ESR encourages sales managers to approach training for inside sales representatives just as seriously as they would approach training for their most valuable outside sales (or field sales) representatives.

Why? This is because the methods, operations and aptitudes of inside sales professionals are increasingly driving sales productivity. Today, inside sales representatives do more than find leads for others to pursue. They also qualify leads for themselves or others to pursue. Increasingly, inside sales representatives are pursuing opportunities to the negotiation and closing stages.

Yet, many organizations invest far less in their inside sales training than they do in training their star field representatives. Too many sales managers regard inside sales training as “basic” training. They staff their inside sales organizations with young people fresh out of college, and they still view inside sales solely as a support structure for sales people in the field. For many companies, this is a costly mistake. (Post continued below.)

Listen in to our expert panel on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.

It’s unscripted and unrehearsed. No Powerpoints, pitches, promotions, or positioning.

What Sales Management Needs to Know Today About Inside Sales and Cold Calling

Wednesday, February 8, 2012 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Gary Walker, EVP Channel Sales & Operations, CustomerCentric Selling Ron LaVine, Principal, Accelerated Sales Training Sharon Daniels, CEO, AchieveGlobal Leigh Hooker, COO, Miller Heiman

We believe that sales managers who can shift their organizations NOW to value inside sales will be able to get out ahead of the competition. It’s time to get serious about training for inside sales, for these reasons:

1. The wall between inside and outside sales isn’t appropriate and is beginning to break down. Outside (or field) sales representatives are working remotely from their homes, hotels and/or shared office suites. They are using on-line demos, chat, email, web-based video, social media, and yes, phone calls, to cover more accounts in less time. Are they operating as inside sales representatives at those times? Sure. Or, more likely, the distinction between outside and inside sales is becoming less useful. Today, all sales representatives are integral to closing sales.The frequency of the classic in-person sales call has decreased. Customers everywhere increasingly prefer virtual interactions with sellers. Trend data reveal that sales organizations are shifting resources from outside to inside sales. Inside sales growth is 30% faster than their outside sales counterparts.¹ The number of Inside Sales departments is projected to grow from 800,000, in 2009, to over 2 million in 2013.²
   

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2. Inside Sales representatives are negotiating and closing deals. Further blurring the lines, more inside representatives are working alongside outside representatives on client visits or sales presentations. Inside sales departments are closing more deals and becoming independent revenue producers for their companies. It’s becoming difficult to distinguish between inside sales and outside sales. Perhaps a better term for inside sales would be “virtual sales,” which nearly all salespeople engage in when they use technology to communicate with their customers and prospects.
   

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3. Inside sales representatives are more likely to adopt the practices of what we have been calling Sales 2.0. These include using analytical data, performance metrics, and ROI measures to drive sales decisions and activity. Inside sales people tend to have a better grasp of tools and analytics. A recent study of more than 600 companies noted that, for the first time, a majority 51 percent of firms now track the ROI of their marketing campaigns. Marketing campaigns are becoming much more closely aligned with sales objectives.³
   

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4. Companies are poaching inside sales representatives. Increasingly, companies are hiring experienced inside sales representatives away from their competitors. This represents a departure from the traditional route of hiring new college graduates or entry-level sales people to fill inside sales positions. We believe this trend will continue.
   

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What should inside sales training look like?

Like training for outside sales, training for inside sales must connect with your go-to-market strategy. Training doesn’t set that strategy. Instead, training must reinforce the specific skills needs to execute your strategy.

The first question is ask is whether or not it still relevant to distinguish between inside and outside sales. Does the wall between inside sales and outside sales help execute your go-to-market strategy? Even if the answer is yes, you will examine and redefine the role of your inside sales organization as you tailor training to the your go-t0-market strategy. For example, to what degree are you shifting revenue responsibility from field to inside sales?

This is an opportunity to capitalize on the strengths of inside sales. If you decide that leveraging data is a key component of your strategy, inside sales representatives already have an advantage in data gathering and analysis. Inside sales could mine insights from the deals you are winning and losing. Their training would sharpen not only their ability to specifically recommend new tactics based on their research, like targeting a specific industry vertical.

One warning, though. As with everything else in business, moving from a field to an inside sales approach without an comprehensive and objective assessment of your unique situation and a plan is a big mistake.  We’ve seen companies, in a mad dash to reduce expenses, eliminate significant percentages of their field organizations, replacing those headcounts with inside sales reps. Unfortunately their customers needed and wanted experienced, live people representing alternatives from different providers. That’s a classic example of ready, fire, aim.

Sources:

1. Josiane Feigon. Download Josiane’s Inside Sales Trends for more of her perspective and read my interview with her here.
2. SKKU/MIT Remote Sales Industry Research Study (2009)
3. CSO Insights, 2011 Telemarketing/Inside Sales Optimization Report

And Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group

Photo: www.OnPath.com

2011 Telemarketing/Inside Sales Optimization Report

I promised to share with you who ESR considers sales training industry leaders.

