6 Mistakes Companies Make When Selecting A Sales Trainer
Over and over I’ve read and heard sales experts say that, “It doesn’t matter which sales approach or methodology you use, as long as every salesperson in the company uses it.” This myth has been around for decades. Don’t believe it. It just isn’t true.
When ESR does postmortems on failed sales training initiatives, we often find a significant mismatch between the client’s sales performance improvement requirements and the vendor’s capabilities. That’s not the only reason that these initiatives fail, but it’s a common one. If you have a whole sales team following the same process, but that process doesn’t match customer buying patterns and preferences, for example, you’re not going to get very far at all.
Here are some of the reasons companies wind up with the wrong training company for their needs:
- They hire a training company based on brand recognition only, without doing a deep dive into the vendor’s capabilities. Although millions swear by Coca-Cola, it isn’t the right drink for everyone, is it? Neither is Pepsi.
- They engage with a training provider with whom they have worked in the past, even though their present company’s situation is very different. I used to get my car serviced at the Jeep dealership. I no longer have a Jeep. Should I bring my Prius there? Do they understand the design and functions of a hybrid car?
- They get a referral from colleague (or a suggestion in a comment to a LinkedIn group query). The friend’s company is in a different market, selling different products to different customers, but they hire the trainer anyway.
- They hire a company that has the hottest new approach, or a trainer who wrote a book with what is purported to be a brand-new solution to what the company believes its problem is. Wasn’t it Los Del Rio that gave us the Macarena in 1996? Hmmm.
- They attend a promotional event (webinar, sales leaders’ conference, or public training event) and are impressed with the passion, quality and unbelievably deep insights of the trainer, so they hire him or her. Ron Popeil was brilliant, but I wouldn’t have hired him to train my sales team. (You’ve got to read the essay on him in Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw.)
- They search the Internet to find a trainer whose offerings are appealing based upon what is represented on the trainer’s website. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s what the company needs. Maybe it isn’t. Rolling the dice on a career doesn’t make sense to me.
Photo credit: © Dmitry Naumov – Fotolia.com
Filed under: sales training
Great post Dave! I’d add a couple more (Based on my experience on both sides):
1. They hire a trainer that does not use his own methodology in selling. Many years ago, I was making a signficant investment in training for my organization. Two areas were very important, opportunity planning and call planning. Vendors would present their methodology and how it would benefit my sales people. I’d then ask them for a copy of their opportunity plan for our company and a copy of their call plan for their meeting with me. Of 5 vendors we were looking at, only one had done it and showed it to me. Guess who got the business.
2.A mistake companies make is they don’t force the trainer to integrate the training to their process, priorities, markets, strategies and leadership style. While this integration will cost more, the training becomes integrated into the fabric of the business. Otherwise it is just an “odd appendage,” ultimately ignored, and money/opportunity wasted.
As always, a great post!
Thanks, Dave.
Funny thing about your first point… During a vendor’s presentation as part of one of the sales training vendor evaluations we were recently involved with, our client asked the vendor to show them their document for planning that presentation/meeting. Zilch. Credibility went from 60 to zero in one second. The vendor was eliminated.
Dave: I picked up your link from the LinkedIn thread that caused you so much consternation. Thanks for posting that. What a great BS meter you have!
The company I last worked for did many of the things you mentioned in your blog post above, including hiring a stand-alone, somewhat obscure trainer who had 70-some steps that were “essential” in nurturing and closing a sale. As you stated, no lasting results after a short amount of time. I dare say no one, even in management, could recite even a portion of what we were supposed to learn.
We then turned to another more well-known sales guru (that will remain nameless) and sent our COO and inside sales manager to a seminar. We adopted his book as a guideline for joint self-study, but again, the system fell flat somewhere about 2/3rds of the way into his system.
A company I worked for before that recognized the folly of packaged programs and set out to build their own system that was tailored to the particular customer base they served. I left before the program was launched, but my understanding is that they are still working on a formal training program. They have the product orientation and product knowledge down cold and do better than most in training their sales staff for that, but are still contemplating the selling skills side of the training after many years since my time there.
So, with that said, what now? How can a company provide the very best in sales training? How can they know what selling style or system can help them standardize their approach across a large sales staff?
