On March 20-21, the first practical conference on online education will be held in Moscow, at which the most famous Russian educational brands will share their knowledge in the field of creating and promoting educational products.

Evgeny Lebedev

Director of Marketing and Product, Foxford Online School.

Estimate demand

Marketing of your educational project begins at the stage of choosing the topic of study. If nobody needs what you teach, then no promotion and advertising will help you sell the course. Who, for example, needs courses on the use of mechanical accounts? But 30–40 years ago, it was a very useful skill for any seller in a grocery store.

You can measure demand with several tools.

• Analysis of the volume of search queries  on wordstat.yandex.ru. State which search query is most likely used by people who could potentially learn from you. Check its frequency and rate the seasonality.

• Social Demand Analysis. State what people write when they look for something related to learning and ask their friends and in groups on social networks about it. Write this phrase in the search and analyze the quantity and quality of the displayed posts.

• Study. The preceding paragraphs allow us to study the formed demand, when a person already has a clear need and he is trying to satisfy it. But more often it happens that a person would be happy to learn something, but does not conduct an active search. Then you can do the research. Create a questionnaire in which you talk about your educational product and place a pre-order form. Distribute this profile to your friends and friends of friends. So you will understand if there is a demand for such a product in your environment. It is important that to conduct such a study, you do not need to create the content itself. You just pretend that you have it, and thereby check the real need.

Submit information correctly

If there is demand and your expertise is in demand on the market, then it must be properly presented to a potential audience. Make a website (or a separate landing page) and describe the benefits of training with you.

Show that you are an expert

The most important competitive advantage in education is the name of the expert and his status. The programming course from MIT (the largest US university) and the course from talented self-taught from Voronezh are perceived by the potential audience in completely different ways. Although it is absolutely not necessary that from the point of view of efficiency, the course from self-taught is worse.

If you are a recognized expert on the market, then feel free to. State your achievements that are related to the course and tell the audience about them.

If there is no big name yet, then show your qualifications with the help of a portfolio, certificates, diplomas, tell us about the relevant position and experience.

Create a training program

The training program allows the audience to understand whether you will be teaching. The course may be called "Analytics", but 100% consist of theory. A potential buyer is waiting for practice. He comes to solve the problem and wants to learn how to work with databases.

Demonstrate that your training program will solve the problem of the buyer.

In the program, it is important not only to identify topics for study, but also to show what skills the buyer will receive at the exit. You can go even further and “pack” skills in a specific favor for the buyer: for example, show what his resume will look like after completing the course.

Show the benefits of your course

How will your course differ from a dozen others? What is its uniqueness? If you can’t answer these questions straight away or are talking about the quality of the program and the class expert, then think again. All courses are taught by good teachers and are delivered through effective programs. At least everyone claims it. But they buy courses with unique benefits. Create and create them.

Find a reason to believe you

In presenting information, it is important that she is trusted. Statements like “146% of students were satisfied” have not convinced anyone for a long time. Give your potential audience a reason to believe (RTB).

Effective RTBs may include:

• Reviews of real students on the site, which confirm that the training with you will help to achieve a result. To increase confidence in the reviews themselves will help the video format, posting them on the social networks of your students, the call to ask the students for details, their contacts.

• A free webinar where you will cover one of the topics of the training program and demonstrate your teaching skills and expertise.
• Video (screen recording) from past classes or a webinar with a short story on the topic of the course.

• The promise to return the money if the program did not fit the student. Only an honest promise with transparent rules.

• Data on the number of students who completed the course. This is social proof that you should sign up for the course. To be believed, only numbers are not enough, show your students and tell them what they managed to achieve.

How to start a course promotion

After quality packaging of the content, it's time to start promoting it. In general, work on promoting educational content is not much different from working with other products. The basic checklist is as follows.

1. Define your target audience

• young professionals who know the basics and want to improve their skills in order to get a promotion;
• experienced professionals from related fields who decide to change their profession;
• moms on maternity leave who want to learn something fundamentally new.

2. Set up analytics

It will determine the effectiveness of marketing channels and adjust the promotion plan.

3. Define a set of channels for promotion

The main channels for promotion are usually:

• contextual advertising;
• advertising on social networks;
• advertising on thematic sites;
• publications in groups in social networks and in thematic media;
• direct sales.

As a rule, if we are talking about a small, “craft” course, then the main promotion tool is advertising on Facebook and VKontakte.

