The Importance of Sales Training - Essay Example

Q1: Discuss the importance of sales training for both new and experienced representatives. One common factor which makes the sales training importantfor both the new and experienced representatives of the organisation is cost of sales. Every sales call not only costs dollars to the organisation but it also runs the risk of losing its prospective customers if the call is not made properly. Training provides the necessary skill and confidence to deal with prospects/customers efficiently. However, sales training holds different sort of importance for new and experienced employees. Sales training is important for new employees due to following reasons: To induct the new hires with the sales process: Sales process in each organisation differs. As per Churchill et al, many people (including sales people) have several misconceptions about the selling process of the organisation they work in. To make matters worse, various selling jobs in the same organization can involve very different tasks and the tasks may vary between organizations in the same industry (1996). Thus, to give a clear picture of what is expected out of new hires, sales training is important. To explain the personal and professional characteristics necessary for a successful sales career: New hires expect to know the growth path in the organization and also the requirements to progress on the growth path. Sales training involves the training on aspects such as personal characteristics attitude, role perception, skill refinement and professionalism which chart the progress of employees on growth path. To enthuse the new employee to pick-up quickly: A new employee is often uncertain of the environment/culture and working of the organization. Hence, it is important to enthuse the new employee with a training which will clear his doubts about the working and climb the learning curves speedily. Sales training is important for the existing employees from the following angles: To motivate the employees: One of the biggest challenges employers face is keeping staff morale high and enthusiasm up. Sales trainings will not only improve the knowledge base of the employees but add to the feeling that they are valued. This will result in making their sales call more effective, and also increasing their confidence & earning potential (Penistone 2002) . To impart the latest tactics or knowledge on current/ future market practices: The market place keeps evolving and competitors keep coming up with new ideas which should be either countered or emulated in an effort to stay in the race. With the daily routine job, sales people often miss to keep a tab on new and famous in the market. Hence, sales training is important to teach the existing employees the latest tactics in sales. To encourage specialization: Sales trainings, if carefully crafted, encourage sales persons to choose a line of sales rather than general sales. For example: In the field of general insurance, a salesperson may either be selling everything from auto to small marine policies or s/he may specialise in certain line of business such as hull insurance or property insurance. The advantage of specialisation is that it not only enhances the knowledge of the sales person but also gives the confidence to the client that he is talking to the right person. Q2: What in your opinion are some of the most common problems experienced by Sales Managers? Sales management programs should respond effectively to a firm’s internal and external environment and must be coherent with the competitive and marketing strategies of the firm (Churchill, Ford and Walker 1996). At the heart of the success of any sales management program lies the efficiency of the sales manager in understanding the selling process and managing the sales force. However, understanding the sales process and managing the sales force also throw several problems in front of the sales managers which are discussed below: Transition from selling to managing, coaching and leading: Usually sales manager are the employees who elevate from the ranks of sales team members. On one hand it gives them the advantage of understanding the sales process better but on the other hand it becomes difficult for them to move from pure sales to sales management. They get involved in the daily routine work so much that they forget to manage the team and start working like a team member instead (Loen 1964) Delegation Dilemma: Sales managers often face the dilemma of deciding what to delegate and whom to delegate. Delegation disasters may occur either due to inappropriate potential estimate of the team member, lack of trust, inappropriate priority/ importance assigned to the work or due to manipulation on the part of the sales manager by giving/withholding particular assignments. Developing the team: An ideal sales manager should develop the team in such a way that the team is able to function well even in his absence. S/he should also develop second- in line that can be relied on by the organization in his absence. In short the team of an efficient sales manager should enable the growth of the team members and reflect them as future managers. This requires empowerment to the team members, transparent communication and by fostering trust between manager and employees (Baldoni 2008). However, most of the sales managers are unable to develop the team in such a way due to variety of reasons such as: insecurity that might arise due to dispensability, lack of vision and lack of motivation on the part of team members. Deviation from customer Focus: One of the major problems with Sales managers is that they get involved with the sales force management so much that they lose their focus on customers. Since sales and profits are generated by the customer, the ultimate goal of any sales program is management of the customer, which is in turn implemented by the sales force. The misplaced emphasis results in serious problems such as wrong decision making at the time of crisis. When the