Sales Leaders Rule #19: Train Your Team.

Training is one of the four hats of leadership. You're going to spend anywhere from 20% to 30% of your time in your training function. The variance in that amount is largely due to the number of experienced people on your team. The more experienced people that you have, the less that you have to train in some of the basics. However, it's important to not mistaking less training for no training. Make sure that you are delivering training suitable to each individual on the team so that they consistently have the skills necessary to do their job.

Experts in any skill set constantly train because effectiveness is often a result of the techniques becoming muscle memory. An expert will react without thinking.

The problem with a lot of business training, and sales training in particular, is that it's sporadic. If a salesperson has to stop and think about what they learned in training six years ago, the moment of usefulness has probably already passed Effective training alleviates the burden of the sales person thinking about each response because it's ingrained in them to be used in the moment.

Training is perceived by many leaders to be a daunting task because they mistakenly believe that they have to be the trainer. That's simply not true. Even as a professional trainer, I don't personally train my people on many aspects of their job. Why? Because I'm not qualified to do it so I find somebody who is. Here's what sales leader is qualified to do, figure out what the training is for each and every one of your individuals.

It's rare that a whole team needs the same training. Nuances in job role and experience can require different training pathways. Pay close attention that you are providing training to an individual only if its beneficial. It's demotivating for team members to attend training that they don't need but perceive it as a general requirement. It ends up wasting time and money so that the sales leader and the team can "check off the box" rather than focusing on true strategy or skill improvement.

So the obvious first step to providing training to the team is identifying skill gaps. Determine what types of training would be the right training for that individual. Training comes in many forms so it's important to weigh a series of questions on what best suits your team. Is it online or is it face-to-face? Is it being done internally or externally? Can individuals be grouped into similar skill gaps or is individual development required? Will the training be done live or are recorded sessions suitable?

Training isn't just about setting up a curriculum and assigning it to the team. A leader has three distinct roles, pre-training, during training, and post-training.

Set up a meeting prior to the training. Make sure that you meet with the team upfront to communicate the intended purpose and to get their individual goals for the training.

During the training, solicit feedback from them, "How is it going? What are the two or three things that you got out of today's class that you think you could implement at your job?"

When the team completes training, meet with them to get the list of things that they thought were important to implement and apply to their job. It's critical to note their take aways because it will serve as a benchmark in future conversations. Check in on the specific strategies, tactics, and techniques to see if they are being used. This reinforcement shows that you remember what has been trained and expect the individuals to use the training that they identified as useful. This post-training reinforcement keeps them focused on lessons learned and will encourage them to practice and refine so that the skills do become ingrained.

As the team learns and deploys any training program it's important for the leader to use the words that were taught in the training program. A leader needs to own the content just as much as the team does Using the terms and phrases from the training program provides a common language for the whole team. Remember, sales leaders need to use the training as much or more than the team to reinforce the importance of the learned skill sets. The team will take notice and follow that direction but only if the leader truly makes it a priority.

You must be congruent as a sales leader so make sure that pre-training, during training, and post-training is designed to make sure you get the best that you can out of every single training opportunity.