Too many manufacturers are guilty of technical overkill when training distributor salespeople. Here are tips for making product training and selling seminars more on target.

by Richard Vurva

At the risk of offending product manufacturers, here’s a news flash for companies that make MRO supplies: Distributor salespeople don’t need to learn (or care to know) every last detail about the products your company builds.

Loading salespeople up with too much technical information is one of the sins manufacturers should avoid in order to make product training seminars more meaningful.

“Most manufacturers assume every distributor wants to know everything there is to know about their product,” says Robert Nadeau of Industrial Performance Group of Northfield, Ill. “If that were the case, the distributor sales force would do nothing but attend manufacturer training seminars.”

Sending distributor personnel to offsite training requires distributors and manufacturers to make a significant commitment of time and money. To make sure it’s a wise investment, channel partners must work closely to tailor training to make sure it benefits both parties. Progressive Distributor developed the following tips for making product training and selling seminars more effective.

Choose partners wisely
If distributors sent people to every training opportunity offered to them by the manufacturers whose products they sell, they’d spend all their time studying and have no time left for selling. Manufacturers and distributors must be selective in choosing partners that are committed to the concept of effective training.

“Before we send someone out for training, it has to be with a company we’re already doing a significant amount of business with or have the potential to do significant business, and we have to feel it won’t be time wasted,” says Brad Kent of Black & Co. in Decatur, Ill.

Among the hundreds of product manufacturers Black & Co. represents, it sends outside and inside salespeople to training from only a handful of suppliers.

“The most successful ones use experienced, professional presenters and offer a great deal of hands-on product use,” he says.

Know your audience
One of the most challenging aspects to developing effective product training has little, if anything, to do with how the product is made or how it works. Rather, the challenge for manufacturers is to develop training that satisfies the market information distributor salespeople need to sell the product.

“Target the training to the actual needs of your audience,” says Nadeau, who specializes in helping manufacturers boost distributor sales performance.

Good product training should answer questions such as:

  Who is the intended end customer of the product?
  In what SIC codes is it used?
  Does the manufacturer have a profile of the type of person who makes the buying decision for this type of product?
  What value or benefits can the product provide to the end-user?
  Who are the manufacturer’s primary competitors?
  Why should customers select this manufacturer’s product over a competitor’s product?
  Does the manufacturer offer product substitutes in a different price range?

Don’t be too technical
Often, engineers or people with some other technical expertise lead training sessions. They assume everyone is as excited as they are that their tool is made from specially formulated, heat-treated carbon steel or that it produces 212 scfm of air flow at 86 inches water lift through a 2 1/2 inch smooth bore hose.

“People who do training typically have never had to sell anything,” says Nadeau. “He wants to talk about all the bells and whistles. He doesn’t teach salespeople about common objections they’re going to run into and how to overcome them.”

Presenters should focus less on the technical and more on why the customer is going to be willing to pay more for his product.

Manufacturers and distributors should work together to plan how to incorporate product and market education into the presentation.

“Manufacturers need to give us more information about who uses the product, in what SIC codes, and why the manufacturer created the product,” says James Teat of Martin Supply Co. in Jackson, Tenn. “Plus, any information about competitive products and why this product is better than another can go a long way,” he says.

The goal is to provide distributor salespeople with information they need to help their customers recognize the need for the manufacturer’s product. For best results, emphasize market information, not technical terminology.

Identify opportunities
“Most product trainers don’t spend enough time identifying opportunities,” says Stu Mechlin of Affiliated Distributors.

In other words, trainers tend to spend most of their time talking about how the product works and too little time focusing on practical information that salespeople can use. For example, are there areas in a plant where the product is not being used that it could be? Is there an opportunity for cost savings that is not occurring today? Where might salespeople find an end-user who should use the product but isn’t? Where can salespeople find end-users using competing brands who might benefit by standardizing on one brand?

“Salespeople are always looking for increased sales opportunities and new business,” says Mechlin. “A good trainer should help steer them in the right direction.”

 Keep it lively
“Training needs to be interactive,” says Teat. “The worst training is when someone drones on in a monotone for an hour and then asks, ‘Any questions?’”

Training also should be fun. Instead of boring the audience with diagrams that illustrate engineering principles that enhance torque, put the tool in the user’s hands and let him or her feel the difference in power.

“Interactive training with a touch of humor that engages the audience goes a long way toward making people remember what they learned,” Mechlin says.

Recognize changing roles
Yesterday’s product training was designed to teach salespeople to be product experts because they were the people customers came to for information. Times have changed, so training must change also.

“In the old model, the role of the distributor was to be a walking repository of everything the manufacturer knew,” says Nadeau.

Today, with the Internet and proliferation of CD-ROMs, customers have access to much more information than in the past.

“So, the salesperson is no longer the walking repository of information,” says Nadeau. “He is like a research librarian who helps the customer find what he’s looking for.”

Instead of bogging down salespeople with details, manufacturers should spend time teaching them where they can go to steer customers toward the knowledge they’re after.

Use multiple delivery systems
When it comes to the best method for delivering training, it’s tough to beat face-to-face learning. But there are ways to enhance the time salespeople spend with trainers. For example, by providing preliminary course materials via the Internet, fax or mail ahead of time, attendees can come better prepared to tackle the subject matter on the day training begins.

“If salespeople could go through some preliminary material at their own pace, by the time they get to the classroom, everyone would be up to speed,” Nadeau says.

This article originally appeared in the July/August '00 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2000.

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