4. Define a test budget

Remember that your task is to pay less for attracting a user than you will receive from him as a result. At this stage, you can work with two variables: the cost of the paying user and the price of the product.

• Determine the starting price for the course, based on an analysis of the pricing policy of competitors.
• Launch a small ad campaign.
• If the ratio of advertising costs to revenue from sales suits you, great.
• If you are not happy, then try to raise the price and see if the sales volume decreases. Or try to lower the price and see if the payer is reduced.
• If the ratio still does not suit, then call an advertising expert who will say whether it is possible to reduce the cost of a paying user by fine-tuning advertising campaigns.
• If everything is set up correctly, but there are no sales and you are not ready to suffer losses, then we return to the previous stages, once again check the demand and work on packaging.

5. Scale your ad campaigns

If your content allows you to scale sales, then after finding the first marketing channel with the cost of a paying user that suits you, start the second channel, the third and so on.

Features of the promotion of the educational course

Despite the fact that, in general, the tools for promoting educational services do not differ from generally accepted ones, there are several features that are worth paying attention to.

1.   From the first days of the product’s life, it’s very important to think about the so-called word of mouth, and more precisely, about your brand. If you conduct courses named after yourself, then your name is your brand. High-quality conduct of classes, user happiness, educational result - a necessary minimum to develop a brand. If everything is in order with the required minimum, then ask to leave feedback on the social network. Personally write to everyone who has completed your training, request feedback and, if you liked everything, ask them to write a review on social networks.

2.   Develop a referral program. Learning together is more fun! And your students can become your agents of influence.

3.   Making a purchasing decision can take weeks or months. Therefore, the ad that you launched today can only produce results in a few months. Be patient.

4. In educational content and its marketing, it is important to maintain motivation. Without motivation, the student will not have good results, and your product will not have a good reputation. To maintain motivation, introduce elements of positive reinforcement: motivating letters after completing homework, success stories of your students, bonuses to the best students. You can also work with negative reinforcement: for example, we call parents of those students who miss classes, and parents become effective educational motivators.

25 people came to the first stream, about 50 came to the second. It is not yet scalable as a business, but rather just a way to convey some ideas to people. Yes, and earnings - a nice addition.

I decided to start the course, because I always manage to explain different things in an accessible way. And everyone says that this is one of my strengths. For a long time I tried to develop my weaknesses, but then I decided to try to do something using the strengths. It can be said that this is a hobby, I always try to do something other than the main work, although all my hobbies are related to business.

I promoted the course on a personal network of contacts on Facebook, plus advertising there. Because there is an audience relevant to the topic of the course. From the first students of the course I received a powerful feedback, I realized what to do if I want to scale the project.

Alexey Kulichevsky

Director of Marketing at Osome.com.

It is difficult for me and many of my friends to hire good marketers and analysts. There are very few people with the necessary set of skills, because no one is teaching this. I have gained enough experience over 12 years, I love and know how to share it. On the Internet there are enough materials on design, CSS and HTML, instructions for working with advertising platforms. Maxim Ilyakhov teaches me to write and edit texts better than me. But analytics was nothing. So I decided to do this course.

In a year and a half, 471 people passed it. He was included in the educational program of several universities. People begin to indicate it in the resume as an additional education. From time to time I get reviews from familiar entrepreneurs that my graduates really work much better.

In principle, I am satisfied, but now I see many shortcomings in the course: some topics could be revealed more fully or clearly, several important topics should be added. Very worried about homework. I want students to get feedback as quickly as possible, but I can’t check the work quickly enough.

I started creating the course by writing the first two lessons and making a page with a form of payment on my knee. After that he wrote on Facebook: “Hello everyone. Look, I’ve made a course here ... ” This gave the first 150 students. Everything was done so primitively that I signed each student with my hands: I opened Yandex.Checkout, copied the email, went to Mailchimp, inserted the email, clicked “OK”.

After that I had no time for advancement: I have a handicap - two weeks, and then every week I need to give out a new lesson. If the topic was well understood by me and I already taught it before, then writing, editing and designing the lesson took just a week. If at least something was unclear, it could take 2-3 weeks, because it suddenly turned out that the topic was more complicated than I thought.

In the course of 16 lessons, their writing took six months of work without days off. When I finished the course, I redid the landing page and posted it on Facebook again: “Dudes, I finished the course and made a new landing.” Well, that's all. I didn’t promote him anymore.

