Why Training is Important for Your Business

Let’s face it. You can’t really expect your staff to help move your business forward if you don’t train them on how to do it. A small investment in staff training today will pay off tomorrow – in renewed energy that sparks new ideas or new strategies for improving older practices.

Start your training at the core by making sure that your entire staff knows your mission and values as a company and why they are important. Share your elevator speech with everyone (if you don’t have one, we recommend it) and ask that it be used and spoken consistently throughout your company. This kind of training is key to preserving and building your brand.

Next, train for customer service. Your staff puts a face on your company, so make sure your people have personality and a natural propensity for service and then train them in your principles and expectations for interaction.

It’s also important to train on the services you sell. For example, a one-day social media seminar inspired us to expand our social media services, leading to the launch of The Social Media Incubator which now provides training and social media support to most of our clients.

Training is a must for small to mid-size businesses that employ a salesperson(s), but it can also be beneficial for your entire staff because the lessons learned can be applied within every position that interacts with your customers. We’ve found this to be particularly true when it comes to selling additional services to customers who are already benefiting from your support. Simple sales tips make it easy to identify additional pain points and needs that you can help meet and lead your clients to greater success.

Training your team on new technology is a good idea, whether you’re implementing a new software program or purchasing a new copier. Not only does it assure less chance of error, but it can also give people the basics needed to think about new solutions and ways to utilize the technology.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but I think we would all agree that you can, if you expect them to be a good watchdog and new business fetcher with a commitment to being a loyal in a dog-eat-dog world.

Published on: August 30, 2013