I am completely exhausted. We are at the end of day three and I just want to go home. Unfortunately, we have another day to go. But thankfully, we do not have a session later tonight. Just dinner and bowling. The first two days we started at 9am and went until about 9/9:30pm each night. The sales training is not unique, but it's always good to get a refresher. We did a number or role-plays which I wasn't really fond of, but its good to get feedback from your peers. Plus, I must admit that I've actually picked up a few new tips that I plan to implement when I get back to the office. So it wasn't a complete waste. To be honest, I didn't really think it would be. But some of my colleagues who went last week came back with such a negative impression of the training, that it made me have reservations as to whether or not the program would be effective. I suppose it was not what they expected.
Update on Training
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At some level, though, isn't most sales training full of unreality? Like the idea they had when I sold Time-Life books in college that a prospect would willingly sit there on the other end of the phone and listen with bated breath while you reeled off -- word for word, now, don't leave anything out -- a one-minute spiel that we had been assured the Great Marketing Minds had come up with after extensive testing.
We were selling the Time-Life Old West Series. If the person who answered the phone was a woman, we were to immediately switch to another product if she interrupted and said she wasn't interested.
"Hey! Are you into plants?"
The only positive thing I got out of the experience was that we got free copies of damaged and returned books. Most of the title were quite good. I can remember one called "Time" that explained Einsteinian physics with a comic-book adventure called "Secret Agent X and the Relativity Express."
Look at this way...if you learned nothing more than NEVER to leave Choo-Choo and sis alone with your credit cards...you have learned a VALUEABLE LESSON! :) P.S. How cold is it STILL??????
What was different here is that there is a plan for implementing beyond training. Far too often, you go to these things and there is no follow-up. But metrics are being put into place that will hold everyone at all levels of the sales organization responsible for implementing.