PRIME+ Selling System Blog

How many times have you said (or heard your kids say) that there's no point in learning something you'll never use? Chances the topic was math that, with the wisdom of age and experience, you now see you use every time you have to get gas, shop, compute exchange rates when you travel, set a budget, balance your checkbook, do your taxes, or add a tip to a lunch tab. Without understanding the impact on your everyday life and future opportunities, it can be challenging to see the benefit of some exercises. That's where buy-in becomes key.

A solid training program is one of the most critical determinants of a high-performing team. It provides benefits such as improved productivity, enhanced performance, improved company culture, and higher employee retention. Companies that want to establish a new training initiative must communicate these benefits to the rest of the organization so that they understand how this is to their advantage. Without employee buy-in, the training starts at a disadvantage and hinders the willingness of the team to be fully receptive to your solution.    

How to Create Employee Buy-In  

BevAlc sales managers are tasked with creating employee buy-in for new sales training initiatives. While many of the younger employees today want and expect training and development, they still want it to be relevant and personalized before they are enthusiastic about it. If you expect your wine and beer sales team to accept and participate in employee development courses, it is up to you to explain how it benefits them.  Use the following talking points as a guide to creating buy-in for your continuous training efforts. 

1. Be Transparent About the "Why"

Transparency is essential to employee engagement. But what does that mean? Transparency in the workplace means sharing the goals, successes, struggles, and missteps that occur. It makes the workers feel trusted and vested in the company's success.

The same is true in explaining why employee development courses are mutually beneficial. Employee engagement is critical to the success of every business, as it reduces turnover. By giving your salespeople the skills they need to be successful, you unlock their future potential. Highly successful sales reps mean greater profits for your business.  

2. Explain Not Only the Process But the Reasons Behind It

There are many reasons why you may want to institute a new training process:

• Performance is down, and improvement is needed 
• You want to improve your professional development program in response to employee feedback 
• Determining eligibility for advancement during succession planning  
• For developing new skills or exploring specific topics 
• Training for new software or equipment

Your employees and sales reps can be your best advocates for new training. However, to help spread the word to peers, they need to be able to explain why they are doing it and how it works. If your goal is to improve performance, explain precisely how you expect it to help and how you will measure the results. 

3. Emphasize Ideal Outcomes

To expand upon our previous example, if your goal is performance improvement, be specific about what that means for the employee. Is it a percentage increase in sales, or does a superior improvement mean advancement opportunities? Ideal outcomes should correlate to both business goals and employee benefits. Engage your sales team in devising ideal outcomes to get insight into where they see room for improvement and what would help motivate them to engage more.  

4. Seek Feedback

Even a carefully planned strategy may need adjustment before it is successful. You already know the benefit of getting input into the ideal outcomes, but you should remember to seek feedback about how your team thinks it is working. The most sophisticated software, equipment, or sales and fulfillment process is only as good as how well it fits the realities of the job for which it is designed to improve. Ask your team if the training is helping them in their day-to-day tasks, and more importantly, what would make it work better.  

Get the Most From Your Employee Training With Buy-In

You can trace the success of most new practices to how enthusiastic you or your teams are about the outcome or benefit of the work they put into learning it. It is human nature to ask, "What's in it for me?" It is also natural to expect shortcuts to be taken or a lack of attention to detail in a process if you never explain why each step is essential to the outcome.

Bring your team along on the journey. Explain why training is needed and what the process entails. Let them be part of evaluating ideal outcomes and have honest conversations about how they feel it helps them do their jobs more easily or effectively. Building excitement around new training initiatives has a direct impact on the likelihood of buy-in.