce is a considerable challenge, and companies will be onboarding new salespeople continually.?
Considering that a brand new salesperson will need between three and six months to ramp up to total capacity, does it not make sense to do everything you can to shorten that curve?
An effective new-hire sales training program helps your company in many ways, including:
Why have a sales team if not to grow revenue? How can you grow revenue unless you invest in new sales hire training? Seems obvious, but unfortunately, only 28% of companies have a formal onboarding process for new salespeople.?
It’s probably a good thing no data exists specifically for the wine and spirits industry, as the stats would be truly appalling. And, no, product knowledge training is nowhere near enough.?
So many things in this industry are beyond your control, but providing modern, cutting-edge sales training is 100% within the grasp of every winery distillery or distributor with salespeople on the payroll.
The cost of no training is the highest cost of all
There is a saying in the 1991 book Service that Sells by Phil Roberts that goes like this:
Q: “What if I pay for sales training for my team, and they leave the company?”
A. “What if you DON’T train them, and they stay!”
This is a powerful argument that cannot be overstated. If you have a sales team and want to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of them, you have no choice but to invest in their continuous improvement.?
Modern Sales Traning for Modern Times
A good first step would be to start investigating the options that exist right now.?
To assist you in your journey, here is a short list of critical criteria as you do your research:
The list of training programs that can check every box above is minuscule.
We invite you to check out OUR training program here. No pressure, no obligation. And feel free to send your specific questions to [email protected]
Management Consulting & Global Business Advisor
1 年Ben, as usual, you are spot on. Sadly, grossly outdated sales methods are not confined to the wine and spirits industry.