Most important feedback: 150 sales two days after launch. Firstly, I realized that the course is necessary and important. Secondly, I burned the bridges. Money received, no turning back. I have to write.

Sergey Bolisov

Chief Distribution Officer to the site.

I consider my course quite successful. I do not spend it as often as I would like, but all the launches went well. Minimum operating costs, I do everything myself, so I remain in the black. This year I want to experiment with formats and participation packages, this seems like an interesting scaling option.

The course has been launched for several reasons. Firstly, I like to explain to people things that I am good at and that will help in my work. I feel that I am helping them develop. Secondly, this is how I pump in the development and promotion of my own product - I fill up the bumps on a small scale, then to avoid this in large projects. And thirdly, this is the extra money that I spend, including on charity.

Basically, I recruit participants from the announcements on my pages on social networks and on friendly sites. Sometimes I ask you to post, sometimes someone does it on their own initiative. Often my announcements appear on Tilda’s social networks, and from there comes pretty good convertible traffic.

I don’t want to make a blunder, but I can’t communicate with thirty students every day. Therefore, after the first launch, I realized that I would only recruit small groups. Not everyone will like this option, you are kind of artificially restricting yourself to a certain ceiling, but for now I’m so comfortable.

I also realized that people come not so much for knowledge and skills, but for feedback. It is important for them that someone who understands this topic better than they should look, advise and guide.

One of the main insights: most of the time is spent not on classes, but on communication with students.

Even if he explained everything in detail at the webinar, many questions will surely arise. So I advise you to be patient. Well and time, it will leave much more than you think.

If you understand that you want to launch your own educational product, but you lack knowledge, come to EdmarketConf-2018, which will be held on April 20 and 21 in Moscow, in the Skolkovo technology park. At this practical conference on online education, top managers of leading educational companies will tell you how to create educational courses from scratch, promote and sell them. The conference can be viewed online.

Competition often prevents businesses from succeeding. It is the reason for the growing demand for sales specialists: in Moscow alone more than 50,000 vacancies are open! The market makes sales training courses in demand. They provide an opportunity for beginners to receive a highly paid profession, and for business owners to increase the competencies of a sales team.

Russian School of Management invites you to sales courses in Moscow. The training program includes a large number of trainings for specialists of various levels: from heads of sales departments to call-center operators.

Features of training at the Russian State University

Effective sales training is conducted by experienced teachers - practicing experts. They will be happy to share their experience and relevant technologies that work in modern market conditions. At the seminars, they use teaching methods:

Business games.

Workshops.

Case study.

Each training is a theory, analysis of successful business cases with colleagues and teachers, the search for the best solutions in difficult situations and the analysis of popular mistakes. Sales training takes place in a comfortable environment. Choose the right training for yourself and gain knowledge!

Learning outcomes

At trainings of the Russian Higher School of Law you will get the necessary knowledge. Attend sales seminars, on which you will become familiar with sales systems, learn project sales formulas and learn:

Affect potential customers.

Collect customer bases.

Use telephone sales scripts.

Identify consumer needs.

Close problematic transactions.

Increase the average bill.

Work with objections.

Work with large customers.

Increase sales team effectiveness.

Each sales training is a study of a specific problem with real examples, without general information that is difficult to use in practice. The objective of our sales trainings is professional development and staff training.

Who will be interested in the courses of the Russian Higher School of Law?

RCU seminars are suitable for all sales professionals. With the help of this knowledge, you will develop customer services, conduct marketing events and organize call centers.

Sales training is designed for a wide audience. The training program will be useful both for beginners taking the first steps in the profession, and for experienced professionals who want to improve their qualifications. Effective sales training will be a good opportunity for those who want to improve their professional competencies.

Sales training at the Russian School of Management will be interesting:

Business owners.

Commercial directors.

Heads of sales departments.

Sales managers.

Development managers.

Customer service managers.

Call Center Operators.

Realtors.

Sales training can become part of the corporate learning process. Often, department managers do not have a competent analysis of their activities: the training conducted by the Russian State University will help identify promising employees in order to rely on them in the future.

The cost of sales courses is from 19,500 to 55,500 rubles. Choose a program and sign up now!

"Sales Manager" sounds very proud, especially in the context of the development of modern business. This profession requires organization, professionalism, and a creative approach. Many are interested in how to become a sales manager, think that they need an economic education, but even graduates of economic or business departments often ask the same question.

