Executive Briefings

Published June 2008

Is Your Sales Training Effective?

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

American corporations invest heavily in sales training, spending approximately $7.2 billion each year, according to the Journal of Personal Selling. However, most organizations don’t know if that significant investment is actually paying off.

“You have to think of sales training differently because it has a different impact on your company,” said Brian Dietmeyer, president and CEO of Think! Inc., a global negotiation strategy consultancy. “You should expect a return on investment [because] sales is the growth engine of any company.”

To determine what makes a sales training initiative successful, 150 best-in-class organizations were surveyed and studied, and the findings were reported in a white paper by Think! Inc., SellingPower and the Professional Society for Sales & Marketing Training. According to the white paper, 56.5 percent of the respondents considered a successful sales training initiative to be one in which the “use of the methodology is strongly encouraged, measured and rewarded, and in which there are consequences for noncompliance.”

So if the success of a training initiative is determined by adoption, then what drives adoption? The answer: The sales training is directly linked to a larger growth strategy, has executive sponsorship and is supported by a coaching network.

After connecting the training to a larger goal and getting senior management’s attention, those in the training function must set up a coaching network, in which individuals are coaching to the competencies.

“The fact is that if you’re going to train someone in a key sales technique, whether it’s account management, opportunity management or negotiation, you’ve got to set expectation metrics for the coaches,” Dietmeyer said. “You’ve got to set the same expectations for the field sales force to say, ‘If you go on a sales call, it’s required that you do this work. We’re going to audit it, we’re going to coach against it, and if you don’t do this work, there are costs for noncompliance.’”

To ensure success, the training function must only push the adoption of one initiative or process at a time.

“If you’re rolling out three things to your sales team over the year, you need to determine which of those is most critical for your success, and that’s the one that you want to implement,” Dietmeyer said. “It’s difficult to implement two or three different processes simultaneously into a sales force. They just don’t have that much bandwidth.”

Once there is adoption, organizations can measure return on investment. However, only 36 percent of the respondents were measuring an initiative’s success. To determine true return on investment, organizations must choose some key leading and lagging indicators and measure those before and after the implementation of the initiative.

“Before the sales training, you want to decide where you’re going, which is a lagging indicator, and how you’re going to get there, which is a leading indicator,” Dietmeyer said. “This is why adoption is so key because [it] is the workhorse that does all the work.”

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman is an associate editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine. She can be reached at editor@clomedia.com.

Comments

Posted By
Neil Licht
Sunday June 15, 2008 12:20:32 PM

"I Hired My Competor's Top Person....And They Failed Miserably---- WHY?" Sound familiar?

Its not really a matter of Sales Training, its getting the right person!

Frankly, you can't train away, coach away, or manage away a bad job fit. This is particlarly true in Sales where a precise match between the sales person and the uniqueness of your market and how it buys is critical

How do you make all your sales people top performers?
How do you prevent bad Sales hires?

In growing sales, we seem to be constantly trying to solve sales performance challenges like:

Poor Sales Production
Inability to Prospect Effectively
Selling at a level below the true decision maker
Customer Call Reluctance
Failure to Close Sale

What causes these issues? Its usually in how we hire, not who we finally hire or try to train that creates these sales management issues.

My 25 years in sales, sales management and in sales talent consulting as do others in the field( Display)seem to reveal the following reasons

Common sales hiring myths, rules and mistakes that cause this problem

More important, it also yielded a way to hire right the first time so these problems never happen

The well known 2004 Miller Heiman Sales Effectiveness Study [URL=URLhttp://www.branchometrist.com/pdf/3PRExSum2004Sales%20EffectStudy.pdf]Display[/url]reveals two startling facts that shed light on those issues and what is really needed to solve them:

Lets take a closer look at both of these points, try to understand them and solve them

1,Hiring my competitor's Sales Tiger is a sure win - We all do it but our candidates fail for us. Heres why.
Although your sales people may have been Tigers for one company, its market and its products when you hired them away, they can�t change their stripes to fit into what�s really needed to succeed in your company with your market and your product or service As your product and market changes, your sales people may not have the right traits and skills needed to succeed in the emerging sales environment.

2. They have a ton of Sales Experience - So what!! Is it matched precisely to what is needed for success in your kind of market with your kind of channel and your type of product or solution? Thats something critical and interviews really don't reveal how well a candidate really "fits"

3. They are just like me so they must be good - Just because you strike a good rappor and like a person or there seems to be an instant linking in personality doesn't mean they can sell like you. It means they are gregarious and outgoing, thats all. Again, the best and friendliest person in the world, even you brother, if they don't have the specific success traits and behaviors needed to sell effectively in your specific climate won't succeed

Why are these "standards of reliability" Display for hiring a sales person unreliable? Display

Frankly, Its not personality or experience or education or even skills, that yield sales success for your specific needs, its a very specific behavioral traits Job fit that yields success. The 3 measurements referenced don't reveal job-fit, just general ability.

So how do I evaluate a sales candidate based on job-fit?

Unfortunately, seeing those hidden job fit traits is completely ellusive in interviews, espescially in a sales person who is "selling" you on themselves. Unless you can get under the hood, objectively and accurately reveal the person's hidden traits and behaviors and have a way to match those to your top performers, you are still flying on instinct and chance when evaluating probable success.

How do you reveal those hidden traits, the traits that make your top perfoemers successful and see if your candidate has those traits?

Do this

With your existing sales teams, deploy a traits oriented, not a personality oriented assessment tool such as ANSWERS Display. Use it to reveal and benchmark their success traits and behaviors, the under the hood traits that they have which makes them so successful specifically in your job and with your customers.

It objectively reveals what makes your best consistantly top performers andand successes.

Use the asseessment as your benchmark deployed as a uniform pre-hire and existing employee assessment tool to reveal and place candidates against the traits of your top performers. Use the results to weed through candidates and, with your ability to see the hidden person along with interviews, then decide who best matches the traits ,is "best JOB-Matched, or best Job-fit and hire.

By the way, you should also use this to rank and upgarde your existing sales force to dramatically increase average sales per rep by replacing middle or poor performers using the ANSWERS tools. Do this and get higher perfoemance, hire with It, fire with It and Coach with it---Perfect Job-Fit, not just Personality or Experience is what Matters in YOUR team's Sales Success.

Reley on the results to see "under the hood" of candidates and to diagnose where your existing sales staff is missing the boat. Results reveal and compare the �hidden person� that interviews can not see against your Top Performer�s Benchmark. Instantly Know if its the right success fit for YOUR specific sales environment before you make the offer!

No more bad sales Hires!

Neil Licht, answers@ucanpreventbadhires.com 508-341-9563 www.ucanpreventbadhires.com

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