CUSTOMIZING

The training programs chosen by top sales organizations incorporate the organizations value and belief system. The courses are, in a sense, customized around the corporate business culture. This shared value system helps to ensure that everyone in the sales organization has the same values, such as focus on the customer first or maintain strong ethical standards. For example, the customization of a companys training program might include an emphasis on questioning to display concern toward the customer rather than an emphasis on aggressive closing techniques that could aggravate the customer and make him or her feel unimportant. If a shared value is to put customers first, then the training program and the customization of it should reflect this value, not counteract it (see Sales Trap 7).

Top-flight sales organizations will often customize sales training for specialized markets. They do this by outsourcing research projects to a sales training and consulting research firm. Research firms conduct field observations in order to tailor-make sales training for specific markets. Eli Lilly followed such a procedure, as was explained to me by its manager of training and development.1 To put it another way, the customizing of the content is important, since adults learn better when they can relate and apply concepts, models, and strategies to their actual work.

A final thought about customizing: In general, the more customized the sales training program is to the participants day-to-day job, the more effective the program will be.2 The more strategically customized a sales skill training program can be, the better it will be understood and applied by participants. But even if the program is highly customized, it will not be effective long if it is not reinforced by feedback from the manager.

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sales trap 7:

Its the Content of the Skill Training That Matters Most

Managers spend hours sweating over all the sales skill training courses available today. Theres nothing wrong with that, unless they expect the payoff from sales training to come solely from the content of the training course, believing the fallacy that the content of the course is the most important part of training. It isnt.

If you want to get a performance edge from sales training, you have to provide feedback and reinforcement after the course. Otherwise, the training wont be effective.

FOUR BASIC TYPES OF COURSES

Having said that, its helpful to review the four basic types of sales courses that are available on the market today. An informed consumer of sales training has to at least be familiar with these four categories. Each category has a perspective that seems to have the potential to make a contribution to an individuals sales skill development. As you might expect, the quality of the program content, architecture, and exercises vary from program to program.

attitudinal method. Probably the most popular and widely used approach to skill development in this category is Professional Selling Skills, better known as PSS. The PSS approach was developed by the Xerox Corporation, distributed by its Xerox Learning Systems division, and used by IBM, American Airlines, and Prudential, among others. Xerox used PSS until the early 1980s. Since so many companies used the PSS approach, it was often referred to as the Xerox course. 3

PSS focuses on the customers attitude, and thus its known as a course that uses the attitudinal approach. The attitudinal approach

suggests that a customer will have one of four attitudes: acceptance, indifference, rejection, or skepticism. The seller must select the appropriate communication model(s) that correspond(s) to the particular attitude that the buyer displays.

There are six communication models (the names have changed since PSS was created):

A Probing

A Supporting

A Objection handling

A Proof

A Closing

A Benefit statement

For example, if a customers attitude is one of acceptance, a salesperson may want to use the support model, in which she or he agrees with the customers positive comments, or the salesperson might decide to use the closing model. This approach develops a salespersons conversational effectiveness by helping the salesperson to adapt readily to the buyers attitude.

adaptive or social-style approach. The second category is referred to as the adaptive or social-style approach. This method suggests that there are four basic social styles that people can have. While the names for the four styles may vary, the intent of the program offerings in this category is to recognize that people with each of the four social styles process information differently. Therefore, the logical conclusion of this approach is that top-performing salespeople should not only adapt to a buyers particular social style but also communicate to that person the way that person likes to be