Every business owner and team manager knows that ensuring your team has been taught the right skills can make a huge difference in long-term productivity. But do you understand more precisely why it’s important to make time for training on a recurring basis?
Training is more than just setting your team up with an understanding of how to do the basics of their jobs. The most successful businesses have training programs that regularly help employees grow in their roles with the latest industry techniques. Industrial distributors, in particular, could see huge benefits from implementing supplemental training courses.
But do you find it difficult to keep up with training your team? Does it sometimes feel like training is a waste of time? To successfully implement a training program, you need to know exactly why they’re effective and necessary in our industry. Let’s take a closer look.
Why Training Is Important
Why is it important to have a training program beyond basic onboarding? While setting a new employee up with access to the basic tools they will need to do their job, this basic training isn’t going to be enough to sustain long-term business growth. Instead, business owners need to realize why it’s important to make time for training employees on new topics and techniques on a regular basis.
Build Brand Value
Training your sales associates to be more practiced in handling both manufacturers and customers will help increase the value of your company. Not only will the additional knowledge your associate shares be viewed positively by those they interact with, but it will also reflect positively on your business.
When customers are considering purchasing through an industrial distributor, they are looking for more than just a flat product pitch. Associates must be able to prove what type of value they bring to the sales pitch, and this should be a key part of your brand goals and values.
Create A Competitive Edge
Setting yourself apart from competitors in the current climate is more important than ever. It’s more likely to get repeat business when your associates are educated and act with efficient productivity. Training can make that happen.
By changing how you approach training, you will be ahead of the pack and you will stand out.
Teach Employees Valuable Techniques
One great thing about additional training in the industrial sector is that you create an environment where employees do more than just learn about products and how to enter sales data into a computer system.
Instead, employees learn valuable techniques that can be applied to all aspects of their job, including:
- Problem-solving
- Time management
- Data management
- Effective communication tactics
Having these skills makes employees more productive and effective in all aspects of their work, which benefits your business.
Increase Sales
Another powerful benefit about training sales associates to work more effectively is that they may be able to bring more sales into the sales funnel with their improved product knowledge.
Many sales associates in the industrial distribution sector, especially newer individuals, make the mistake of dumping a lot of info on potential buyers without a real plan. They know a lot about the products, but they know less about how to strategically share that information.
High-quality training, like the training offered through the NetPlus Academy, powered by Bluevolt, helps associates learn how to speak more strategically. Rather than info-dumping, they will learn to have a business-driven conversation that leads to more sales. The more you know, the better you can sell.
Create Long-term Growth Plans
Ideally, every employee you spend time and money training will stay with your company for many years. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic. One way to reduce turnover at your company and increase the number of experts working with you is to have a stronger training program.
A great training program that incorporates long-term goals and ongoing training efforts is great for motivated individuals at your company. These employees want to know where they are going and what is possible in their careers. Through a dedicated and specific training plan, you can show them just that.
Use training as a way to set employees up for promotions, growth, and other career-building aspects. Employees will appreciate the clarity of the goals, and they will become more and more skilled at their job along the way.
Get Everyone On The Same Page
From C-level individuals to freshly hired trainees, your business will be more successful if your company culture is pervasive, clear, and consistent.
It’s unrealistic to imagine that every employee will take every single training course, but there should be some courses that everyone partakes in. These types of courses help create a common language that can be used among all levels of the company, which will create stronger loyalty.
A healthy business culture creates happier employees. Happier employees often work harder, go through less turnover, and achieve more sales. This should be a goal for every business!
Harness The Importance Of Training With BlueVolt
Setting up a training program for the first time can be difficult. With the industrial distribution business constantly increasing in complexity, figuring out what courses and classes matter most to your team can make things even harder. Working with different manufacturers requires different knowledge; how do you efficiently manage this complexity when focusing on the importance of training?
We saw this concern in action and heard our members’ calls for an easier solution. That’s why we partnered with BlueVolt to create effective cloud-based learning that our members can use to train their teams.
Through the NetPlus Academy, powered by BlueVolt, you can find:
- Industry Specific Courses
- Brand and Product Training
- Analytics and Reporting
- Content Creation Support
To learn more about how to get your team started on the NetPlus Academy, powered by Bluevolt, visit our homepage or contact us today.
