Would you invest in training your sales people for 45 minutes every day?
The reaction of most sales managers would be “Hell No! That’s at least 10% of their productive time, I need them out selling!”
My friend Tory Hornsby, COO of Sharpshooter Marketing and Powersports Marketing, has quite a different response. He would say, “I can’t afford not to!”
Tory and his sales management team take the entire sales team through 45 minutes of training every day! They start their mornings with a meeting dedicated to celebrating what people have accomplished and developing new skills.
Each day, has a specific purpose and agenda. Typically, Tory himself leads the Monday meeting. His sales manager may lead the Tuesday meeting. Sometimes sales people take the lead for other days.
The meetings are very structured and purposeful. They mix learning by listening to learning by practicing to learning by sharing experiences.
Reinforcement is critical. Too much training is based on an “event” orientation. People participate in a workshop, then they go back to do their job, getting little coaching and reinforcement in developing and cementing the skills into their work process.
Tory’s team has learned that it takes at least 4 weeks of nearly constant reinforcement before someone has internalized the skills and built the “muscle memory” to continue to execute them.
You’re probably still thinking, “But that’s more than 10% of my people’s productive time—every day! Where’s the pay off?”
The pay off can be measured in a number of ways, but I’ll focus on one—25% year over year growth—sustained over many years!
The conversation I had with Tory was one of the most interesting discussions I’ve had in some time. We covered a lot of things beyond training, including key metrics, performance management, developing a sales focused culture and others. Enjoy this podcast!
Podcast Note: If you’ve been listening to our podcasts (see the widget in the side bar on the right for all the latest or go to Partners In EXCELLENCE Radio), you’ll notice something different with this Podcast. Chris Frascella is our “Podcast Master.” In addition to hosting the podcast, he’s doing a tremendous job in helping improve the quality of what we produce. Our plan is to increase the amount of content we make available through the podcast quite dramatically in the coming weeks. I couldn’t do it without Chris’s expertise!
