Dave Stein's Blog: An Independent Perspective on Sales Training and Sales Effectiveness

During the past few weeks I spoke with executives of some of the leading sales training companies.  Among them were Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group; Bill Bennett, Senior Vice President of Franklin Covey’s Leadership Practice; Elizabeth Vanneste, Miller Heiman’s CMO; Mike Rohan, President of Executive Conversation; and Steve Andersen, Managing Partner of Performance Methods, Inc.

I reached out to Elizabeth Vanneste after seeing a number of press releases about Miller Heiman’s expansion outside the U.S.  In addition to international growth, Elizabeth reports that Miller Heiman has 91 sales consultants and is still hiring.  She said they “finished June with one of the best months ever,” were, “ahead of plan with new customers and new customer revenue.”  Although Miller Heiman has invested heavily in virtual learning, they aren’t experiencing as much movement away from instructor-led, live training events as some of the other firms. In fact Elizabeth said that delivery method, “isn’t going away.”

Bill Bennett had a different perspective.  He told me that one of FranklinCovey’s largest clients has abandoned classroom training.  As a result, FranklinCovey has developed a new virtual delivery mechanism, which I had heard about from Mahan Khlasa when I had spoken with him a few weeks ago.  Both Mahan and Bill were very excited about this.  Neither Al Case nor I have seen a demonstration, but I’m certain we will in short order.  ESR will perform and assessment and write that up for distribution to our subscribers.

Although it’s premature to announce it, Steve Andersen shared with me some upcoming news about PMI which he and I had been discussing for some time.  PMI is another firm that has weathered the economic storm quite well.  Steve’s business model is quite different from the other firms.  PMI’s highly customized approach attracts certain categories of companies with a degree of seriousness about and commitment to sales effectiveness that is refreshing.

If you follow ESR’s research, it comes as no surprise that we’re covering Executive Conversation.  We know that business knowledge—specifically the ability of a salesperson to articulate the business impact of their product or service—is a critical success component in most B2B sales environments.  Executive Conversation is a leader in this area, although there are other companies in that space.   Mike Rohan walked me through Executive Conversation’s investments in on-demand learning.  The two main reasons for that move from his perspective are the restrictions in travel for their existing market and their strategy of expanding to the SMB market.

Donal Daly continues to drive The TAS Group’s technology—Dealmaker—as their primary differentiator and the core of TTG’s sales effectiveness improvement approach.  Over the past year, The TAS Group has integrated all of its learning content into Dealmaker.  The TAS Group’s approach isn’t for every company.  But ESR believes more companies seeking sales effectiveness solutions should more heavily weigh technology-enabled learning and selling in their overall consideration.  A short note: The CEO of a company that engaged with The TAS Group 18 months ago told me today that four of the last five quarters since they reengineered their sales approach and brought on The TAS Group’s tools were “record breaking.”  He attributed that to “better execution, strategic selling [meant generically, not the trademark owned by Miller Heiman] and discipline.”

I never got around to reporting on a wonderful reunion I had with Rick Page in Boston a few months ago.  As you may know, Rick was an inspiration to me when I was a participant in a sales training program he ran in my company a number of years ago.  Turned my head around.  Rick is personally facilitating an upcoming live coaching webinar The Top 10 Pitfalls All Successful Managers Avoid.  Rick is also facilitating a three-day Sales Management Academy in Atlanta, September 15-17.

Photo source: Fotolia

Filed under: Uncategorized