Refining the onboarding and training process for sales staff may be one of the most difficult challenges managers face. Although this process may be relatively short compared to the overall time workers spend with the company, the knowledge, skills and experience new workers gain during onboarding will impact their professional development in the future. To help make crafting the onboarding and training process smoother, companies may want to invest in sales analytics that could effective in measuring the success of their training.
Business2Community suggests companies track metrics that may give employers insight into managing their sales representatives. There are certain qualities and achievements that make sales staff a cut above the rest. For example, top salespeople are able to convert leads into sales. After their sales staff leave the training pool, employers may want to monitor key metrics like how many conversations they are having per day and how many of these conversations result in closed deals.
As sales calls and conversations are not enough, employers should also keep an eye on the quality of the discussions their sales staff are creating, according to Business2Community. Companies may also want to track feedback percentage, which is the amount of leads passed divided by the number of leads that go through the next step of the sales process. Measuring this metric allows companies to determine whether their sales staff are able to reach out to prospects and make the connection necessary to get them down the sales funnel.
These metrics could help companies determine whether their current onboarding and sales training generates the results they are looking for when molding workers into star performers.
Invest in more practice for workers
In addition to measuring whether employees are successful after training, companies may want to see whether they need to incorporate more practice into their training process.
While sales managers often think teaching their sales representatives the sales process is enough during training, scheduling practice sessions is key to making sure employees truly understand the lessons they are being taught, according to Inc. magazine.
Companies can benefit by having employees practice techniques through simulating customer interactions, but many employers may not be investing enough time in this important part of training. By preparing employees for real customer interactions, companies can make sure workers understand what they need to do and how to approach situations to reach their sales quotas.
