Customize Your Selling Skills Development

There never seems to be a good time to stop for training

Stephen Covey tells us the story of the wood cutter who is too busy cutting down trees to sharpen his saw. So, “Sharpen the Saw” became the 7^th of his 7 habits of highly effective people.

Selling skills are no different. We are always busy in agribusiness. There’s planting season, harvest, fungicide spraying, first cutting, field work, loan renewal, crop insurance renewal time, OEM special sales time, markets are going crazy. You name it, and in agribusiness, we have a busy season almost year around.

Ask any salesperson and they will tell you just how busy they are. So then, how do we maintain a level of skill development in our selling skills? How do we take a few minutes to “sharpen the saw?”

As with any difficult task or area where we procrastinate, there are a couple easy steps to overcome this problem.

First, do what is truly sustainable. Pick a quiet time of your day and start with 5 or 10 minutes. Dedicate that time to reading or listening to one piece of selling skills material. I provided several blog posts below which you can start with. There are a 180 more of them out there on the web site.

Second, if you forget or it becomes too cumbersome, no problem. Just pick right back up tomorrow and start the streak over again. Jerry Seinfeld is famous for his guidance on how to be a better comedian. He stresses the importance of writing every day. Doesn’t matter how long, but it needs to be every day. He goes on to say, once you get the chain of days going, never break the chain.

In the current work from home situation, we have more virtual media out there than ever before in history. Find those podcasts, YouTube channels and LinkedIn live people that interest you and follow them. Again, I provided some links below for you to get started.

When the pandemic hit, live training events went on hold for a while. Virtual training workshops and presentations have been going well. But I would be lying if I told you it was just the same as a live training event. They are not as fun to present and not as fun nor engaging for the attendees. However, they can be recorded and replayed at a more convenient time. This can actually make virtual training more effective at truly getting the training across. In a live event, we can’t rewind and go back over a section to insure we understand it. In a virtual session, we can go back and listen to it multiple times if necessary.

As a sales trainer, we have to work hard to develop customized programs for a wide variety of experience and skill levels. However, it’s the customizing that makes it more engaging and hopefully sticks with attendees longer.

Below are some of the steps I like to go through when working with a sales team. There is no one answer for every person or every team. Each team has a variety of experience, challenges, time restrictions and budget to work with. Many factors go into designing a custom sales development plan:

First is to determine whether it’s virtual or in person.
Next is whether the team is geographically close or spread out. Close teams can physically gather quicker, easier and more often, with less cost involved.
Skill and experience level are evaluated to determine the best topics needed. Most sales training covers the basics. Experienced teams need someone who can engage at their selling level.
Duration of the training is factored in. Training ranges from one-hour webinars to full 2-day workshops with follow-on coaching sessions. Depending on what is best for your team, we modify the delivery of the material to fit their schedule and preference for learning.
Surveys and assessments are used to determine specific topics, engage their sales manager and determine the entire group’s skill needs.
Lastly, we adapt it to the seasonality of agribusiness. During slow times, we can pick up the pace and intensity. While other times, it’s support and encouragement until the pace slows back down.

Take a quick survey of what you think your team needs to work on. You don’t have to enter your name or put an email address in if you don’t want to.

SURVEY

Top 10 ways to develop your selling skills during quarantine

1. Webinar on a sales training topic of your choice: Closing Skills, Prospecting, etc.
2. Group Coaching – also called a Mastermind
3. Individual Coaching – traditional professional coaching to get you up to the next level of performance
4. Read “A Season For Sales: Your Guide to Ag Sales Success”
5. Have your team read a chapter each week – then hold a group discussion on how it specifically applies to them
6. Territory Consulting
7. Hybrid Coaching: a group training session, followed by individual discussions
8. DISC Assessment and training – one of the greatest tools you can use in selling
9. Sales Team Assessment: find out where your team strengths and weaknesses are in this snapshot in time
10. Sales Management – all these programs can be implemented with sales managers for developing their sales management skills

Top podcast episodes for quick selling skills development

And one for sales managers: Cross Train your empathy-less Salesperson

Top YouTube Episodes for selling skills development

Good luck on your journey at being the best salesperson or sales manager you can be. As always, don’t hesitate to call, text, email or LinkedIn message me for a discussion on how I can help you on your journey!

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A Season for Sales: Your Guide to Ag Sales Success

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