How can an individual salesperson know where to turn to keep his selling skills sharp and adjustable enough to accommodate any company, any service, any product?
Thanks for the article Dave.
It is farcical that “sales training” is largely referred to as a general term where a one size fits all approach is usually accepted as a solution (pre-designed seminars, conferences, workshops etc)
I feel there are 2 important factors to consider from a clients perspective –
As everyone has mentioned, does it address the clients’ buyers needs?
Secondly and of similar importance, does the training approach account for the different types of people that are being trained?
Get one or both of these wrong and the training won’t be effective at all.
Just my thoughts anyway………..
As a sales training provider I like everything you say and could add some exampled to each.
My concern is the companies that hire sales training – which is often not solving the issues – without diagnosing the problems. You wouldn’t go to the doctor and expect him to write a prescription just because you walked through the door.
I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem is a nail.
I write more on this in my blog http://selltosuccess.wordpress.com/
Thanks, Barry, for taking the time to comment.
Let me briefly address your two question areas:
So, with that said, what now? How can a company provide the very best in sales training? How can they know what selling style or system can help them standardize their approach across a large sales staff?
The most effective way to accomplish this is to invest in a comprehensive, objective assessment of your company’s selling approach and capabilities versus the demands of the market and customer organizations you are selling into. We’ve found most companies aren’t able to do this for themselves because 1) they don’t have the objectivity, 2) they don’t have the people, and 3) they don’t have the processes. Only when you’ve looked at the selling requirements from your customer/market’s perspective can you see what business, process, and behavioral transformations need to be accomplished.
How can an individual salesperson know where to turn to keep his selling skills sharp and adjustable enough to accommodate any company, any service, any product?
It’s more than just skills, Barry. So much more. In fact, just skills won’t get you to the point where you can be consistently effective year after year. Those skills have to be integrated into the backbone of a set of selling processes (qualification, prospecting, opportunity management, account management, negotiation, etc., etc.). Here’s the thing: The skills you need are determined by what will be required for successful execution of the processes.
It’s not as conceptual or complicated as some might suggest. Here’s an example: Let’s say I look at all the deals I’ve won and lost over the past three years and categorize and rank qualification criteria (timeframe, budget level and availability, customer buying preferences, decision process, etc.). I see that the deals that I won were qualified and some of the deals I lost weren’t. (Qualified deals are lost when you are outsold.) I can then build a qualification process with what I need to know about an opportunity, from whom I’ll need to get that information, and when in my process I need it to continue to pursue. Then I look at what skills do I need to more effectively qualify (execute my new qualification process). Questioning, probing, discovery, listening, negotiating, assessing, and others. Those are what I have to upgrade if they aren’t adequate.
When you work for a company that provides all that, it’s relatively easy. But most companies don’t. That’s why sales productivity lags every other department in most companies. If your company doesn’t provide all that, you’ll have to do it yourself. I feel for you. It’s not easy, but I’ve seen many salespeople take the bull by the horns and develop these processes and the requisite skills themselves. It can be done.
I hope this helps, Barry.
Thank you, Grant.
There are many, many points to be considered when selecting a sales trainer. Your two are important. There are many many more. Here’s a post I wrote on the subject.
Dave,
Great post.
I’m left thinking, “well, if we shouldn’t choose trainers based on brand, past experience, referrals, trends, promotional events or their websites, how do we choose a trainer?” Are you saying: “Don’t use ONLY ONE of these approaches”? or are you saying: “Don’t use ANY of these approaches”?
Do you have (or will you have) a post on the correct things to do when chosing a sales trainer?
Actually, now that I’ve read your last comment to Barry, I’m wondering if you’ll say to forgo the whole trainer thing, figure it out your customers’ buying processes and develop your own process based on that.
Thoughts?
Those are logical questions, Tia.
The answer is that any (or all) of those mistakes are benign if, and only if, the company seeking the right sales training partner has a comprehensive and objective understanding of their own requirements and selects a vendor based on who best meets those requirements. Then we don’t care if the CEO of your training company is your best friend from high school. You will have selected them for the right reasons. The rest is icing on the cake.
Hope all is well up there in Canada! I hear some good things about what the CPSA is doing.