Sales Manager Tasks

First of all, we will analyze what is included in the job description of this specialist.

From the name it’s clear that the task of the sales manager is to sell. In different companies, this process occurs in different ways. In one company, sales managers advise phoning customers by phone, in another they call them themselves and offer their products.

Also, the sphere of activity of many employees includes the processing of incoming applications when customers have left a request for a product, service or consultation, or simply ask a question about the range. The task of the manager is to help the client find answers to questions.

Many are afraid to take up this work, because either sales are perceived as a banal imposition, or a person is embarrassed by his inexperience. In fact, if the first reason is just a myth, then the second is stupidity. Because how to become a sales manager without experience is quite possible provided that the applicant has at least the minimum set of required qualities. Let's consider them in more detail.

Necessary qualities

First of all, it is important to understand that there are no common criteria for quality work for all sales managers, because depending on the scope, you need to be able to adapt to the environment. But the most basic and necessary is the ability to sell a product or service in a legal way.

So a sales manager can only have a certain set of qualities, consider them in more detail:

• Understanding the principles of business and marketing.
• Sociability, ability to negotiate and communicate with customers.
• Non-conflict and stress resistance.
• Good manners.
• Accuracy, presentable appearance (when it comes to offline work).

Since becoming a sales manager is both easy and difficult at the same time, you need to understand that a professional portrait of a specialist in this field consists of many characteristics and conditions. One of the criteria is profile education. It is an advantage rather than a prerequisite.

Specialized education

Many online courses for young professionals tell you how to become a sales manager, however, no educational institution has such a specialty. But there are more extensive and multifaceted: management, management, business and entrepreneurship, psychology, economic psychology, economics and the like. Graduates of each of these faculties may well be sales managers. Moreover, it is much easier for them to master their duties, as they already have an understanding of how the business works. Graduates of the specialty "Psychology of Entrepreneurship" and others alike have a particular advantage, since they know how to communicate with clients.

Since becoming a sales manager from scratch is quite realistic, profile education is not necessary at all, although it is appreciated by many companies. Practice has shown that the heads of sales departments value practical skills of a specialist more than the availability of a list of documents on studying at a university, advanced training, participation in conferences and so on.

Specialist Success Criteria

It’s not enough to know how to become a successful sales manager; you need to put this into practice.

Detailed success criteria are built on the basis of what tasks the sales manager faces. The main criteria are:

• The level of sales of services or goods.
• Sociability.
• Literacy in spoken and written language.
• Knowledge of the range of products or services, the ability to correctly and clearly answer customer questions on the range.

And based on your success, you can talk about how to become the best sales manager.

The first steps to the profession

We turn to the question of what it takes to become a sales manager. First of all, you need to make sure that you really want to develop in this area, since engaging in an unloved affair will ultimately lead to the so-called burnout syndrome, you will not be satisfied with yourself either as a person as a whole, or as a specialist.

If for any reason you are forced to get a sales manager, although this is completely uninteresting to you, either look for other options, or try to find advantages in this work. The service sector involves constant contact with people, and many quite clearly feel the mood of a specialist, and the impression of communicating with him directly affects the level of sales. And how to become a sales manager, if you are not comfortable communicating with people?

Set yourself psychologically for the upcoming work.

Be sure to learn the basics of marketing if they are not familiar to you. This is necessary so that you understand the principles of functioning of any business and trading activities in general.

Understand which business niches are the most and least successful in your area. This will help in choosing a company for work, especially if a percentage of sales is offered as a salary.

The role of a car sales manager

The auto business is one of the most profitable in many countries. The car has long ceased to be a luxury, it is perceived as a necessary thing. That is why working in corporations that sell cars is really profitable. At the same time, this is a very responsible job.

Let's consider in more detail how to become a car sales manager.

As in any business, a sales manager should ideally know the range of products and the portrait of the target audience. Understand the technical characteristics of all cars, find out the desires and preferences of potential customers (you can just read the forums of motorists), do not be lazy to find out on the same forums the impressions of car owners from their cars.

Many salons suggest a so-called test drive: the opportunity for a client to try out a car before buying. Do not neglect this service if it is offered by the salon in which you work.

Real Estate: Sales Manager Tasks

In real estate, we are talking about quite a lot of money, and this involves hiring responsible and professional specialists. How to become a real estate sales manager? This is more complicated than, for example, a sales manager in a mid-level gadget store; you need to have some experience, if not in real estate, then at least in a similar price segment and level of responsibility.

