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Fact: 58% of 1600 directors said “ organic revenue growth” is their company’s top goal |
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Fact: 92% of the directors surveyed believe there is “significant revenue growth potential” that could be generated from existing sales resources |
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Fact: 93% of sales training has no lasting impact after 60 days |
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| You know you need to increase sales results and should have better results. But when sales training is bought as the solution it disappoints.
Before sales training initiatives start director’s talk about their hopes and goals. They tend to sound something like this: |
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Break into targeted accounts |
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Sell at higher prices and margin |
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Stand out and differentiate from the competition |
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Increase cross selling and up selling |
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Get everyone selling like our best people |
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| The problem is they tend to stay hopes and goals because of four common and predictable reasons. If you avoid these mistakes you can set yourself up for successful programmes that provide long-term revenue growth. We will cover each in turn. |
| 1. Failure to define clear business and development objectives
2. Failure to develop a sales framework and individual goals
3. Failure to deliver training that engages and is 100% applicable
4. Failure to make performance improvements last |
1. Failure to define clear business and development objectives.
Sales training has no hope of producing lasting results if senior management: |
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Base their objectives and expectations of results on wishful thinking rather than analysis |
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Fail to identify the actual needs of the team |
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Too often sales training is seen as an event not an investment in time,
energy and financial resources intended to deliver bottom line results.
Without the proper business expectations it is impossible to design a
programme that will be measurable and have a lasting impact. First decide
the business goals that will best drive revenue growth. These could be: |
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Increase revenues delivered by your sales people |
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Maximise retention and revenue from your key clients |
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Increase the number of quality clients |
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Improve deal price/margin |
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| In conjunction with solid business objectives, assess the development gaps of your team and what they will need to achieve the business goals: |
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Where your sales team is now regarding the skills, activities, knowledge and tools they need to succeed in their role |
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Each individual’s improvement potential |
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What success will look like |
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What kind of effort and time it will take to get from A to B |
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| What happens when you do not assess development needs? Training is guessed at by management and the training company. This produces sales training initiatives that: |
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Focus on content that the team does not need |
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Leaves out content the team does need |
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Fails to deliver at the right level (too basic or too advance) |
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| 88% of world class sales organisations assess their sales team’s development gaps. It is one of the reasons they are world class. |
| 2. Failure to develop a sales process and individual goals
86% of companies that do not have some kind of consistent way of selling (a sales process) underperform those that do. Many sales teams have accountability for “sales” (end results) but not how they will get there.
World class sales organisations focus much more on how the sales process delivers the results using a few key metrics along the way. The power of a sales process cannot be understated. Here is why: |
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A sales process is a guide to action. No guide and you are on the road to nowhere |
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A sales process helps people be efficient and get more done |
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A sales process prevents re inventing the wheel |
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A sales process means you can capture best practice for all to apply |
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A sales process creates a shared language that everyone in the company understands, uses and follows |
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| Sales training that does not focus on goal setting and action planning as further ways of guiding activity miss a huge opportunity to boost results. A global review of sales people compared the top 5% with the bottom 5%. Among the results was the following: |
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Top 5% of sales people: 100% have written goals and plans |
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Bottom 5% of sales people: 9% have written goals and plans |
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| When sales training focuses on helping people build goals and plans, it: |
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Guides action towards specific sales results |
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Proves a shared framework for evaluation and measurement of success |
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Increases motivation and commitment, increasing the odds that people will take the actions to which they commit |
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3. Failure to deliver training that engages and is 100% applicable
People are busy, especially sales people. They do not have the time to sit through training that is not wholly applicable to their needs. If you can get the before right, you make sure development is bang on target.
The board of a large asset manager purchased and rolled out expensive sales training from a well-known global company. Because it did not match the requirements of the sales team, it not only failed but has created a negative feeling about all training from the sales team and their managers.
No Engagement = No Learning = No Improved Performance
For the training events themselves, you have to get the content right with workshop leaders they respect and who have an understanding of their business and challenges. Participants need to be working on their actual opportunities and accounts in a high energy environment.
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| 4. Failure to make development last
Most sales training is focused around a two or three day event where sales people learn and practice new skills. The problem with event only training is there is no long term impact. Without follow-up, as much as the participants might have liked the programme, it is rare the sales person that reviews the manual and their notes 3 times a week.
It amazes me how often senior people say, if I only get 1 or 2 things then it has been worthwhile. Read one of our monthly sales briefings and you will get one or two things for free in less than 5 minutes. This shows the low expectation people have of traditional training.
We learnt to drive not by sitting in a hotel room for 3 days but by having a lesson each week and practicing. Only over time will your team internalise development and consistently put it to use. When you focus on the before, during and after of sales training, new ways of working will produce a measurable improvement in results that last.
Increase Growth with Effective Sales Training
Effective sales training can be the fastest way to drive up revenue growth. Yet so many development pounds go to waste because of the four reasons outlined in this briefing. Success can happen to if you make certain:
Before development |
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Define clear business and development objectives |
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Assess the sales teams development gaps |
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| During development |
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Provide a sales framework along with goals and actions |
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Deliver relevant and engaging training that is 100% applicable to each person’s needs |
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| After development |
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Follow-up and reinforce – maintain a clear and unrelenting focus on the objectives |
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| Do this and you will find sales training provides more than just a 60 day boost.
It Will Lead to Organic Revenue Growth that Lasts.
End notes
• Survey of 225 business leaders - Rain Group
• Quarterly business review – Aberdeen Group 20110
• Understanding the sales force - David Kurlan
• Competing on analytics – Harvard Business Review 2011 |
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