Marketing Series Article Training...an Important Part of your Promotions Program Helping your Channel Members to be More Effective! by Dick Barnes, Principal, The Freeland Group Promotional activities are sometimes dominated by manufacturers, leaving little for the reseller to do other than to stock inventory and process orders. The manufacturer might use heavy advertising to create desire at the consumer level, or have tightly integrated promotion plans, thereby maintaining control of promotional activities. Large franchise organizations are famous for this. Others do little or no promotional work, depending on each channel member to promote downhill to the next channel member. Both manufacturing firms, and the wholesale firms within their channels, use a variety of promotional activities that fall under the heading of “training.” These activities are designed to increase the amount of product moving through those channels of distribution…as well as the speed of that movement. Such training might include seminars, safety certifications, new product orientations, or maintenance training. This is a great way for firms to keep their salespeople, and their corporate names, in direct contact with customers. The level of promotional activity, and the types of activities, are also dependent on the products themselves; what the products are, what they do, and where they are in their individual product life cycles. New products may need to be promoted through a great flurry of educational activity. Older products, in the mature stage of their life cycles, will often be promoted through training in maintenance or in alternative uses which will keep the product economically viable for the customer. In reviewing the training features of promotional programs, it is not surprising that such activities have different goals and objectives when given by manufacturers versus wholesalers. A manufacturer with an extensive promotional and training program in place may desire little from channel members. In other cases, the channel members may be expected to not only prospect heavily, but to provide training and other services to their customer base. If you are among such a customer base, you should be taking advantage of the full spectrum of training opportunities. They are normally free of charge and can be of great value to your sales people…and therefore to you. Today, let’s concentrate on the promotional training roles of the channel members, whether they be called wholesalers, distributors, or the more generic term of resellers. These are the folks that might be both the beneficiaries of training by the manufacturer, and the providers of training to other channel members. In the business of distributing materials handling equipment and supplies, we commonly find products that are “high involvement products.” This simply means that consumers normally place additional thought, and resources, into the purchase decision. It also means the consumer expects to receive educated advice from a well trained sales professional. If your sales force doesn’t fit this image, your bottom line will suffer for it. If your sales people don’t know what they are doing, your customers and fellow channel members will figure that out. The resulting lack of confidence will cost you revenues as they move closer to competitors whose sales people do know what they’re about. So, what areas of marketing operations might you wish to receive training in from upper channel members, or like to see supplied to lower channel members. Sales training is one of the most obvious answers. This includes a lot more than help in sharpening prospecting, time management, or closing skills. A great deal of such training is all about product knowledge; benefits, features, specifications, how to use the product, and what gives it an edge over the competition. This might be a good time to devise a “test” that will measure such knowledge. Have your own sales force take the “test” first and see how they measure up. It might indicate some refresher training needs within your own ranks. Obviously, this need might take precedence over training for channel members. Once that issue has been confronted, look at ways to test channel members. This could be done through informal interviews, at new product training sessions, or through a third party. You can sponsor the third party and place them into contact with your channel members. It’s not unheard of for a firm to send consultants to a lower channel member, at no cost to the channel member. The story is that you are helping your firm do a better job by looking at the needs of your channel members. That’s true, and it is an additional benefit of such a mission. Mainly you are looking to see how they are handling your product line and what you can do to improve their performance. Sometimes training needs are obvious and you don’t have to go to such lengths to determine them. But once you do determine those needs you can move on to the next step. That step should be to review the end goals and objectives of what you want to come from the entire promotional process, then to determine where training fits into that process. At that point you are ready to design the training to not only fill in the knowledge gaps of your audience, but to satisfy your goals. Satisfaction of your strategic goals is important. Occasionally the only goal is to put yourself in front of your customers a certain number of times each year, but goals are normally more complex than that. It may be to speed introduction of a new product by getting the sales force on it quickly. It may be to extend the life cycle of an older product, or simply to increase overall sales figures against a competitor that shares the same distribution channel. A separate goal entirely might be to get channel sales people to act as sales and merchandising advisors to the retail level channel members. This last goal would entail a totally different training approach. Your goals are taken from your long range plan, and no matter which goal you are presently supporting, you can build a training program that will help. Just as everyone in your firm must work together to create an effective organization, the members of your channel must also perform at peak levels if you are to be successful. If they are not doing that, it may be time for you to help them along. It will be good for them, and even better for you. (next article in series) |