The scope of a real estate sales manager may include assistance in the following services:

• Rental of premises for private use or business.
• Sale of premises.
• Construction.

In any of these areas, it is necessary to create comfortable conditions for the client and help him choose the room that suits him.

A good specialist usually studies all the pitfalls of the profession at any stage of work. Basic tips on how to become a sales manager can be useful only for beginners, but for those who are ready to develop further.

1. You should ideally understand the assortment of goods and services that you offer. In this case, you will not have difficulties if a potential buyer asks a question about the technical characteristics of the purchased item or about the features of the service provided.
2. Banal politeness and business ethics are the most important law of a sales manager. Even if the client is rude, turns to personality, behaves rudely and inappropriately, you cannot answer him the same. Elementary should not fall to the level of rudeness, not only as a specialist, but also as an adequate person.
3. After hours, practice communication skills. Listen from the side of how you are conducting the conversation, for example, asking friends in advance to play customers and record the conversation on a voice recorder or camcorder. Friends can also be asked for an opinion.
4. Learn sales formulas and marketing basics. Do not try to manipulate the client, people do not like this and are unlikely to want to buy something from you. Even if they buy, they are unlikely to want to recommend your store to their friends and contact you again.
5. You can’t lie to the client. If, after purchasing a product or the service provided to him, he will be reasonably disappointed, negative feedback and loss of customer are guaranteed to you.
6. Continuously improve. Read literature, forums on the topic, stay tuned for business news, especially in your niche. Do not confine that your task is only to sell and nothing more. If you stand still in terms of professional development and self-education, you will not be able to grow as a professional.
7. Make arrangements with the authorities in advance for cooperation. This can be a salary (a specific monthly salary), percent of sales, as well as salary and percent of sales together.

Conclusion

The question of how to become a sales manager can be asked yourself and others repeatedly, but the actions are much more important and effective. Simple at first glance, work requires attention, stress resistance, marketing skills and communication skills.

Trade organizations are forced to constantly attract new employees to sales departments due to high staff turnover. In such conditions, it is necessary to put the process of training workers on the flow, to make it continuous. To this end, our company has created its own training system. What are its principles?

Alexey Kubrak,

head of Personnel Training and Development Department, Arsenaltrading

Well established sales training allowed us to train new employees in a short time and at low cost. Good team training raises the level of corporate culture, which has a beneficial effect on staff motivation and, therefore, reduces staff turnover. In addition, the employee training system has become a competitive advantage in the fight for worthy candidates in the labor market. Many employees admit that the decisive factor in choosing our company was an introductory five-day training; in other places, they were required to start working from the first day without obtaining the necessary knowledge and skills.

In our organization, the training process in the sales department is managed by one full-time specialist, he also serves as the main business coach. The second coach is a newcomer, he works part-time. For training events, we have allocated and equipped a separate room. The concept of the training system was developed in a few days, but filling it with content - the preparation of training materials and the test system - took much more time, it was the most labor-intensive part of the work. Creating a complete system took about a year.

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If you do everything yourself, employees will not learn how to work. Subordinates will not immediately cope with the tasks that you delegate, but without delegation you are doomed to time pressure.

We published a delegation algorithm in the article, which will help get rid of the routine and stop working around the clock. You will find out to whom it is possible and impossible to entrust the work, how to correctly assign the task to be completed, and how to control the staff.

We determine the parameters of an effective training system in the sales department

Two characteristics that will affect performance are important: the learning process should be systemic and periodic. Often, a new employee is given an introductory instruction at the stage of entering the position, then they are sent to some training, and he only gets to the next training event after six months or a year. Learning constructed in this way is inefficient: knowledge is forgotten, skill is not formed.

We have introduced an internal rule according to which sales managers attend training events at least twice a month: in our opinion, this is the optimal interval. By training events we mean not only trainings, but also role-playing games, testing, seminars of partner companies, as well as writing essays. In order not to violate the working regime, we set aside weekends for training, most often Saturdays, which are paid like regular working days.

Organization of employee training covers the entire period of work of a specialist in our company from the first day. So that such a policy does not lead to an increase in the budget, we pay great attention to independent studies, which occupy an important place in the system of obtaining knowledge. The trainer only launches and controls them, and the employee autonomously performs training activities.

