If you’re a trainer of any kind, the best compliment your trainees can pay you is winning races, collecting awards, and achieving goals. That goes for athletic trainers and sales coaches alike.
So we were truly honored recently to learn that, according to Aberdeen’s 2011 annual report Uncovering How the Best-In-Class Sustain, Reinforce and Leverage Best Selling Practices, AchieveGlobal customers show strong benefits of sales training.
But how do these companies put into practice the behaviors associated with Best-in-Class performance?
One finding in the report is that the practices of prospecting, nurturing and closing professional sales deals are “linked with making the verbal conversations between reps and their prospects/customers more meaningful.” At AchieveGlobal, we call these interactions “Defining Moments,” and consider each interaction between a sales organization and its customer an important opportunity to enhance that customer’s view of the organization.
The report also confirmed that companies that have earned Best-in-Class status (defined through percentages of reps achieving their annual quota, year-over-year improvements in average deal size and lead conversion rates) engage in specific practices. In fact, Best-in-Class companies:
- Have had sales training in place for an average of 5.6 years
- Have sales teams which include an average of 86% of sales reps who have received formal sales training.
And among other behaviors that define these companies, AchieveGlobal customers also:
- Build a collective wisdom that benefits current and future sales team members
- Ensure the right person and capabilities are matched to the right selling role
- Develop subject matter experts (SME’s) who help to provide internal reinforcement of material learned originally from external sales trainers.
As a trainer, there’s no better feeling than standing in the wings and watching trainees achieve their potential. It is comforting to affirm that matching tested methods and techniques to the innate skills of each individual has paid off. It is also a reminder that training doesn’t end – and that there is an ongoing need to continue to refine the sales training process in response to the ever-changing selling environment.
Interested in hearing more on how Best-in-Class companies drive revenue through owning the customer experience? Click here for FREE REGISTRATION to attend AchieveGlobal's sponsored webinar with Aberdeen Group on March 14th, 2012.
Sharon Daniels is CEO of AchieveGlobal in Tampa, Florida
