Training Industry Magazine - March/April 2020 - 23

are skilled and well-versed in coaching
best practices.

TRAINING ALONE DOES
NOT RESULT IN LONG-TERM
BEHAVIOR CHANGE WITHIN A
SALES ORGANIZATION.

These expert coaches should regularly
touch base with managers and help
them work through any issues or
roadblocks they may hit along the
way. This will also ensure the sales
managers are holding up their promise
to coach their teams.
5 | TRACK AND SHARE RESULTS

Managers need to be made aware of
the program's success. Data should
be based on program objectives,
collected and reported at the
appropriate evaluation level to assess
the initiative's success.
If it is a success, they are more likely
to continue coaching and be an active
participant in future training initiatives. If
it is not, they need to own some of the
outcome and try to correct the mistakes.
Top sales leaders will look to their
sales teams to tell them if a program
is a success or not. Making sure the
sales managers are well-versed in the
program results and statistics will help
them win over top management.

PUTTING IT IN TO ACTION
new behavior that is meant to result
from a training program. Organizations
should invest in coaching training
around
acknowledged
coaching
methodologies, such as GROW.
3 | INCORPORATE MANAGERS
IN TRAINING

Too often managers require their
teams to attend a training session,
but fail to attend it themselves. Or the
managers attend but are not paying
attention or actively engaged.
Salespeople need their leaders to
model success for them. Research
published in Frontiers in Psychology
shows that when employees view their
leaders as empowering and capable,
they work more proactively.
The same findings hold true for sales
training and behavior change. If the

manager does not appear engaged in
the initiative, the team will sense this
and check out of the training. The
manager not only must learn what the
training is asking employees to do
but become a model of how it should
change their sales behavior.
4 | FOLLOW-UP AND REFRESH

The key success factor for any initiative
is to have the managers coach their
reps after the training is completed.
They need to work with them to not
only refresh the training content but
also help them make the behavior
change. This engagement will help the
knowledge retention issues discussed
earlier in this article.
During the process, the sales managers
should be coached by expert coaches.
Expert coaches can be external
consultants or internal employees that

As we have discussed in this article,
training alone does not result in longterm behavior change within a sales
organization. Organizations need to
ensure that managers are involved early
on in the training initiative and serve as a
key component in refresh training.
Too often, sales managers do not receive
the training they need to be effective
coaches. Organizations that hope to
transform and progress forward need
to ensure they have a consistent sales
coaching practice, and this coaching
practice needs to be an integral part of
every training initiative.
Kerry Troester is the director of sales
training for Lenovo in North America.
She holds a master's degree in
business administration from the
Wharton School of Business and is
a member of the Training Industry
Editorial Board. Email Kerry.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE - MODERN LEADERS 2020 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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Training Industry Magazine - March/April 2020

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