Project Purpose and Objectives
The goal in working on this project for me was to help build up the company I work for. It’s a relatively new company as of 2020, called Keele Medical. It was founded by Nathan Keele, and they specialize in saliva drug testing devices that revolutionize the world of drug testing.
I wanted to help out the new salesmen that get hired at the company. There are a lot of them joining every week, and I’ve noticed a trend that many of them don’t know where to start. I approached my manager and asked what he thought about me creating a sales training manual geared towards Keele Medical. He thought it was a great idea! We determined it would be a starting guide for those seeking to grow within the sales department of the company.
The Project
I began work on the project in early January. I spent many hours drafting different sections that I thought would be helpful to the new employees. I collaborated with my sales manager, Colin, to learn more about what tactics I could include in the manual.
Over time, as I spent time shadowing and learning from Colin, the manual started coming together. There are universal sales tactics, and then there are tactics that are specific to the field of drug testing. There are important legal considerations to be remembered and followed. It’s important for the new hires to know these things.
I completed the manual this last week, and overall I think it’s looking pretty awesome. It’s not a huge manual by any means, but I believe it covers the need to know topics for new salesmen. If it was too long, I don’t think they would read it. It came out to be 16 pages, one page for each important topic. I will attach the document below.
Challenges Encountered
I had a hard time deciding what principles to leave in the manual, and what I could leave out. Ultimately, I wanted the freshest of salesman with zero experience to benefit from it just as much as the experienced salesman. I believe I did my best to achieve those goals, and time will tell if it needs some updates or tweaking.
It also turned out to be a very time consuming process. Not only did I have to write the manual itself, but I had to learn and immerse myself in the sales process on my own. I needed to position myself to learn the most I absolutely could from the professionals in the business.
With many hours and lots of effort, I finally completed it. It was one of the harder projects I’ve undertaken, especially with this company. It’s not your average job for sure, as I’m just an ordinary salesman myself. I wanted to lift the company and help others learn the things that took me a long time to learn myself. If I was able to go through the trial and error so others don’t have to, I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Project Processes
I spent lots of time trying to decide what kind of format I wanted to take. Would I do bullet points? Would I do paragraphs? Would I discuss multiple topics per page, or just focus on one thing at a time? Ultimately I came to the conclusions that is my manual posted above. I don’t know if it would be worthy of publish, but I do believe it’s helpful for those that will read it within the company.
So the formatting took some time, but I also wanted to get the wording and important topics just right. I didn’t want to include useless information, I wanted every page to be rich with information for each salesman trying to grow. I spent many days and late nights learning the principles that I included in this document.
Experiences I had Doing this Project
I think one of the most valuable experiences I had was the one on one time with my mentor. I spent quite a bit of time with him in his office. I shadowed him, and we discussed the different things that were ultimately included in the manual. We didn’t always explicitly discuss the manual, but I took away some valuable lessons learning from the best.
Another great thing about this was that my mentor through it all, Colin, was super supportive. He’s in his thirties with about 7 kids, and he’s got lots of experience in the sales world. He also was not afraid to teach me about sales using the Book of Mormon. He would help me see the parallels between gospel principles, and providing for my family with this job. I think he is a great man and I was privileged to spend so much time with him along the way.
Insights and Takeaways
I learned how to be a better writer, and a better salesman from this project. I also learned that it’s worth it to put in a little extra work to help others. Life is all about learning from your mistakes, but there’s a little shortcut I’ve discovered. That’s about learning from the mistakes of others. I’ve found that there are many who have put in work that they are willing to share with others, and that work involves learning experiences that they have had along the way.
This project was an opportunity for me to put in work for myself, and then impart the knowledge I gained to help others. It was filled with setbacks, struggles, and disappointments, but I’m grateful for the learning process I had. I was able to put those lessons into this manual to bless the lives of these new employees trying to get through life and provide the best they can for their futures.