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What L&D Pros Need to Know About Sales Training

— by mindflash

Employee trainingLearning developmentSales training

The following post first appeared on Dave Stein’s Commentary on Sales Effectiveness blog, and is republished here with permission.

On Monday I attended and presented at ASTD’s (American Society of Training and Development) 2012 International Conference and Exposition. Thanks to Mike Galvin for inviting me to contribute to the Sales Enablement track.

Although I was

only in Denver for a day, I did get the opportunity to chat with representatives and senior executives from some leading sales performance provider organizations including Richardson, Miller Heiman, Shapiro Negotiations, TACK USA, SEC Solutions (home of The Challenger Sale), Mandel Communications, Mercuri International, Celemi, and 3G Selling. I caught up with a number of ESR’s clients as well as Mike Murrell, president and publisher at Lakewood Media Group, LLC, where I’m a columnist and advisor at Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. I also had the opportunity to speak, at length, with Ken Blanchard. I was amazed to find out that his company has 325 employees. Another smart guy.

I learned a lot just from talking with smart sales training buyers and sellers during the course of the day. There is no question that many corporate L&D (learning and development) professionals have a significant challenge when it comes to serving their sales organizations. I’ve been working with ASTD for the past number of years, doing my best to transfer some of ESR’s experience, insight, and knowledge to them. I know that’s helped numbers of companies figure things out and get themselves on the path to higher degrees of sales effectiveness. It was certainly fulfilling to hear success stories from those ESR has helped.

My presentation was well-attended and, based on feedback after the 75-minute session, appreciated as well.

I covered what we at ESR consider an important issue: advanced selling capabilities. I spoke about leveraging politics within customer organizations, the importance of financial and business acumen, and the deployment of competitive strategies and tactics. I briefly touched on other advanced B2B selling capabilities as well, such as channel management. I also provided the audience with a one-slide diagnostic tool that offers some help in figuring out whether they should consider any of these advanced capabilities.

A slide deck of Stein’s presentation is available for free download on ESR’s website.

Related: How to Choose the Right Sales Trainer.

Dave Stein is CEO of the ES Research Group

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