Sales people are supposed to bring your company money, but for many companies this is just not a reality. The worst part about it all is that many business owners don’t understand the actual costs of poorly trained salespeople. In many cases, a salesperson costs more than they are bringing in. This is usually a result of poor training and development. A sales trainer can help with that! Let me rifle off the first nine costs of a poorly trained salesperson that come to mind.
1. Lost opportunity
- When your salesperson is not properly trained, they are nowhere near as effective as they need to be so you can realize a return.
- Quite frankly, this results in deals that are slipping through your fingers because you are not allowing your sales person to reach their full potential.
- Hiring a sales trainer is an investment that pays off.
2. Management time
- When your salesperson is not trained properly by a skilled sales trainer, you spend more time putting out fires that they started, than actually engaging in your business.
3. Administrative costs
- This ties into the last point, but when you or your managers have to babysit sales people to ensure their engagement and performance, the manager’s quality of work significantly reduces as well.
4. Vacancy costs
- Poorly trained staff garners less loyalty to the company and ultimately significantly increases turnover.
5. Training costs
- As funny as it may sound, not properly training your staff costs you more, than training them properly the first time.
- Companies spend a great deal of money on training and developing internally, but what does a software engineer that is now in the role of management truly know about closing on an assumptive close after perfectly executing the Socratic Method, handling 4 objections, staying quiet through the awkward moment of the 5th different close and asking for a 20 million dollar check?
6. Customer costs
- With poorly trained salespeople, some of the customers will come in with unrealistic expectations that were laid out by the salesman.
- The training must contain entire sections as how to handle and set expectations for a client.
- This will significantly reduce honest mistakes and miscommunication as well as greatly improve client experience.
7. Replacement costs
- Not only are you losing money when someone isn’t selling for you, but there is a significant cost to recruit and hire a new person as well as a cost during the mentoring and ramp up period when the new salesperson starts.
8. Employee moral
- Training breeds confidence. Confidence breeds happiness. When your staff is confident and happy your bottom line will reflect it.
9. Competitive advantage
- Imagine walking into an electronics store, when you ask the salesperson for information on a product, does the likelihood of you buying change if they turn over the box and read the features, or if they confidently explain the benefits to you?
There is no science to hiring a sales trainer, but just understand one thing, those who cannot do, teach. Think of the best salesperson you know, do they have an MBA? Probably not. Great sales people become great from learning and putting into practice what they learnt, not from reading a book about management operations!
About the Author:
Ali is an accomplished Sales Master and Trainer! Starting his career in sales at the tender age of 18, Ali quickly realized that he would have to become better because being terrible at selling was not fun. Since then, Ali has personally closed almost $100 Million in sales for many companies from small local establishments to large multi-national organizations. Since 2012, Ali has taken his passion for closing deals to teaching others how to close deals. Ali firmly believes, there is no such thing as a born salesman; the only things born are baby boys and baby girls! Salespeople are taught. Ali currently lives in Atlanta and travels the country helping companies increase their sales; you can keep up with him at his consulting firm.
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