I recently attended a talk about personal branding that made me think.

The speaker was discussing how sales people need to improve their image in order to be more trusted by their customers. He discussed how sales people are frequently given minimal training and are expected to deliver great results. This is in complete contrast to other professions where it takes much longer to become qualified.

It takes five years to train as a doctor and then another 5-10 years of work before you are trusted to work on your own.

It takes up to five years to qualify as an electrician, starting with an apprenticeship, plus more time to become a Master Electrician.

It can take between 5 and 20 years to become the captain of an airplane, including 1500 hours of flying time.

It is generally accepted that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become highly proficient at any skill.

Sales people get a few days training and are then sent out to talk to customers.

Training needs to be continuous if we want it to be successful. We do not learn everything we need to know about Maths in a few lessons, we learn it over time with each lesson building on the previous lesson. This is the same for sales.

When we take a training course, we learn lots of new things. Not all of these things will be relevant to us immediately as we may not have the experience to be able to understand their value. Some things we are likely to forget. However, some things stick with us and we improve as a result. To continuously improve, we have to continue to train.

Footballers train every day, not just to maintain their fitness but to improve their skills and teamwork. Actors continue to rehearse so that their performance improves. Sales training should not be viewed as a one-time thing but as an ongoing process. Only by continuously training can you helps sales teams to improve their seller skills, knowledge and attributes to drive behavioural change so that you can win more deals.

Companies that adopt regular sales training have experienced notable profit growth, employee satisfaction, and innovation. Training has a significant impact on sales and the company’s success yet companies frequently refuse to do it, believing that they cannot change their employees and forgetting that the world is changing around them.

Training does not just help sales people to learn new techniques and improve their sales skills. It helps them to develop their understanding of their products and services, to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in the industry and understand how their customers are changing.

This does not always have to be formal classroom training. Training can take many forms including in the classroom, online, on the job, role plays and coaching. We simply cannot expect people to become great sales people without training. Experience does help, of course, but if we are constantly doing the wrong things but without knowing it, we are destined to never get better.

So, in one day, I learnt about personal branding. This does not make me an expert but I know enough to improve what I am currently doing. Over time, I will need to learn more to get better. What are you doing to help your sales team to improve one day at a time?