I thought you might be interested in hearing a success story from your Train-the-Trainer class. This past couple months I spent working with some of our product managers to put together their sessions at our national sales meeting. My goal was to make the sessions as interactive as possible. From the feedback I heard, I definitely succeeded! Here are just a few highlights the product managers shared with me after the meeting:
Openers
The salespeople walked in, sat down and went right to work on the word search. I didn't have to say a thing. They loved it! During one of the interactive team exercises, the new hires didn't have the knowledge to complete the task, so I pointed them back to the word search to get the content. It worked perfectly.
Asking the question "What other kinds of problems do salespeople get into if they don’t ask effective discovery questions?" right after showing a funny video clip of a botched sales call got people engaged fast.
A cartoon about interpreting a diagram broke the tension in the room and was the perfect segue to discussing complex process mapping.
Content
The role playing skit helped keep them focused and facilitated reinforcing sales skills while learning new information. Having an area vice president and a regional sales manager play the part of customers was a key to success.
Gallery Walk: each flipchart was divided into four sections. In each section, there was a common customer problem. Teams worked together to write down product features that solved the problem. Teams rotated around the room and added to the others' lists with a different colored pen. They really got into thinking about the answers. I heard a lot of learning from each other going on. They also enjoyed the challenge of trying to come up with missing features as they rotated around the room to different flipcharts.
Closers
Writing down an action plan on who to approach first illustrated the value of the session instantly.
A powerful quote from a customer summarized the session content perfectly and made it memorable.
I also wanted to let you know that I got so hooked on making the sessions as interactive as possible that I bought several books, including Bob Pike's 50 Openers and 50 Closers. Out of all of them, I still think the one you gave us in class was the best [Bob Pike’s Creative Training Techniques Handbook].
Thanks again for helping me to hit the ground running in my new position in Sales Training.
Best regards,
Loree Andreasson
Manager, Sales Training/Process, Cardinal Health, San Diego
