The Wedge Group

Sales Training

You hired your producers because they are professionals. They’ve been trained where it counts…on the street. I hear that a lot. I don’t dispute that producers are professionals. Clearly, they’ve either had some success already or they’re just getting started.

But here’s the question: What have they been trained in? In my experience there are four styles of selling: Price, Coverage, Service and Relationship. The price guy is about the best price. The coverage guy looks for the gaps in coverage and tries to win there. The service guy touts the best service. The relationship guy is excellent at making friends. So likely, they are trained in using that style to produce results. All of these work. I’m not disputing that. And no doubt, because these guys are producing, they will consider training a waste of time.

However, without training they (and you) are missing out on something big.
Consider these questions:

  • Are your producers excellent at creating written service timelines on their accounts?
  • Do your producers actively work their clients for introductions into their best prospects to create a pipeline of opportunities?
  • Are your producers consistently beating the incumbent and selling the majority of the accounts by AOR/BOR?

If you answered yes to these, then you’re all set. If not, then training is where the biggest difference can be made. When your producers are trained in these particular skills, they become competent. When they are competent, they have more confidence. With more confidence they use the skills that they’ve learned and they close more and retain more.

Also important to note is this: Your producers are not going to learn what they need in a two-day seminar and then be prepared to implement the techniques with confidence. They’ll need regular ongoing training and regular practice. That’s the way it works.

Where do you get this training and have it available on demand? Well, thanks to online video, that’s much easier than it used to be. In fact, we include it as part of our Sales Culture Development System called iWin.