Does any have (or can point me in the direction of) sales training program? I am required to develop a “basic sales program” for our platform staff (which is about 50 people) and be ready to roll it out in approx. 4-6 weeks. (Our training department currently consists of 2 people) I do not have a sales background and working for a community bank, I am on a very strict budget. (Outsourcing is not an option). I am also required to develop on ongoing program but we are starting with “baby steps” (by prospecting our current customers first).


Any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

We recently developed a 6 part Small Business Sales training workshop. While we used several resources...we did find a lot of insite in a book called 'The Sales Bible' by Jeffrey Gittomer.

Another book to try is Steven Covey's The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. This book is a follow-up to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.The chapter that is of particular interest is on "The Voice and Speed of Trust." It really digs deep into building relationships.

It really depends somewhat on what you are selling but here are some items you'll want to include. A Sales Execution Model that consists of a sales strategy for identifying who you sell to, what you sell them, how to create a plan for executing the sell, how to follow up on leads, etc. Once you've identified the strategy you need to identify what skills will be relevant, such as building relationships, negotiating, gathering data on your customer, targeting the right objective with individual customers, appropriate communications skills for the level their selling to, etc. You'll also want to consider training for your Sales Managers as they will need to constantly reinforce the behaviors and drive the team's performance. Some resources you may want to check out are below:

Huthwaite.com (free white papers)
Harvard Business Review ($4-6 articles)

Hope that helps!
www.coach4growth.com

Just curious...how did your project go? Have you finalized and implemented? If so, what results are you having todate?