With enormous sales forces, companies depend on sales trainers to train their employees. Different companies have different policies for hiring personnel for sales trainer jobs. Some prefer training experts and some insist on hard core sales professionals. But there are solid reasons why sales people are clearly a better choice.
Firstly, a trainer can only convey as much as people can understand. If you want the trainer talking the language of your employees, get a person from the same line of work. A person who can talk about tried and tested practical approach will definitely win over a guy who only talks about the theoretical approach.
Secondly, the initial credibility of a sales person teaching selling will be higher. This will make for a conducive training environment. The learning will be better and the results faster. The trainer because of his/her experience can also help the sales-force troubleshoot if the techniques taught in the training do not work. After all, no sellers are the same and neither are two customers.
Thirdly, the company which hires a non sales person for sales trainer job , ends up spending considerable amount of time and efforts training the trainer. If this is not the case, the trainer learns by trial and error and wastes considerable time of the trainees and company resources. Due to the intrinsic competency of selling, learning to train takes less time for a sales person than vice a versa.
If as a company, you want best of both the worlds, the best approach is to select one of your good sales representative who is inclined to train and coach and groom him/her to take up the job of a sales trainer. This will not only help the sales training function, but also contribute in internal employee development. It’s a win-win-win for everybody.
Don’t be fooled by outstanding training experience. Experience in selling is what counts when selecting people for Sales Trainer Jobs
Neha is an Industrial Psychologist and an independent training consultant. She also writes Management and Training related articles on her website The Smart Trainer.