sales or market share decreases, they change the means of managing the sales force but not its purpose (Shapiro 1974). Uncertainties in the market: Sales managers face the task of estimating the future market demand, budgeting the total target sales/expected expenses and setting quotas for the team members. However, their future estimates may be hampered by unforeseen market events or due to reasons beyond the control of sales manager which might make it impossible to be achieved. Q3: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of building customer relationships via the internet. A study by Accenture states that Customer Relationship Management is a major differentiator between top performing companies and average performing companies (Wolfe, Dull and Stephens 2009). Due to its exponential growth in reach to the target audience, internet has developed as a major channel of sales and customer relationship building medium. The major advantages of building customer relationship through internet are listed below: Relationship can be build through internet at any phase of interaction with the customer such as pre-sales, sales and post sales. For example, by online advertising (banner ad clicks), company’s make a connect to the customers even before they purchase the product. Alongwith the sales conversion of online advertising, branding is the most important consequence of online advertising. Aon (a leading insurance broker) has implemented a CRM which keeps a track of its sales leads, special considerations/queries of a client, post sales services required by and delivered to a client. Internet offers benefits such as increased depth of consumer data collection with higher accuracy rates. Over internet, the data can be collected from as many touchpoints as can be imagined. This increases the depth of the data as it can give every possible detail about the customer. Usually, the data in the system is fed by the customer itself thus increasing the data accuracy. Personalisation of promotional and ad campaigns is possible due to integrated customer profiling systems. This increases the chances of the promotional campaigns hitting the right audience. Thus building relationship through internet increases the scope and usefulness of interaction with the existing and prospective customers. Major disadvantages of building customer relationship based on internet are discussed below: Price Sensitivity: Availability of prices of various competitive brands on a click, heavy online discounting and promotions to encourage customer purchases has resulted in highly price sensitive customers (Shenton 2002). Thus building customer relationship through internet more often than not results in encouraging the price sensitivity attribute rather than loyalty. Increase in service level expectation: Satisfaction research model introduced by Oliver and Swan (2000) demonstrates that customers report higher levels of satisfaction with purchasing experiences when the experiences themselves and after-sales service meet or exceed their prior expectations. In other words, customers compare the post-purchase and post-usage evaluation of a product with their expectations prior to purchasing in determining satisfaction. E-commerce has established unprecedented levels of services such as delivery turnaround time of less than 24 hours with the facility of online tracking and live chats 24/7 for any kind of issues. Customers have started expecting such premium services in their routine transactions and anything below it is no longer acceptable. Thus customer dealings over internet does not result in concrete relationships- one lapse may throw the entire relationship out of sync. Standardization a disadvantageous proposition in internet era: In brick and mortar stores, the customers’ accessibility to the provider as well as provider’s reach to the customers was limited. Hence, the customers were more satisfied with standardised deals since it gave an assurance that it is at par with that offered by others. However, internet throws a plethora of customised goods and services which are available just a click away. Johansson et al reveal that customization provides users perceived control, which is an effective approach in gaining satisfaction (2001) . Therefore, if an online service or e-commerce site just provides standardised products, it may lose to score over the competitors who would be providing customised products/services. Thus, building customer relationships requires a customizable product/service portfolio than the one offered in physical stores. Reference List Baldoni, john. Fostering Trust Between Managers and Employees. September 26, 2008. http://blogs.hbr.org/baldoni/2008/09/fostering_trust_between_manage.html (accessed May 29, 2010). Churchill, GA, Neil M Ford, and Walker. Sales Force Management. Boston: McGraw Hill/ Irwin, 1996. Dabholkar, P.A., C.D. Shpherd, and D.I. Thrope. "A Comprehensive Framework for Service Quality: An Investigation of Critical conceptual and Measurement Issues through a Longitudinal Study." Journal of Retailing, 2000: 139-173. Johansson, W., S. Ba, and R. Chase. "Virtual customer satisfaction: A service management perspective." Proceedings of the Seventh Americas Conference on Information System. Boston: AIS, 2001. 857-866. Loen, Raymond O. "Sales Managers Must Manage." Harvard Business Review, 1964: 20-24. Penistone, Steve. Trained and tested: good sales training is the key to staff retention as well as increased profits, says Open + Directs sales and marketing manager. Novemeber 1, 2002. http://www.allbusiness.com/sales/362453-1.html (accessed May 29, 20101). Shapiro, Benson P. "Manage the Customer, Not Just the Sales Force." Harvard Business Review, 1974: 10-15. Shenton, John. The Internet- Changing Customer Relationships. Business Report, Kirkland, Canada: Global Millenia Marketing, 2002. Wolfe, Mark T., Stephen F. Dull, and Timothy Stephens. Customer Relationship Management: Divide and Conquer. Organizational Research, Accenture, 2009. Read More