Train the Trainer or Consultant led training – what’s best?

We are often asked for our opinion on which is the best approach to delivering training. The best answer is probably both!

The case for Train the Trainer

• We already pay our managers so we can get more out of a fixed expense
• Our managers know their team and therefore have a familiarity that they can leverage in learning
• After the initial purchase of content, we can run further training without a variable cost
• If our managers have to deliver the training, then it is incumbent on them to know their stuff
• If they are responsible for delivering learning in the training room then it follows that they can reinforce that learning via coaching

The downside of Train the Trainer

• As managers already have a day job, loading them up with preparing and delivering training is another non core activity for them to juggle
• As training is a technical skill, they need to be experienced and well trained in the craft to be an effective teacher
• As content is generally purchased as modules it can take up to a year to deliver 10 x 90 minute training sessions that alternatively could have been delivered by a consultant over two days up front
• There is often a lower acceptable standard of delivery and measurement when training is delivered in house
• As the trainer is only exposed to one business, they loose the cross industry and broader perspective of a consultant who delivers multiple programs with a variety of clients in different industries

The upside of Consultant led training

• High quality, dynamic, impactful learning
• Managers freed up to support reinforcement in coaching
• Cross industry experience and perspectives
• Greater engagement from learners

The downside of Consultant led training

• If they don’t do their homework it can be generic and lacking in customisation
• You get what you pay for in terms of quality – if you only pay peanuts, you will get monkeys
• Unless there is an ongoing relationship post the workshops, you can lose the continuity

The best of both worlds in a hybrid approach

As modules are a slow burn make a fast start with the consultant up front. Your team gets a deep dive in to a complete program with high quality learning outcomes.

Then follow up with modular reinforcement via the manager who has to know their stuff to be effective in both training and reinforcement coaching in the field.

Single word benefits

In an earlier post we suggested that you dispense with selling traditional FAB statements and instead do the reverse in selling BAF’s by leading with the benefit upfront. This will differentiate you from the competition and more overtly show the customer what’s in it for them.

A BAF statement is where you open with the Benefit (or outcome) the customer receives, then work back to the Advantage the product delivers functionally which is ultimately a result of a Feature or attribute.

For example: The premium line gives you the best profit dollar outcome for your business (benefit), because the higher price point generates almost twice the transaction value (advantage) at a higher percentage margin of 38% (feature).

To make it even easier to communicate benefits upfront, what if you could deliver the benefit statement as a single word?

All benefit statements are derived from one of the following. Think SPACER!

S – Security A sense of comfort, security or peace of mind

P – Performance How well a product or service performs

A – Appearance How attractive it looks in form or beauty

C – Convenience How easy the product or service is to use

E – Economy Value for money, low cost, efficient

R – Reliability Confidence in it delivering its promise

Let’s look at some examples

“Safety! That’s why you should fly Qantas because history shows it to be one of the world’s safest airlines.”

Here the peace of mind benefit in arriving safely is what sets it apart. Not the fact that is has trained mechanics using the latest equipment doing extensive maintenance every 1000 flying hours. That just describes what makes it safe and customers don’t really care.

“Speed and lightweight performance are why you should buy the carbon bike as it will accelerate quicker and hold more speed for longer than the heavier steel frames for the same effort.”

The benefit of speed is the single word used up front to communicate the positive outcome of the performance. This is explained as due to its lightweight when compared to a steel bike.

“Beautiful. Isn’t this just an amazing looking building with all the classic Victorian touches you would expect in a house of this era so sympathetically restored.”

The benefit here is aesthetics and looks delivered up front. The Victorian heritage is the feature but the most important outcome is how it appears visually, not the era in which it was built.

Action

What are you coaching against?

I am sure you have heard the phrase “This is how we do it here”. In fact leading companies put active effort in to creating folklore around their sales processes and the language that supports it.

To get the Big Mac tasting the same way all around the country, decisions need to be made about a common approach. From this common approach will come agreed processes, language, linkages and behaviours.

The best way to ensure a long life from this initiative is to start with senior management endorsement. To have leaders referencing the sales approach reinforces its importance to the troops. To have managers who can model the approach is just as critical.

If you are going to coach your team in the National sales process then it must be captured, published and trained before coaching in it begins.

Action

Financial Skills across Australasia are not poor, they are woeful!

What is it with the education of sales people when it comes to numeracy and financial acumen?

In our experience over the last two decades we have noticed a worrying trend of poor skills when it comes to numbers. What makes this even more worrying is the torrent of data that now flows in to businesses and the requirement for sales people, especially National Account Managers to deliver financial solutions to commercially skilled buyers.

In contrast, our frequent trips to Asia have shown a distinct superiority in numeracy, financial and core negotiation skills in Asian sales teams.

Is this a result of education, culture and conditioning?

Is the only answer to now intervene with more training to fill the education gaps left by our system?

The problem with selling FAB’s

Traditionally, sales people were told by their sales manager or sales trainer to construct statements that include Features and Benefits or if a little more advanced, Features, Advantages and Benefits. That advice is very last century.

The first problem is that many sales managers and their marketing departments don’t really know the strict difference between a feature and a benefit. This makes any benefit statement opaque and hardly attractive for the customer.

For clarity here is the definitional difference once and for all:

Features are indisputable characteristics, attributes or specifications of the product or service. They describe what the product is or has and are often technical.

For example:

“Our new laptops have 16GB of RAM on board.”

So what? By describing the feature on its own, the customer is left with the classic question, often unspoken,
so “What’s in it for Me?”

Advantages help by explaining what the feature Does or Doesn’t Do.

“Our laptops have 16GB of RAM, which means they can process multiple commands at once.”

Notice that we are still describing the product and the customer still doesn’t know what’s in it for them.

Benefits therefore are the end result or outcome for people or businesses if they were to acquire the product or service.
A well-equipped laptop with 16GB of RAM versus say 4GB or 8GB delivers a dramatic improvement in speed and therefore productivity for the user. For the retailer’s business it means more dollars in the transaction and potentially more profit versus the standard configuration.

But the problem here is that selling via the traditional FAB method takes too long to answer the customers WIIFM question.
They need to concentrate and follow how an attribute, does or doesn’t do something functionally, to finally deliver an outcome to a person or a business! Phew!

The better way these days is to turn FAB’s upside down and deliver BAF’s! Lead with the attractive bit upfront by describing the positive outcome first.

Mrs Jones the attraction of this laptop is that you will dramatically improve your productivity at work, giving you more time to devote to your other interests. By being able to crunch more commands more quickly you simply won’t have to wait for your machine to do its work.

Benefit upfront, back to the advantage to explain what is going on and if needed going all the way back to highlight the feature.

Action

Coaching with calibration

In this data rich age we are bombarded with facts and figures of what’s going on in the trade on the customer side but often we are lacking in personal performance data of our team.

The challenge for sales managers is to come up with a statement of what good performance looks like and then to measure the team against these criteria at regular intervals. As mentioned in earlier BIG Ideas you want to give objective, evidence based feedback, in preference to subjective assessments based on the manager’s opinion.

We suggest you focus on the inputs that drive the outputs for your measurement device. The inputs are the knowledge, skills or behaviours that ultimately move sales needles.

Action:

With consistent measures provided to the salesperson based on evidence and not opinion, the annual performance review becomes a very different conversation and with absolutely no surprises.