In July, I finished up teaching my most recent Marketing and Sales for Entrepreneurs class at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. My class is part of a Certificate in Entrepreneurship that was jointly developed by the University of Toronto and MaRS. My class is a great primer in sales training and marketing training for students looking to grow their existing business or start a new business. This was the third class that I had taught since the course was created. I really enjoy working with the passionate entrepreneurs that can range from fresh out of school to leaders with 20+ years of business experience. The class works through many different sales and marketing strategies and tactics. The goal is at the end of the course the students will have created their own sales and marketing plan.

 
VA Partners has created sales and marketing training programs for many other organizations. Like with any of the courses or other training engagements that we have, there are learnings that jump out at us.
 
Here are a few of the highlights from my past class.
 

People use their own frame of reference too often

 
People often select the sales and marketing tactics that they like or that support their personal decisions. The issue with this is that your customers and prospects may not have the same preferences. This can range from the social platforms you choose to the use of email as a marketing tactic.
 

Make time for the things you don’t like

 
Some of the students don’t like or use social media, yet they understand that it could be an important channel for their business. The same can be said for making time for sales tasks like cold calling.
 

Practice makes perfect

 
As part of the course there are opportunities to present ideas or practice tactics, like cold calling. Talking out loud to the group helps the students evaluate themselves and get feedback from the class. The more opportunities to practice the better they get.
 

Trying to do too much

 
Many students try to boil the ocean with their sales and marketing plan. This shows up the most in the social media section of the plan. Some students identify 5 or 6 platforms they want to be active on. This can be a very time consuming activity with a low ROI. Find the 2 or 3 best social platforms to start.
 

Create measurable goals

 
It is easy to say that you want to grow your brand, it is harder to measure it. Pick some top level targets, like revenue, and supporting targets, like website sessions and inbound leads. Make them easy to track so you can measure your success and the ROI of your activities.
 

There is no silver bullet

 
We had a great guest presentation by Mark Pavlidis from Flixel. One of Mark’s take aways was that there was no silver bullet and no single right tactic. An organization’s sales and marketing journey can include many tactics. Part of the journey is creating your best plan and then tweaking it based on events.
 
If you are interested in creating a custom training program for your team, please contact me and we can talk about how the VA Partners approach can benefit your organization.