Training Materials
Instructional Guidelines
for Using Training Materials
Different types of instructional
materials and methods are suited for each part of the training
process:
1. Describing the selling
concept – notebooks, written
materials, and lectures
2. Skill
demonstration – video modeling
3. Skill transfer – videotaped sales call and role
playing
Written
materials and lectures are most useful in describing specific
aspects of a product or service. There is a vast difference between
detailing the benefits of a pharmaceutical to a doctor and promoting
a long-term consulting
service in a chemical plant. The purely
conceptual need will vary. In addition, the delivery of the
sales presentation and the behavioral change sought in the
buyer will differ somewhat, although much is common to all good
sales calls, regardless of industry.
Effective
sales training
programs must develop the sales representative’s
knowledge of the sales process and evaluate whether or not
he or she retains that knowledge. As a first step, the training
program uses words to build concepts. This step should be accomplished
quickly and effectively, and studies have proven that learning retention
increases when video is added to lectures used in classrooms
2
Visual and Verbal Persuasion
A sales
presentation must be visually as well as verbally
persuasive. This is where video and film become the most
effective tools, with their ability to demonstrate skills.
A short video vignette modeling a skill
increases the understanding of the participants substantially
and enables them to move on to role plays or applications with a
stronger understanding of the skill.
The Motivational Impact
of Video and Film
In addition
to alienating the monotony of a lecture, video and film can
be very motivational; in fact, they can create
the perceptions of the need for the training.
It is easy to show pictures of the actual sales environment,
whether a chemical laboratory, retail setting or an oil field. This
immediacy also makes
training more relevant.
2 Walter Arno Wittich and
Charles Frances Schuller, Audiovisual Materials, 4th Ed. (New York: Harper &
Row, 1967), p. 31.
|
