Sales training (Cont.)

Every sales training method has a model to explain and simplify the sales process. The model used in my last sales training was the "Customer Focused Selling Model", which emphasizes building relationships with your customers/clients. (I always preferred the term clients as it indicates a closer, more intimate relationship. I get that from reading Jay Abraham.) The model focuses on teaching you how the customer makes decisions. Learn his processes and you can use them to can compliance and influence.

As far as models go this wasn't a bad one. It is important to know how a client makes a decision as this is one element in closing a sale. The problem I have with any model is the NLP presumption that "the Map is not the territory". No model can accurately portray all the elements that go into a sale. Models can be great at teaching and portraying an element of the sales process, but should never be assumed to represent the be all and end all of any sales process. Sales is both a science and an art, and should be looked at as a process.

The real purpose of sales training is to show some tactics and sales tools while instilling in the attendees the love of the process. One should leave any sales training with some knowledge that can be monetized in the field along with a process and plan for further study and development. The art of selling is a profession, just as the fields of medicine and law. This needs to be taught.