About training salespeople
According to Training magazine, companies spend about 16% of their budgets to train staff. This is a huge percentage but not only that, according to a Forrester report, about 40% of employees and managers are unsatisfied with on-the-job training.
So what can we do? How can we change the training we provide to real estate agents to make them enjoy it more, make it more effective and ensure it provides results and helps them become successful?
Here are four things to consider.
Ask what they need, don’t decide for them - I have found it interesting that in my conversations with managers and business owners they would many times tell me what they need for training but they have not asked the sales team, what they think they need. With most companies that I work with now I ask them to send a survey to the team to see what they say they need. The results are sometimes very different to what the managers thought was needed.
Different courses for different horses - The selling team is made our of people in differing levels. Some new, some experienced, some very successful others struggling. Try as much a possible to offer training that fits the different levels not one size fits all. Seperate the team according to the type of training they need, this way there will be a lot more engagement.
What’s next? - Training is great but it the sales team does not implement what they learned, it was a waste of time. Find a way to keep the team accountable to the things they need to implement. whether it is a competition, getting them involved in the payment for the training so they have “skin in the game” or asking them to decide what will happen if they do not do what they have just learned.
Make training a reward - Possibly slightly controversial. Offer training to those who are doing well to make them even better as a reward instead of setting training to get the lowest level up and making it compulsory. This way those who attend will feel privileged and are more likely to do something about it
If we are spending money on trying to make sure we have the best team, we need to do the best we can to make sure it happens.