Channel vs. User Training: It's Not About Features

In my 10+ years of software development and IT consulting prior to Talyst, I trained hundreds (perhaps thousands) of users on a number of off-the-shelf and custom software solutions. In addition, during my time as Product Manager of InSite, I created our initial training program and facilitated the training sessions for our pilot sites. As a result, training users comes naturally to me.

However, I recently found myself training far more sales people than users. This is the first time in my career that I have had to train people on how to sell a product as opposed to use it. I have learned quite a bit through this experience, so I thought I would share...

First of all, I have learned that features are most important to users and least important to salespeople. Users cannot operate the system without knowing how each feature works. On the other hand, sales people, in many cases, do not need to know any detail about the features. Sales tools can clearly convey enough detail for customers to initially evaluate the system. And, for complex enterprise-class systems, sales engineers (often in the form of product managers, service/support techs, developers, etc.) are often called upon to explain specific features in more detail. Therefore, while sales people should certainly be aware of features, knowing the specifics is often unnecessary. Obviously, having good sales tools and sales engineers is key to this approach.

So, if features are not important to salespeople, then what is? Well, given my experience and observations over the last year, I have found these 4 keys areas to be most important when training a sales channel:

Buyer Personas - Know your buyers and their motivations. Generally, buyers are not users, and can have motivations that are in direct conflict. For example, a buyer may want to implement a cost-savings system that requires the user to do more work. We tend to listen more to users. However, while it's important to have happy users, they are rarely the ones writing the checks. Buyers are key. Arm your sales channel with information about your most common buyers and their motivations.

Customer Pains - Understand each customer's pain points. Be very familiar with how their world works today and what their biggest issues are. Even within the same industry, prospects may often have very different problems. Don't assume you know what their problem is. Listen to your customer and let them tell you what's wrong. Teach your sales channel how to uncover and highlight the issues that your system can fix.

Value Prop / ROI - Knowing your buyers and their specific pain points will help you identify the value proposition / return on investment (ROI) your system can provide to them. Very rarely does the same value prop apply to buyers with different motivations. So, know how to hone your message based on each prospect's specific situation. Train your sales channel to do the same.

Objections - Sales is a process of removing objections. Deals don't close until all major objections have been addressed. Objections can be anything from price, service/support, "missing" features, competitive products, bad press, etc. Know the common objections and how to address/overcome them. Your sales team will not be successful unless they can remove objections in order to close the deal.

So, I have clearly learned that channel training is very different from user training. I have found that it is far more important for the sales channel to know more about buyers, motivations, value prop, and objections than features.

When I was a Product Manager, I was once told, "it's not about the features." At the time it made absolutely no sense. How could it not possibly be about features? Yet, after this experience, I'm starting to fully appreciate the meaning behind that phrase.