10 Important Questions To Ask Before You Appoint Your Next Rural Sales Training Provider

Getting your rural sales team sold on training isn’t easy.

Like poor sales people that have gone before them, poor sales trainers makes your job that much harder too.

Getting your team excited and engaged about the prospect of training can be challenging because:

1. They think they know it all already (even though you can see from their sales numbers that they don’t)
2. They think their specific issues or challenges are unique to them (they are not because the buyer’s brain is the same)
3. They think it will be a waste of time and distract them from time selling on the road (do Roger Federer or Rafal Nadal think training is a waste of their time?)

Here are 10 question you need to ask to properly qualify you have the right fit and the right facilitator.

Get it wrong and it’ll be even harder to get your rural sales team back a room.

Ask them the following:

1. What rural experience and credentials do they have?
   You want to know this is their core business, not some fancy add-on that they get excited about every now and then and pay lip service to.
2. What results have you got for those you’ve trained? Proof is truth, if they don’t have compelling case studies you know you need to move on and choose a provider that does, judge them by the company they keep.
3. Ask them to explain their experience selling to rural re-sellers?
   If they can’t name the state of play or lay of the land you know they don’t know enough about the nuances of your sector.
4. How do you manage or cater to the different dynamics of a rural sales team?
   This is a good one as one size never fits all, what engagement strategies do they use and why?
5. How do you ensure there is the appropriate recall and retrieval of your training?
   You want to know what methods they use to reinforce the training regularly to create long-term vs short-term, “one n’ done” memory structure…
6. How do you create a positive and stimulating sales training experience?
   You want to make sure it isn’t a one talking head situation that will bore your rural sales team to tears.
7. What follow up do you employ to ensure that the learnings are retained?
   Are they the “one n’ done, set n’ forget” brigade or do they have a follow up system in place with participants?
8. What sets your sales training apart?
   You want to know how they do things to make sure it’s different from the normal cookie cutter, Americano-franchise model carboard cut out that your rural sales team will hate.
9. How do you deal with difficult students?
   What tools and techniques do they share to ensure the odd bad fruit doesn’t take the whole team down?
10. How do you keep up-to-date and relevant with your own training?
    You are looking for evidence that they walk their own talk by continually learning, investing and upskilling themselves vs relying on the same old, same old sales training formulas from the 1980s.

Imagine if you could sell in a rural sales training programme like this:

– we are going to give you powerful, income-increasing lessons that will last you a lifetime here or anywhere you decide to go
– we are going to give you exclusive access to training that your competitors would kill for
– you are going to be trained by someone who understands our sector, not some cookie-cutter wally from the city who’s never stepped foot on a farm
– this trainer will coach you on helping you close more live deals on each and every call
– this trainer has a ton of success stories and case studies to show that what they do works and won’t be a waste of your time

Would you and they be a bit more excited now?

Good.

Because this is exactly what we do.

We only work in Ag.

It’s all we do which means we are in a privileged position to see all the patterns that can help you make more sales more quickly and easily without any of the hard core closing, pushy, sleasey sales stuff that your farming clients hate.

You get live coaching on real deals that you can apply there and then. Not academic, hypothetical examples that are no use to anyone.

Your team will be trained in the latest and greatest psychological and persuasion principles that will help them speed up their sales cycles, increase their conversion and close rates whilst reducing their overall cost of sale.

Sales doesn’t need to be so hard but we make it so.

Take a quick peek into our exclusive Rural Sales Success™ programme and see for yourself.

PS. Make sure you download a free copy of your How To Succeed In Rural Sales Ebook as well.

Hope to talk soon.