Technical Sales Training: Seeing the Dollars

Much of traditional sales training focuses on "soft skills" and tactics. These include the fundamentals of relationship selling, affinity sales, closing tactics and the like. Technical training does not seek to replace those core sales subjects. It only seeks to provide the representative with additional tools.

To a security customer, alarm systems and camera systems are generally all the same. The only difference is price and other financial terms in the agreement. If a sales rep allows the customer to frame an opportunity by price, then the only winning strategy is to surrender margin - not a lucrative option, and one that may completely exclude a small to medium size firm that does not enjoy the economies of scale benefiting larger competitors.

Security sales must be framed by the sales representative as a question of value. Once the customer acknowledges that they have a responsibility to maintain a high quality security system, the price becomes secondary. The customer is now concerned with reliability: Does your equipment do the job? Do your technicians know what they are doing? Does your monitoring center know what it is doing? Are you and your coworkers people I can rely on to never, ever fail?

Selling it

Your sales reps must present themselves as subject matter experts on security. They must do this convincingly. Their understanding of the products and services they sell must not only exceed that of the customer and the competition, but your reps must make their understanding unmissable - it should characterize their presentation from start to finish.

Consider the example of a motion detector. Security reps need to know how a PIR motion works. They need to know what passive infrared is, including what is meant by passive and what is meant by infrared. They also need know what pyroelectric sensing elements are, what a fresnel lens is, what pulse count is and why all these features are part of a quality passive infrared motion detector. They need to have the same level of knowledge of dual-technology motion detectors, magnetic contacts, smoke detectors, heat detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, hold up buttons, wireless panic devices, cellular backup transceivers, digital video recorders, and every other product in their catalog.

You reps need to be subject matter experts.

And expert is exactly the point. When your reps differentiate themselves from their competitors, you differentiate your firm from the competition. Suddenly, not all alarm equipment and services are the same. Suddenly, price is a distant consideration. Suddenly, you are in a value-selling scenario and the customer perceives your firm's proposal as the greatest value available by far.

Designing the training

I began technical training by producing product knowledge packets. Each packet covered a specific aspect of our offerings, such as motion detectors, smoke detectors, or the monitoring process. I then distributed these packets in the classroom during weekly training sessions and lectured on the technical aspects of the features covered in the handouts.

That training approach was not effective.

Effectiveness of sales training, technical or otherwise, is measured in dollars. Are you reducing costs and expenses or increasing revenue? If you are not doing either one, then your training is not effective.

The problem with lecturing and distributing technical documentation is that the reps neither absorb the material nor attempt to apply it in the field. One reason is that the material is detailed and technical. The other reason is that they do not recognize the value of technical product information.

To make the training effective, I circulated a questionnaire that asked the reps about challenges they commonly faced in closing deals. I then took the answers to these questions and identified specific strengths of our company's equipment and services that address common objections listed on the questionnaires. These strengths then became guidelines for training development.

To improve retention of technical information and to sell the sales team on the value of technical product knowledge, I designed two simple training tools: scenario discussions and technical testing.

Scenario discussions

Every week, I wrote up a scenario designed to present an extremely challenging sales situation and presented it in class to the team. We then spent the session brainstorming the fictional customer's security needs and objections to find innovative ways to use our equipment and services to satisfy every customer request and defeat every objection.

Class participation went up. Notes were furiously scribbled down. Reps asked not only the instructor to repeat things they wished to note, but each other as well. Suddenly, the sales team was seeing all sorts of ways to apply technical knowledge - ways I hadn't even thought of.

Suddenly, the competition had a problem: our expert reps.

Testing

I developed a 15-question test format that I presented weekly to the sales team. I introduced the test as a competitive exercise a week prior to the first exam and announced that scores would be posted publicly for all to see. In addition, the sales manager said he would present gift cards or gas cards to anyone achieving a perfect score.

The tests were difficult - they went straight to the small details and demanded solid understanding of the products and their associated technologies. For a spot-type photoelectric smoke detector, what exactly does the "spot-type" reference mean? What is an end-of-line resistor used for? How does a PIR motion detector discriminate between average surface temperatures of objects in its field of view?

The first test produced a shock to the sales team. This was not your typical "fluffy" sales training. However, the combination of public score posting, a very practical set of prizes for perfect test completion, and the team's new recognition of technical knowledge value motivated the sales force to absorb and understand the product knowledge made available.

Of course, the biggest motivator comes from a representative seeing their own productivity go up and up and up. Most certainly, it takes much more than product knowledge to sell, but knowing the technology is a powerful tool when used by someone with a talent for using selling techniques.

The training cycle

The sales representatives were not the only ones to learn from this project. I learned quite a bit about the training process itself as I designed, developed and implemented it. What I learned was the value of evaluation.

Trainers evaluate their programs to assess effectiveness. It is important to recognize if training is making concrete contributions to the goals of the organization. Furthermore, it is important to know what particular aspects of programs are performing better than others and why.

By evaluating programs throughout the training process, trainers evolve their own tool kits to keep current with the business environment. Given the dynamism of business today, keeping current is absolutely critical to staying competitive - and this is where technical training makes its strongest contribution to the bottom line.