We create an effective employee training system

Training is conducted in three areas. The choice is logical for a trading company: the results of a sales manager directly depend on product knowledge, communication skills with the client and the correct execution of transactions. Thus, we cover the entire spectrum of knowledge and skills necessary for the successful work of the sales department.

Training system concept: product line study

The goal is to provide information about the products we sell. This is the basic knowledge that every sales person should have. The main part of training falls on the introductory period, and experienced workers go through it as the assortment is replenished with new brands or product groups.

Introductory sales training

A new employee begins work by studying the assortment. Primary training takes five working days, during which the beginner must pass the program developed by us. At this time, he independently works on training materials, and the coach only controls the learning process.

First, the trainee learns a study guide, which gives general theoretical information about our products. At this stage, he should have an idea of \u200b\u200bthe category of the product and its properties: for example, what paints are, what they are, what they consist of. Training material is developed in our company. After the new employee has mastered the manual, he proceeds to study the price list - this block gives knowledge about which products he will sell. To simplify familiarization with the assortment, the trainee can use the exhibition hall, in which our product line is presented.

Supportive sales training

So that employees always have up-to-date knowledge about the assortment, the study of the product line is not limited to the introductory stage, it continues during the current work. We attract partners to this type of training.

Many of our suppliers have their own training programs, and they offer to organize training on a particular product. Often they do it in the high season. On the other hand, we ourselves ask partners to tell our employees about the product that they deliver to us. Usually this happens when a new product is introduced into the sale, or when we understand that in the near future a particular brand will become a priority for us.

When working with partners, it is important that they not only present their goods - we ask them to include information that is useful to us in the content of the trainings. Effective trainings are built according to a specific scheme, which allows you to get a range of product knowledge that best meets our goal of quality customer service.

• Certification of personnel: stages, types and finished scenarios

As part of supporting training, we also use abstracts: each employee writes a work on a topic. Once or twice a year, trademarks are distributed among the employees of the sales department, the assortment of which is necessary to prepare abstracts. The history of the brand should be disclosed in the work, popular models of the manufacturer are presented, its advantages are shown in comparison with competitors. During the preparation of the essay, the employee receives knowledge about the product, skills in working with information and creating training materials. In addition, we use essays to quickly prepare a curriculum for new products. It happens that we conclude a contract with a new supplier, but neither he nor we have time to prepare the training material. Then we assign a staff member to write an abstract, and he makes a report at the general meeting. Finished works are stored on the corporate portal in electronic form, and each employee can familiarize themselves with them. Preparation of abstracts allows you to create a knowledge base of the company, but this is an additional goal.

Assessment of the level of knowledge of the product line.  Usually, the next day after class, each employee is tested. The goal is to check how assorted the assortment information is. The test system covers all categories of products present in our price list. There are about 25 tests in total.

With the help of testing, we control the manager’s presence of the minimum level of knowledge necessary and sufficient for effective work. Depending on the number of points scored in the test, the employee receives a score from 2 to 5. Those who receive deuces and triples must retake the test. We give three attempts, retake the next day.

Sales Skills Training System

The goal is to develop the skills of effective communication with customers among sales department employees. Not only the theoretical part is important, but also the practical one, therefore training is the main method of training. We have focused on internal learning; we introduce the external when the need arises for specific knowledge that we cannot give on our own, or when some kind of training is urgently needed, but its development on our own will be too long. For example, when it was necessary to conduct a training on working with receivables, we ordered it through external providers.

Individual introductory training in the sales department

Typically, a trading team is replenished with a small number of newcomers - one or two. Full training for a small audience is not practical, therefore, at the initial stage of work, we conduct individual training for employees. In the framework of personal training, the basics of working in sales are taught, with the emphasis on sales technology and standards for communicating with customers. One business day is allocated for these purposes. Then the interns along with the whole team attend regular trainings.

As a rule, training is carried out more intensively in the autumn-winter period, when sales are reduced. In summer, there are fewer full-time training events due to the high workload.

Skill Assessment. We use two tools. We check the theoretical knowledge of the topic with the help of tests that are developed for each training. The approach here is the same as when assessing knowledge about the product line: for example, the employee is asked to choose existing types of objections or indicate how many steps the algorithm for working with objections includes. We evaluate practical skills based on how well the employee applies them in a real situation. A business coach observes the work of a team member and evaluates his behavior on a checklist. We control the quality of training of sales representatives through paired visits to outlets, and we check sales managers at their workplaces in the office.

