“You Can’t Handle the Truth”

“You can’t handle the truth.” This famous movie line is a great parallel to dealing with people assigned to training.  Let’s face it.  Most managers are great at telling people what to do and fall short of showing them how to do it.  During my 1000’s of face to face interviews, one of the biggest reasons that the person left their prior job was due to poor training.  The majority received a large dose of product knowledge written in manuals or shown hastily from brochures or by Powerpoint or were simply left on their own to figure things out, but they received no visual presentation techniques on how to get the customer to listen and how to keep control throughout the process.  Subsequently, they didn’t have success and moved on looking for direction and proper training.  The bottom line is that the trainer needs to model what they expect.  Regardless of all of my titles, I always work hands on with my managers or subordinates on training by modeling in the field or on the phone to make sure they know how to make a sound presentation by first focusing on the personality and style of the decision maker.  Then I can lead them to a predetermined destination where the features and benefits are laid out to receive a buying sign.  This leads to the logical conclusion of the sale; The Close. At that point, the art of overcoming objections comes into play and the negotiations begin.