How to Monitor Whiteboard Selling Skills in 5 Steps

Ever wonder how your sales team is really doing using a whiteboard in sales with customers and prospects? If your staff is dispersed in regions or working remotely, worrying about performance standards could be keeping you up at night. Sleepless nights? If nightmares about performance are causing you anxiety, it’s no wonder. Many sales directors struggle with this very issue: how to guarantee a professional level of selling skills across their entire sales force. If you’ve gravitated towards whiteboard interaction and are not relying exclusively on slides, the question always pops up: How can you monitor effectiveness? Instead of losing sleep, use 5 steps to get going in the right direction. Monitor and support effective whiteboard sales skills across all regions. Step 1. Investigate Today’s Realityr What’s the most important first step? Number one. Find out what is going on today. This may vary wildly between regions. And between what ‘headquarters’ thinks is current practice. If you’re in your organization’s headquarters, don’t take written reports at face value. Jump in a car. Head out to remote areas. Go into client and prospect meetings and see for yourself. Once you do, you’ll have a good sense of what sellers are really doing. Are they showing product offerings at the whiteboard? Or are they waving a marker in the air—while relying on brochures and slides? Step 2. Invest In Trainingr Whiteboard selling training is a smart investment. It’s the fastest way to build an organization-wide standard of performance. If you’ve already provided training, make sure that everyone is taking advantage of classes and trainings. It’s always a stretch to get busy sales performers into a classroom—unless they fully understand the benefits. One of the fastest ways to showcase the benefit is to kick off the session with real-life experiences. If one or more of your top performers are already using whiteboard skills to shorten sales cycles and boost client loyalty—have him or her open up the training. Real-world results from top sellers builds credibility and promotes buy-in faster than anything else. Step 3. Share Best Practicesr Having learned the skills and tools to hold real-time conversations, guide discussion and focus attention at the whiteboard, what’s next? Apply whiteboarding skills to your specific product, services and solutions. Focus on critical adjustments to so that your presentations are the right fit for your customers. Often this is best done in targeted sessions such as a whiteboard workout with an expert coach. A coach streamlines practices and helps the entire group of sellers adapt to match individual strengths—and client preferences. Step 4. Focus On Hot Issuesr In your industry, there are hot issues. It could be trends, changes in legislation, changes in buying behavior or something else. Focus skills and practice to address these core issues. Many sales managers hold weekly or monthly meetings to adapt whiteboard stories and spotlight hot issues. What’s the hot issue for the month? Practice whiteboarding this with your team. Step 5. Show ROI Valuer There’s nothing like bottom-line value to get funding for your training and ongoing skill development. Show how this method of communicating is bringing in more sales. Track results along several lines such as: shorter sales cycles, larger sales, more cross sales, and increased customer satisfaction. By demonstrating a direct impact on the bottom line, you can expect several benefits. First, sellers will attend the training. Second, sellers will value sharing new skills and best practices. Third, sellers will invent new ways to leverage whiteboard techniques across their region. And…here’s the wonderful thing. With a clear ROI, you can make your point to skeptics and critics. You won’t suffer through stormy meetings listening to skeptics who are convinced this sort of thing doesn’t work. Now…you’ve got a 5-step cure for sleepless nights. Monitoring whiteboard selling skills across your sales force is a whole lot easier than you might have imagined.