1890-1920: The Era of Sales Science
The sales frontier....In this era, pioneering companies focused on defining the expectations of sales people and their sales managers. They realized that salespeople needed to build trusting relationships and also be experts in their product. More importantly, organizations focused on defining sales systems, methods, and approaches that would work. In this era people began to understand and write about what professional selling entailed.
More importantly, individuals sought to proactively teach new salespeople about the profession. Most of the learning was informal, with a focus on teaching individuals how to sell through examples and through coaching. Pioneering sales managers found that isolating the transaction as a specific moment in time allowed them train new salespeople and fellow managers on what happened, why it happened, and how to avoid any missteps in the future.
Because sales managers were often seasoned salespeople, they were able to relay stories and effective strategies for engaging customers. Topics such as "how to approach a customer" and "how to give a handshake" became part of many sales training programs.
Some questions to consider.... Are you in a frontier sales organization? - Does your sales organization change the sales compensation plan frequently? - Does your sales training seem to focus solely on making salespeople product/solution experts? - Does your formal sales training program last a few days and are sales managers expected to coach and teach in the field? - Does the organization focus on facilitating one transaction at a time?
Brian Lambert is the Director of Sales Development and Performance at the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). In this role, he is responsible for meeting the unique challenges of performance professionals focused on the sales profession. He is responsible for conducting primary research and creating resources, articles, and other custom content that helps individuals design and deliver sales training, manage and develop high performing sales talent, and improve salesperson performance. Brian has fifteen years of experience in sales, sales management, sales training, and sales consulting and is an internationally recognized expert on the state of the sales profession as well as current trends in transforming sales team systems, processes, and people.
Brian is a highly sought after world-wide speaker, author, and trainer on sales competency, sales performance, sales process, sales professionalism, sales ethics, and sales process.
Find out about Brian at http://www.brianlambert.biz
Visit the sales competency project at http://www.astd.org/communities/salestraining
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