Most Local Medium Sized companies have difficulty hiring and retaining good B2B sales people. The sales people with more experience (some) are expensive and may not be keen to work in a SMB organization.. The younger inexperienced ones are hungry, more cost effective and more ‘teachable’ . However, they do not have the years of B2B sales experience to ramp up quickly and be productive. Time to Ramp-up to productivity becomes a critical point for SMB sales for business owners.
In our experience , 1 out of 5 NEW B2B sales hires (or conversions) will bring in 80% of the revenue in an SMB sales organization. The other 4 will end up becoming under performers or leave usually within the first 6-12months.
We believe the critical path of a new sales hire happens in the first 6 months from Sales on Boarding ..or in many cases; the LACK OF SALES ON-BOARDING & TRAINING.
Many SMB organizations face challenges when it comes to formal New Hire Sales On-Boarding & Training . Here are a few expressed by our clients:-
Sporadic hiring and on boarding over the year makes it difficult to plan and execute new hire sales training
Resource allocation not justified when you hire 1-2 sales person every 6 months or 12 months ie.No critical mass of personnel to setup a class/course and allocate resources
No dedicated training resource for sales development; everyone has a 'day job'. Training and development is 'national service'
No documented Sales Process and Sales Methodology as a foundation for sales development (that’s another SMB company problem)
Training provided for sales hires (if any) are ad-hoc with no alignment with organizational objectives. Most trainings are focused on Products (Features and functions)
Ad-hoc training that has no context to the specific business environment and mostly focused on techniques and mindset that may not be applicable in a B2B sales situation
With the above challenges faced, New hire sales on-boarding and training gets thrown into the 'too hard' trolley.
New Hire Sales on-boarding should not be too hard or time consuming. The exercise is to provide the New Sales Hire (with or without experience) a general roadmap of how the organization will engage with customers.
Here are a few areas we use in our on boarding and new hire sales training as a service practice:
Day 1
Sales Strategy and buying influencers
Sales Process and Methodology
Buyers journey
Sellers and buyers journey alignment
Day 2
Value/Need creation (Problem & Implications)
Specific Objection handling
Customer use cases
The above exercise should not take more the 2 days. Coupled with some product training, New Hire Sales on boarding can be done in 3-4 days Tops!. Once you have put the time and effort into the first, the following sessions can be done easily with refinements done along the way.
With the above information and content developed, the organization will also have a Sales Process and Sales methodology in place to measure and align sales reps over time ; 'Its a gift thats keeps on giving'
At FulQrum, we bridge the sales training, development and engagement gaps SMB (and some larger organizations) face by providing Sales Performance Consulting and Training. We impact our customers' top and bottom line by enabling Sales Reps to become Value creators in an enterprise sales process . We also help improve sales productivity in the first 12 months. We have helped SMBs and corporations develop Enterprise Sales Professionals in IT, Tech, Industrial and Manufacturing .
We have monthly scheduled New Sales Hire Training covering the above topics so you can send your new sales hires when they come on board every month. We just need a minimum of 2 to start our course in our training facility.
コメント