Yet Another Sales Training Disaster
A woman came up to me at the conclusion of a panel discussion I participated in this week at the ASTD conference. I was in a hurry to get to the airport to catch a plane, so I asked if she’d walk me through the convention center to the entrance, where I would find a taxi.
On the way, she related this story: She works for a Fortune 100 company. Household name. Another division had engaged with ESR in the past to assist them in finding a sales performance improvement provider. They found the right firm for the right reasons. A success for the client, the client’s customers, the vendor and for ESR. That was several years ago.
Her division went down a different path. They had invested in an earlier edition of ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide. “Great report,” she said to me, “but we wound up choosing a vendor that wasn’t in your report.” (That’s not the first time that has happened, so I wasn’t too surprised. Even though companies sometimes wind up selecting vendors not included in our report, they tell us that reading the report and understanding how we evaluate vendors enables them to make much more informed decisions.)
What she told me next was painful to listen to. The training approach her division took puts them into the category of the 85% of sales training that doesn’t have any impact after 90 days.
“Did you ever hear of,” and she mentioned the name of a very well-known trainer, author, and speaker. “Of course,” I said. She said, “All that you said during your presentation about methodology coming first… It was in your report as well. We didn’t do any of that. We just did the training, and now things are really, really messed up. We’ve got no process. It’s a mess.”
I know this trainer. All tips, silver bullets and shortcuts. I don’t think the word strategy ever entered their mind. No foundation building. Just a charismatic presenter with some slick, worthless content.
Where does the responsibility lie? The trainer who knows better, but doesn’ t care, so long as they get paid? The VP of sales, who wasn’t interested in doing things the right way, even after it was presented to them? The executive who hired the VP of sales? The training director (to whom this woman reports) who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight to prevent this situation from happening?
I feel for this woman. She is really frustrated. My frustration is that this happens all the time. When is this insanity going to end?
Photo credit: RCSTANLEY
Filed under: Sales Training Companies
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My two cents’ worth: this reflects a broader abdication of management responsibility.
From my own career experience & from what I’ve seen in many years as a business analyst, too many managers — and management structures — don’t ever get to the point where the rubber meets the road. They’ll pursue *activity* (sales training, re-engineering, “initiatives” of all kinds) without actually standing up to be counted for *moving the needle* of business.
I return again and again to the fundamental question that Peter Drucker posed for *all* business activity: how does this help us create a customer? If you can’t answer that, you’re sunk.
In the context of sales effectiveness, these failures are particularly damning. If you work in finance or IT or HR, your efforts to create/cultivate customers may be quite indirect. But if you’re in sales, you’re right there on the front line, shoulder to shoulder with prospects. In that context, grading and accountability should be breathtakingly simple.
But not if we dodge responsibility.
Well said, Tim. Thanks.
I’ve just written a blog post on the failure of sales. As long as sales is based on managing need and placing a solution, there will be far too much failure in our sales processes – including training.
Sales actually comes in too early in the sales cycle, leaving buyers to figure out how to address all of the internal systems elements they need to manage prior to making a buying decision. And the time it takes buyers to come up with this is the length of the sales cycle.
Problem gets compounded when buyers don’t have a direct path through to their decision making, and have to fight allegators on their way to discovering how to bring something new in. Sellers can help, but they can’t do it by using a sales model. And understanding their need doesn’t go far enough.
It’s time for sales to start adding the decision facilitation end of the buyer’s buying decision into the sales process. That will make a difference in sales training as well.
“Yet another sales training disaster” is an interesting post. Although I strongly believe in process/methodology first and skill second, I think the post brings out a really important point. And, that is, that people think they can hire a training company and magic happens. It doesn’t.
In my own practice I tell people that THEY are responsible for success, not me. I am like the coach on the sidelines, I can send in plays and offer advice but they have to perform. For her to blame the trainer (and it does sound like he’s a bozo) is a mistake. She needs to blame herself and her company.
Implementing sales training is an exercise in change-management and needs to be treated as such. Even though we use a thorough, custom “cultural adoption plan” it is but an outline to make the training stick. If the sales management and the executive team doesn’t do what’s necessary it’s a waste of money.
So, her company made two mistakes; the hired the wrong company and they failed to think through and follow through on the implementation plan.
Bob Hatcher