Top Gun: have the sales team be well prepared
No general sales training, but a tailor-made plan for the Pavo and Mühldorfer Pferdefutter sales team. A plan that has now been running for four years and has borne the required fruit. “The training depth is considerable. We need to deal more and more with a new generation of retailers/dealers in account management, we need to change in line with the market,” says Jort de Wit, Sales Manager at Pavo.
Pavo does not just invest in high-quality good products, but also believes that the quality and further personal development of its own people are extremely important. The Top Gun Sales Training Meetings have been provided by the Sales Academy as part of this and have now simply become a part of Pavo. De Wit tells us why tailor-made sales training is so important: “The range of sales training sessions is huge, but they are often very general. We deal with a specific sector with its own challenges. It is important that we respond appropriately.”
The topics are determined per training meeting. “As sales managers, we often determine the direction and path of the training. We also, however, appoint a number of stakeholder per training meeting. They may be account managers, but can also be marketeers. We ask them to come up with substantive issues related to the topic. Which thresholds do they encounter and what do they need? We also like to work with examples from practice.”
Strongly differentiating
Important topics during training meetings are, for example, the annual planning and account planning. “We are also, however, talking about holding difficult conversations, time management, communication, collaborating and achieving a good performance.”
De Wit believes that it is important who you are holding negotiations with. “We have an experienced sales team, but this team is confronted with a different customer generation, customers who need to be catered for in a different way. It is important that we can respond to them correctly. I believe that it is because of this training that we excel in account management at Pavo. We know how to get noticed. We truly wish to help our retailers and dealers, to be a sparring partner or sounding board for them. Retailers and dealers are extremely important to us. Picking up on the right signals and doing something with this is a good thing!”
One of the most essential issues is to manage Pavo proactively in accordance with De Wit. “So we draw up an annual plan. We do not immediately panic when something does not run smoothly, we have a plan and know what we need to do. We want to add depth. Sometimes it can be quite inconvenient to go with the current pricing system. We do not wish to simply rationalise based on the price: quality is what basically defines us. Quality also has a specific price tag.”
Unique for the sector
The Top Gun training meetings guarantee that the sales team is well prepared. “It is unique for the sector and truly has added value. Not just for us as the sales department but also for our customer. It ensures we can better meet the needs of the market.” The following Top Gun meeting is being planned for June.