Author: Training Industry Articles

Want to know a secret? One of the critical skills needed for gaining recognition in your chosen field is the ability to communicate clearly. You may be among the best and the brightest, cross all your t’s, dot all your i’s and get to work on time, but if you are not able to present your ideas to others in a clear concise manner, along with some enthusiasm and passion, most likely you will get lost in the pack. This is true for just about anyone who wants to get ahead – whether in sales or not.

As 2012 draws to a close and 2013 kicks off with the usual revelry and resolutions, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the past, present and future: Where we’ve been, what we’re seeing and where we’re heading. The trends we spotted in 2012 – including employee engagement, technology usage, leadership development and building cultures of creativity and innovation – have been the source for articles, discussions and decisions. These topics and trends that resonated most strongly with TrainingIndustry.com visitors and Training Industry Quarterly magazine readers captured attention and provided inspiration and insight. Click below to review the top issues and articles of 2012.

The keys to effective strategic account planning” is a best-practice model Performance Methods Inc. has developed from our extensive client work in the strategic account management area as well as our affiliation with the Strategic Account Management Association. Chances are, if you’ve recently gone to a SAMA event, you even may have attended a session bearing the same name. This model, based on 10 critical best-practice areas, establishes a SAM execution framework. In this article series, we will “unpack” each key and provide insight into how global industry leaders achieve SAM excellence through effective implementation of best practices.
Discover what the customer values most and validate it
The most effective account managers and teams discover how their customers define value, then engage and execute accordingly. They recognize that when account management efforts focus on the customer’s value expectations, the relationships that develop are deeper and longer and can be better leveraged. Today value and relationships seem to go hand in hand when suppliers and customers engage effectively.

One of the biggest gaps in the traditional approach to sales “training” is the time some organizations spend on conducting analyses to uncover key skills, competencies and attributes of top sales representatives (with the aim of emulating those abilities and hiring people who have the same traits). The key insights organizations lack are the major accomplishments that top sales representatives actually produced.

When we talk of how people learn, there is a general consensus among designers of educational courseware. We all take in information from our five senses, but some of us rely more on one particular sense than the others. For example, many of us are aud…