The checklist is formed from blocks of requirements corresponding to the stages of the sales process. Each block includes a list of specific actions that can be evaluated objectively: done or not done. In the scorecards of other authors, there are criteria such as “located the client” or “made psychological contact” - for us they are too subjective. We have included behavioral indicators in the checklist that are easy to evaluate. For example, our employee should say hello to the client, ask questions on the SPIN 1 technology - these are examples of objective indicators that are easy to identify during observation.

1 SPIN (eng. SPIN) - a technique for holding meetings with large sales. It is based on the formulation of the right questions, which are situational, problematic, extracting and guiding. Designed by Neil Rackham. - Ed.

Organization of employee training processes

The goal is to teach the employee to perform the administrative part of the work. This type of training is provided by direct managers. Their task is to introduce the newcomer to the course of business, familiarize him with the instructions, rules, work regulations and show him in practice the stages of the sales process. Customer service managers need to be taught to navigate our information system: create and post implementation documents in the program, generate reports on customers or business regions, and so on. Sales representatives must know how to fill out a waybill, how to conclude an agreement with a client, what package of documents is needed for this. New employees learn the basics of work in one to two weeks, but it takes a month for a sales representative to fully train all processes, a sales manager for two months. Only after that they gain sufficient experience and can work independently.

Some of these processes are regulated. Workers independently study the instructions and pass the exam to the leader. In the process of work, managers transfer other necessary information by the method of mentoring. Mentors can be more experienced colleagues. For the first two to three weeks, the sales manager works under the supervision and support of a senior manager. Sales representatives work for the first week in the neighboring territory with an experienced agent, and then at their site with a supervisor: the agent shows the territory that the newcomer will serve and introduces him to the features of work in the company.

Design and apply tests correctly

Testing will be an effective assessment tool, given a number of principles. The information in the tests should be as specific and unambiguous as possible. Questions should evaluate basic knowledge, do not go deeper into subtleties: detailed tests take a lot of time. So that the test is not too simple, you need to provide as many answers as possible - we settled on six. To increase complexity, some of the questions require several correct answers.

We also use tests in the process of mastering knowledge - this increases the effectiveness of training. Each employee receives printed tests and searches for the correct answers using all available training materials. In our experience, such a method is more effective than just getting to know the training materials. So, the trainee can simply read the price list, but it is difficult to master a large amount of uniform information, and working on the test, finding the right answers in the price list allows you to remember its structure, assortment groups, trademarks and specific positions.

In order to remember the information for a long time, testing is carried out the day after training. When testing knowledge, a computer program is used that changes the order of questions and the answers to them.

Sales managers are people without special education (because we do not have such an education). And if you want to create “from what was” real sales wolves, then you definitely need to train them. In this article, we will write a training plan for sales managers from the first day of work.

And first of all, let's do a general review of the training program for your future "elimination of competitors" team.

3 ways to train sales managers

There are several “disciplines” that your sales managers must master in order to start regularly bringing orders. Here is a partial list:

• The specifics of your product / service (price catalog, market)
• How to make cold calls
• How to hold personal meetings
• Maintaining Sales Documents

Even if you wanted to, you won’t be able to transfer all the training to the invited trainers. In any case, you will need to conduct most of the training yourself. And let's see how best to build a program to achieve maximum effect.

# 1 - Practice

A person remembers best what he does. Therefore, literally from the first day you need to let your employees feel the taste of "blood." Training for cold calls is best suited for this.

In general, cold calls are divided into several stages. Before the call itself, there is usually the stage of compiling “long lists”. But this is too boring and uninformative. Therefore, I would not begin to force sellers to sit down at directories on the first working day and begin to write out the names and phone numbers of potential customers' companies.

Better prepare long lists in advance and give them ready. At the same time, you, as an experienced person, should provide that your list does not have too “fat” customers. But on the other hand, the list should not be completely “rotten”. That is, managers should have a real opportunity to schedule their first personal meetings. It will be a taste of victory.

How to properly teach cold calls

Two important points about learning cold calls in practice. Firstly, sellers should not call and say whatever they like. Before starting calls, you must give them a prescribed script - a diagram of a telephone conversation with the “gatekeeper” and the DM (Decision Maker). Draw up such a scheme will help you.

