4 Tips for Rapid Response Sales Team Training
Sales training and coaching are often thought of as a proactive sales management activity.
You want your team to always be equipped with particular skills and behaviors before they encounter specific (and known) scenarios.
Sales skills such as uncovering a customer’s personal urgency to buy, asking for the sale, solid follow-up skills and the ability to overcome objections are at the top of the “proactive” list.
But what happens when you have new scenarios that aren’t predictable, and you haven’t dealt with before?
You only have one choice. You have to switch into Rapid Response Sales Training.
Rapid Response Sales Training is best described as a quick performance solution that is developed out of an observed need.
Let me share an example from a new home sales manager, I will call Brandon, who found himself in need of a Rapid Response Sales Training solution.
While observing his sales team in conversations with buyers waiting for their homes to be built, Brandon uncovered a huge issue in how his team was responding to the question, “Why is it taking so long to build my home?”
The team was responding with some form of, “I’m sorry, but it is what it is.”
As you can imagine, customers were not pleased with that response. Neither was Brandon.
He needed to fix this fast! I gave him a few ideas on how to frame up a response that would be easy to implement.
I am happy to report that Brandon’s entire team now has a much better response to the question, “Why is it taking so long to build my home?”
The point of this post is not to teach you how to respond to that specific scenario, but to teach you how Brandon was able to create a Rapid Response Sales Training solution.
Here are the four steps Brandon took:
- Make time to observe – If you are stuck in meetings all day and not seeing what is actually happening with your sales team, odds are pretty high that you will not know what training issues are bubbling up. You have to be at the point of performance and see it for yourself. There’s an old phrase I learned from my good friend Jeanne Conger who often said, “Inspect what you expect.” That means making time to get out there and see what is happening first hand.
- Be quick to act – The reason it’s called “Rapid” Response Training is because it has to be quick. My wife, Melissa Taft, likes to say, “It’s better to slay a dragon when it’s a baby dragon than wait until it grows in to a full-grown, fire-breathing dragon!” She’s right. Catch bad habits quick and you won’t struggle to undo bad habits down the road.
- Make the training easy to consume and remember – The framework I gave Brandon was three simple steps. It had to be simple, otherwise it wouldn’t work. Whatever framework or coaching you give to your team, make sure it isn’t 27 steps. Remember, easy equals right. Besides, if it’s too complicated they won’t remember it or do it so you’re wasting your time.
- Follow TSDM to make the response training sticky – Whenever I am coaching anyone, I follow these four steps:
- Tell – I tell the learner what change I am looking for in their skill or behavior.
- Show – I model that skill so they can have a visual of it.
- Do – I watch him or her perform the skill I am teaching.
- Measure – I look for how much they improved or not.
I repeat this process until I see authenticity in the new skill. In other words, the person I am coaching has made it their own.
“The destination called Mastery is found on a road called Repetition” – Jeff Shore
There you have it, four simple steps to help you create a Rapid Response Sales Training solution.
I’ll be talking more about this topic at the annual Sales Leadership Summit. At Sales Leadership Summit 2021, you’ll learn the Builder Pivot Blueprint™ to help you rise above today’s market frenzies and prepare for whatever comes next while maintaining a great customer experience throughout the entire journey.
You’ll get what you need to pivot in these five areas:
- Redefining the Customer Experience
- Rethinking Margin: Money, Time & Land
- Rapid-response Training for Sales Teams
- Recruiting/Staffing for the Downturn (AND for the next boom!)
- Reading the Trends and Staying Ahead of the Curve
Every year, the Sales Leadership Summit is the biggest and only conference designed exclusively for sales leaders in the real estate industry.
Hundreds of people return every year to experience great teaching, build new strategies, learn new tools and expand their network of friends.
