Why Sales Certification is Important in 2010

Why Sales Certification is Important in 2010

Last week, I received a call from a firm with 700 salespeople in a somewhat commodity market. The person I was speaking to was in charge of their sales training programs; we discussed a variety of programs we have created in developing sales certification programs for other sales training organizations. When I asked why he was considering the need to consider sales certification when most organizations were cutting back on sales training, he told me that in their tough industry, sales leadership felt separating themselves from their competition and adding value to their sales offerings could be achieved by building a higher quality sales team. Adding sales value will be a critical success factor in 2010. This is true for organization with 5 or fewer salespeople and certainly for those larger sales organizations that have in excess of 500.

With many of clients we simply work to install a 3-week new hire on-boarding training program and then build on-going quarterly sales training programs that cover: product/technical knowledge, sales skills, competition, and company operations (CRM), industry awareness. These are designed to increase the professional of the sales forces. Sales certification takes this concept one step further.

Sales certification requires a philosophical commitment from management to building a strong sales culture. It will result in more analytical sales data, less turnover, higher margins, and long term client relationships. A sales certification program requires sales team training, testing and validating that the training has been accepted and acted upon by the sales team. This is the INSPECT WHAT YOUR EXPECT approach we have written about before. We recommend to all our clients that at a minimum; twice a year, each salesperson must be videotaped selling your company, selling your solutions and presenting a solutions recommendations or sales proposal. This not only allows sales management to access the skill levels of each salesperson, but it also builds a sales training library of the “best” sales training video tapes for each of the presentations.

Sales certification can also take it much further; in one situation, we hired professional actors to role play sales scenarios. Each salesperson had 30 minutes to read the sales scenario, prior to walking into a sales situation with the professional actor, a panel of 3 judges, evaluated the sales call. One note; the professional actor had a “slightly” different sales scenario; this forced the salesperson to react in real time basis-just like a real sales call. Each sales call was videotaped and judged on a pass/fail basis. This pressure and need to perform added the edge to getting it right! We also did this in their Account Planning process each quarter.

The last piece of sales certification is a tie to sales compensation. As each phase of certification level is achieved-you may have 3 to 5 levels of certification- higher levels of compensation can be paid. We like to recommend a quarterly per cent age bonus if 100% of QTD quota is achieved.

2010 will not an easy year, the economy is still fighting back, worries of inflation, devaluing of the US dollar, unemployment will still be high and terrorist’s threats still exist. Creating teamwork, with quality salespeople will be your way to ensure you sell your way out of the recession. In fact-that is our message for 2010-successful companies will have to create the policies, strategies and people to create their own opportunities and sell, sell, sell. Taking orders is a lost strategy.

Sales leadership must set the discipline, accountability and control within their sales organizations to separate themselves from their competition with sales certification.

Ken Thoreson, President of Acumen Management Group LTD.
Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull
revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory,
and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners
throughout North America. Move up and move ahead!

Acumen Mgmt. provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. Ken@AcumenMgmt.com www.AcumenManagement.com
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