Trainer's Guide Resources & Practices

How to kill your team's motivation.

• Present materials that are poorly formatted, disorganized, or shopworn.
• Dumb-down materials so that they are overly simple.
• Make materials too complex and difficult to follow.
• Speak down to your audience.
• Train just before or after lunch.

Your goal is to accomplish 3 things.

• Convey your company brand, personality, and culture through building rapport 
• Show how to lead customers to products they might also want
• Show how to lead customers to purchase.

That's it, don't overdo it.

Keep it simple but informative.

• Don't use too many visuals or movies, too much is as bad as too little.
• Keep it legible.  You can't understand it if you can't read it or find it.
• Speak clearly, in even calm tone.  Avoid running on, presenting too much information or telling unrelated stories.

 Scripts are a guide, a suggestion.

• Encountering a salesperson incapable of interacting without a script is a turn-off.
• They are not robots, don't force them into mindlessly repeating soundbites.
• Too many scripts are as useless as too few.
• Pick the scripts carefully, avoid repetitive statements. 
• Roleplay to show them how. 

 Great memory aid but can be lame.

• Acronyms are a great trick to aid memory. Using lame acronyms is not good.
• Too many acronyms are difficult to remember and only serve to confuse.  Limited use is much more effective.
• Use of an acronym a minor point is not effective.  Only use for key ideas.

 Treating your audience as prisoners only causes resentment.

• Being welcoming rather than authoritative is much more productive.
• Your audience are your guests, not your prisoners- treat them that way.
• Be aware of time constraints, don't waste time, it tests your audience's patience.

"Sink or swim" is a bad idea.  

• It might be tempting to toss a new hire out on the floor to flub his/her way through interactions while a trainer hovers over their shoulder. The truth is that it is an approach that never works - avoid it at all costs.
• Failure to role play/test new hires' skills before they hit the floor is a mistake.
•  Want to upset your customers?  Send them a poorly trained and unprepared sales associate.

It was once famously said that "stupid is as stupid does," and that applies to trainers as it does to anyone else.

• Having the most brilliant sales-training program in the world is not offset to an unprepared trainer, or an unskilled trainer.  Your trainer executes your training program, make sure he/she is skilled and prepared.
• Nothing demotivates your sales team faster than boring training.
• Take your own training to find out if you have an issue.

• Use the 6 Training Tips in this section with tips about what NOT to do that are found above under " Do's & Don'ts."
• Prepare, prepare and prepare again. Obtaining successful training outcomes requires good preparation, application of best practices that are proven to produce results. 
• Measure results, ask for feedback.

• Discuss consultative selling (Under best practices link).  Ensure your team knows the difference between pushing a product versus finding the best option for your customer.
• Teach your team to ask questions.  It is a great way to engage your customers and teaches your sales team how to listen.
• Practice the "Learn-Teach-Sell" method from above. 

C.A.S.H

The Consultive Selling Acronym

• Conduct a needs analysis for the guest.
• Analyze the guest's needs and discuss how the protection Plan fits those.
• Stamp your recommendation on the need for the Plan. 
• Home in on objections, overcoming them using skills acquired in training (i.e., see training videos).

• Review coverages, exclusions and service features. Don't recite every line of coverage.
• Discuss coverages that are relevant, don't discuss coverage not useful to a customer.
• Don't over sell or over promise - never say "it covers everything."
• Be familiar with what is not covered.
• Be honest and helpful.

• Discuss the performance of all team members - nothing prevents a low performer from creating the same results of a high performers other than attitude and expectations.
• Find reasons to reward success and don't shy away from providing honest feedback about poor performance.
• Set clear KPIs, focusing on them frequently.