As part of a wider professionalisation of the sales function, forward-looking companies are discovering the benefits of sales education as a way to equip their people to thrive in today’s complex and challenging business environment.
Salespeople are perhaps the last profession that has not professionalised itself, and the biggest single issue in most companies is sales performance. Yet sales training remains based on an outdated view of what salespeople do.
In the best companies, salespeople are supported by an organisation-wide commitment to professionalising sales. Sales training is now part of a wider professionalisation of the sales function. As part of a wider professionalisation of the sales function, forward-looking companies are discovering the benefits of sales education as a way to equip their people to thrive in today’s complex and challenging business environment.
Salespeople are perhaps the most misunderstood professionals. For most of human history, selling has involved little more than knocking on doors, and we haven’t changed much since then.
Yet salespeople are perhaps the last profession that has not professionalised itself. Salespeople are still largely defined not by what they do but by how they do it, and this can often put them at odds with the rest of the organisation.
Salespeople are, in effect, self-employed, and the difference between them and other professionals in the corporate structure is not their autonomy but their lack of it. The corporate structure gives people clear responsibilities and accountabilities and prescribes how they should operate. Salespeople, however, are independent contractors, and how well they do their job is largely a matter of their own initiative.
This works well when the world is largely predictable, but in today’s fast-changing business environment it is a recipe for disaster. Salespeople are expected to provide their customers with what they want, not what they want or need. This puts great pressure on salespeople and, if handled badly, can damage customer relationships.
Salespeople are often seen as “salespeople” rather than “sales people."
Transitioning from sales training
This article appeared in the Q1 2019 edition of The International Journal of Sales Transformation, authored by Dr Philip Squire, CEO Consalia and Louise Sutton, Academy Director Consalia.
Reproduced by permission of the International Journal of Sales Transformation. ©2019.
www.journalofsalestransformation.com/