Companies do it time and time again. They have the best intentions by investing in sales training, but almost always get the same lackluster results. Here's the scenario. Executives at a company decide "We need to take our sales team to the next level! We need to invest in our salespeople so they are better equipped to sell to our customers. We will invest in a sales training program and that will give them the tools they need. We should then see a positive return and our sales team should be able to sell more." This is also the scenario about six months after the training. You've spent thousands of dollars. Sales people were excited for only the first thirty days following the training. Each has picked up a "nugget or two" from the training, but essentially their behavior is the same as it was before. The Return on Investment? Almost nothing. Sales training by itself simply does not work. Yet we continue to throw money down the drain year after year. Why does this happen? There are multiple answers.
Nobody reinforces the training after the initial training workshop, so it fades away
Managers learned the concepts alongside their team members so are ill-equipped to coach to it
The training is generic and may not be completely applicable to your business - therefore, not adopted
There are no systems in place to support it
The list goes on and on. But the problem is larger than this. The fundamental problem is that your sales organization may not be set up with the right structure, systems, processes and people to be effective in the first place. If your company is not very good at hiring quality sales people that fit well to your culture, sales training won't help. If your sales leader isn't a very good manager and coach, salespeople won't get better. If you only look at sales results rather than leading indicators, then you never have time to make adjustments. Companies turn a blind eye to these much larger problems and try to put the band-aid of "sales training" on the problem only to see their money and efforts go down the drain. If a company truly wants to improve their productivity, it should first look at the basic structure and processes in place. This is analogous to making sure you have a sturdy foundation on your home before you begin building. Questions companies should ask themselves before considering training include:
Do we have a clear strategy for growing business and does our sales team understand it? Does our current sales team structure support that strategy?
Do we have the right people on board? Do we have a good system for recruiting, hiring, on boarding and developing salespeople?
Do we have a defined sales process for converting prospects to customers or does everybody sell "in their own way?"
Are we measuring leading indicators that can help us make adjustments and diagnose problems or are we just measuring sales results (lagging indicators) which make it too late to adjust?
Are we motivating our salespeople to do what we want them to do, both through compensation and through our actions?
Are we continually coaching performance, improving skills and holding people accountable to achieving their goals?
Have we given the sales leader the right tools to make all these things happen?
These fundamental issues and others need to be addressed before companies should spend a dime on sales training. Without them, you are wasting your money.
