Sales Training Doesn't Work - And What To Do About It
Steve Chriest, CEO
Summary: Since sales training is focused on techniques for improving sales, the results of sales training is usually short-term and not sustainable.
For some time now I’ve known that sales training doesn’t work for most organizations long-term. While sales training can help some salespeople temporarily, senior sales leaders and senior executives must recognize that behavioral change - not sales training - is the key to superior, sustainable sales performance.
While thousands of training companies offer sales training programs for cold-calling, prospecting, planning account strategies, sales call planning, presenting to clients and negotiating, there isn’t one sales training program I'm aware of that will, by itself, change a salesperson's behavior. And if you don't change a salesperson's behavior, what is learned from sales training won't last long-term.
So, what is it that changes selling behaviors? The academic answer may be complex, but for us regular folks it’s pretty simple – salespeople, like anyone, will change their behavior when they perceive that there is something substantial in it for them to make a change.
Changing behavior is a process, and like all processes it must be managed. Behavior isn’t changed in the same way you flip on a light switch. Salespeople almost never raise their hands to request sales training from their managers, and it’s difficult to convince most salespeople that they need to change their selling behaviors. After all, their “natural” sales talent has gotten them this far!
An effective prescription for changing selling behaviors will include a consensus among senior managers of the relevance of the sales training to the most important strategic objectives of the business. Senior managers are much more likely to encourage and support a sales training initiative that promises to positively impact critical strategic objectives than sales training that delivers entertainment, and little else, to the sales team.
The next step, and this one is absolutely critical, is to communicate to the sales managers and the sales team the direct connection between the sales training and the strategic objectives of the business. Now, perhaps for the first time, the sales team can see the potential impact of their activities on important business objectives, instead of seeing only their effect on the quarter’s top line number and in their commission checks.
Once the sales team understands their role in helping the company achieve strategic business objectives, they must clearly see how changing their selling behaviors will help them directly impact those objectives and how they will personally benefit from the change. Money is always an important factor, but so is personal development and growth.
The failure of sales training costs companies billions of dollars annually and wastes everyone’s time. It doesn’t have to be that way. When sales training is an integral part of a well thought out plan for changing behaviors to meet strategic objectives, the sales training can deliver desired results. Positive behavioral change benefits the company, customers, managers and sales professionals.
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The Crisis In Sales Management Is An Old Problem
Steve Chriest, CEO
Summary: The current economy has caused slowed sales, not simply because fewer people are buying, but because salespeople don’t know how to sell effectively.
When I first became a sales consultant, and began working with clients, I was surprised at the lack of basic sales skills and business knowledge of most of the sales groups I encountered.
Whether we consulted with multi-billion dollar corporations or middle market companies, the story was always the same - the salespeople lacked basic selling skills and knowledge, and the overall skill level and knowledge of sales managers was worse.
As I thought about why this appeared to be the case, I encountered a woman who recruited senior sales managers during the last twenty-five years. I told her what I had observed, and asked her two questions: First, were my observations valid? And second, if they were valid, how did this happen?
Without hesitation she told me that during most of the 1990’s business was generally good and getting better each month. Salespeople in a great many industries had only to make sure they answered the telephone to take orders from customers who were anxious to buy. Selling skills and business knowledge weren’t needed to meet and exceed sales quotas. Sales managers, again in many industries, had little managing to do as their teams met their numbers.
That all changed, of course, as the economy began to slow in 2000. All of a sudden things changed for salespeople and for sales managers. The phone stopped ringing off the hook, and salespeople and managers found themselves competing in a cruel world against increasingly more desperate competitors.
According to the sales recruiter, many experienced salespeople lost their selling skills, and those new to selling never acquired even basic sales skills. The same things happened to experienced sales managers and those new to management during this good economy.
Now, of course, in the midst of the worst recession anyone can recall, senior sales leaders and senior managers are facing the reality of a crisis in sales management.
When times get tough, and companies begin to lose customers and market share, senior managers want quick fixes. They often ask, “How can we gain more of our customer’s mindshare, now? How can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors? How can we sell value and avoid caving into customer demands for more service and lower prices? How can we upgrade our selling skills? How can we motivate our sales teams?”
As they turn to sales managers for answers, many senior executives discover that the sales managers cannot deliver comprehensive solutions, let alone quick fixes. The executives come face to face with the crisis in sales management. It is an old problem that won’t go away without a new focus on front-line sales leadership.
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