The next important point - your hands-on training on cold calls should be a game. But the game will not work if the sellers legs shake with fear. And so it will be, if they had not done anything similar before.

Therefore, it is very important from the very beginning of training to explain to them that all these calls are just a game. What do not need to be afraid to "mow." Quite the contrary - you must mow. Only it is necessary to mow "on an industrial scale" in order to immediately make all possible mistakes, and not to stretch this pleasure for a year.

In addition, it is necessary to separately discuss with them the specifics of cold calls - this is rudeness and refusals. You do not need them to try to squeeze everyone and everyone. And even less, you need them to creep and humiliate themselves in front of any rude on the other end of the wire.

Each of your sales managers should have the right to “send” someone they don’t like. This holy right immediately unties the hands, and the young growth begins to understand that they are trusted. The main thing is that at the beginning there should be a “senior” who, if anything helps and pulls out.

And here we go to the second option training for sellers.

# 2 - Mentoring

New managers need someone experienced who at the right time would tell them what to do. And at the first stages with a mentor, training is based on the principle of "I look - I study."

Your commercial director can become a mentor (by the way, we will talk about him a little lower), you can be a mentor. The main thing is that this person really knows how to sell, and not just tell the seller that he "does everything wrong."

Mentors are especially helpful in teaching face-to-face meetings. At first, be sure to send at least two people to a personal meeting - a mentor and one new seller who has scheduled an appointment.

Further, the mentor will hold the first meeting, and the seller will sit next to and listen, and fill out a questionnaire. This is a very important point. The questionnaire is an indispensable tool for training novice sales managers.

For the face-to-face meeting phase, the customer profile is like a scenario for cold calls. You should definitely have a list of questions on which even the most novice, with a pencil in his hand, can draw up a portrait of a potential client.

One mentor for several sellers

Feather time, the mentor asks questions, and the newcomer listens to the answers and fills out the questionnaire. Then he witnesses with his own eyes how this profile turns into a finished transaction. And then he must repeat this magic on his own.

At the second stage, the new seller can travel to meetings on his own, but he must bring a completed customer profile from each such meeting. Then the mentor will analyze the questionnaires with the newcomer and give advice on how best to do in a given situation. Thus, you can use one mentor for several sales managers at once. You can download an example of such a questionnaire here.

# 3 - Coaching

Once every one to two weeks, you definitely need to conduct special training for your sellers. As practice shows, such training has a very positive effect on the level of motivation of people. That is, they begin to run faster and call more insistently.

You can invite trainers from the outside, or you can appoint the trainers of the most successful sales staff. It may even be a novice who successfully completed a transaction. Let him tell how he acted, step by step. It will already be very useful.

I would advise conducting such training at the beginning of the week, on Monday. So your sellers will have the opportunity to test and apply new knowledge for a week. And if you train on Friday, then until Monday they will forget everything a hundred times.

Other teaching methods

Once a month, organize a “round table” during which sellers will talk about what incidents they have had during this time and how they dealt with them. The leader should listen and say what was done correctly and what could have been done differently.

Another learning option that no one has canceled is reading. Just don’t expect your managers to go to bookstores themselves. Organize a small “sales library” right at the workplace. Put better books on the art of sales that you find.

Give people books only for a specific time, so that they read them faster. Then you can ask some employee to conduct corporate training based on materials from the book.

At the end of each month / quarter, certification exams can be conducted on the materials that have been studied in the trainings. The certification results can be taken into account when assigning quarterly cash bonuses. So the manager will be motivated to repeat all the materials again before passing the certification.

Summary

• It is necessary to train sales managers to make them professionals. And most of the training will have to be done for you.
• The best learning option is practice. Give sellers the first day an opportunity to feel the “taste of blood” on cold calls. The main thing is to let them mow.
• Be sure to assign a mentor to each new seller so that the manager learns from a personal example. This is especially useful for the face-to-face meeting phase.
• Give new sales managers ready-made tools - phone talk patterns and a customer profile so they can do something.
• You can invite outside trainers or use the best employees to conduct additional training once a month.
• Once a month, hold a round table at which your employees would share their practical experience with other sellers.
• Organize a “sales library” and from time to time ask sellers to conduct training based on book materials.
• Once a month or once a quarter, carry out certification for managers so that they have the motivation to repeat and consolidate all the material passed once again.

Do not forget to download my book. There I show you the fastest way from zero to the first million on the Internet (squeezing from personal experience in 10 years \u003d)