Free Sales Training (UK)

Monday, February 15 2010

This post is following on from Nick de Cents recent post on the LinkedIn ModernSelling Group “Have you seen anything genuinely new from a sales trainer recently or is training now simply a commodity differentiated purely on price and service level?”

Clearly most sales leaders believe that nothing has really changed in the past 50 years, so there’s a HUGE opportunity for us all here!

Here’s an example of where I feel peoples mind sets are currently:
20 odd years ago one of the first fundamentals of sales that I was taught was that:
Results = Activity, Skills, Knowledge

I would have to agree that the above formula remains as relevant today as it was 20 or even 50 years ago, so WHY change? What has changed are the tools, techniques and strategies that enable the sales profession to really leapfrog their competitors, but how many sales leaders have done anything about this? One area that is having a dramatic impact is the internet and Sales 2.0 in particular.

What I would like to propose is an initial webinar on how the contributors to this post could work together to help bring the UK sales profession into the 21st Century by showing:

1. What’s happening with B2B Social Media?
1.a Most of us are familiar with LinkedIn (posting, answering questions etc), but how many of your customers are actually aware of the potential here (all the indications are 7% at best) Your customers know the basics of sales; they just need to be pointed in the right direction for the best use of social media.
1.b What are the other developments in this space; InsideView, Jigsaw etc?

2. Sales Trainers
2.a You know what your USP’s are; this is your opportunity to re-emphasise them and re-engage with your clients on the back of social media. As Adrian (Siemens) pointed out, there is an excellent opportunity for the sales training profession to demonstrate that they’re up with current practices.

3. List providers
3.a Are they integrating with the new breed of social media data providers?
3.b What are the implications of social media with data cleansing?

So yes, much of what’s being delivered is nothing new, but the WAY in which they are being delivered is completely new (the BBC recently described it as revolutionary). This process rejuvenates the whole sales team as in most cases their prospects will now engage with them and accept their phone calls!

And as Brian rightly pointed out, with all the Train to Gain incentives out there, why wouldn’t people be interested?

I would be grateful for your comments so please join the debate here. Or call 020 8755 4866