A few points to consider:

• As you are probably aware, ESR’s Research Methodology enables our research team to produce very accurate profiles and evaluations of the sales training providers that we cover.  We look at many more characteristics than are listed in the “category” column below, going through numerous briefings, checking customer references, and tapping into our significant community of sales training buyers and experts. Through this formal research, ESR provides a unique perspective and authoritative advice to corporations evaluating sales training company alternatives.
  

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• I’m only highlighting a partial list of names for each category.  Apologies to those companies that weren’t included in categories where they are strong.
  

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• If you are looking to engage with a sales training company/consulting firm, we strongly suggest you not just take this list and start calling these companies.  Statistically, that’s a big mistake for a lot of reasons.  One reason is the very company you think meets your requirements in one area, may fall dismally short in another. We see it all the time.  Selecting the right sales performance improvement partner is about understanding your own prioritized requirements and matching them against the capabilities of a number of potential providers, balancing strengths with inevitable challenges, trade-offs, and risks. For more information, enter your name and email, then download this ebook:  The Seven Sales Training Pitfalls and Seven Solutions for Sustained Success.

  If you are currently looking for a sales training partner, have a budget, are a decision-maker (or lead an evaluation team), and haven’t already made up your mind, give me a call. I’d be happy to walk you through what you have to do NOT to become yet another failed sales training initiative statistic. And we’re happy to evaluate, on your behalf, companies not included among those we cover.

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• Are there other sales training companies that are strong (or perhaps stronger) in these categories than those listed?  Sure.  Some aren’t listed because they haven’t been put through ESR’s vigorous evaluation process.  If you are interested in which other providers fall into each category, contact us at ESR.
  

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© 2012 — ES Research Group, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.

* Although ESR’s evaluations of these firms are in progress, analyst briefings have enabled us to determine they are among the leaders in these areas.

Click on the link for ESR’s Sales Training Profiles & Evaluations of these and other providers.

It was an hour full of valuable intelligence and insight for sales training companies and sales trainers in corporate L&D organizations.

Here are some of the points I made during the event. First, a quick review of 2011. (A look at 2012 and beyond will follow in Part 2.)

• Sales training spend was up during the first half of 2011, then down during the second.
  

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• 63% of companies ESR surveyed during 2011 spend less than $3,000 per sales rep per year.
  

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• More and more companies cut back on travel, requiring virtual sales training alternatives.
  

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• We saw some strategic acquisitions:
• Mercuri International acquired the business simulation company, Celemi.
• Miller Heiman acquired channel management specialists Channel Enablers.
• The TAS Group acquired sales performance improvement provider InfoMentis.
  

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• We found larger sales training companies going broader in solution scope, adding capabilities in many areas, such as ROI, business acumen, talent management and more.
  

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• Many smaller sales training providers consolidated their offerings going more niche.  Smart move during a challenging economy.
  

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• In general, our opinion that sales training companies make lousy marketers was proven yet again.  There are notable exceptions, such as Miller Heiman, Richardson, and RAIN Group.
  

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• Training companies need sales leads as much as companies in any other sector.
  

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• During 2011, ESR saw increased demand for process and sales training content in coaching (for sales management) and selling to the corporate procurement function.
  

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• Our sales training buyer community still has a tough time differentiating one sales training provider from another. (That’s why they come to ESR.)
  

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• Here is what generated some buzz during 2011:
• Jeffrey Gitomer is writing the ASTD Sales Training Drivers blog.
• Tom Searcy, author of RFPs Suck, took over Geoffrey James’s blog (formerly Sales Machine) and is now writing for CBS.
• Geoffrey James, who recently published How to Say It: Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies from the World’s Top Sales Experts, now writes for Inc.com.
• A few good books were published, including The Challenger Sale.
• The TAS Group released their Dealmaker Index.
• Some sales experts invested time and effort in social media—CustomerThink, Focus.com, Quora, LinkedIn Groups, and Twitter among others. The question is, will it pay off?

Be sure to catch Part 2, where I will share with you which companies ESR believes are leaders in numbers of different areas. Don’t want to miss it? Then subscribe to this blog:

Subscribe in a reader

Finally, join me this Wednesday, January 18, when I’m a guest for The TAS Group Webinar: The Evolution of Sales—2012 Vision.

Photo source: Endostock/Fotolia.com

When you consider a typical enterprise, you’ll find that almost every department has a set of processes or procedures and metrics by which performance is measured: finance (GAAP), manufacturing (ISO 9000 and/or Six Sigma), customer service (customer satisfaction, such as Net Promoter), HR (employee retention, 360 degree surveys), logistics (throughput, on-time delivery), Information Technology (TCO: Total Cost of Ownership), and even marketing (direct marketing campaign conversion rates, for example). In most companies, the last bastion to institutionalize formal processes and comprehensive and accurate measurement is sales.

Why is Sales Last When It Comes to Measurement?

The root cause of the sales function being last in line is related to the personalities, traits, and established behavior patterns of many (often very smart, but right-brained) sales executives who came up through the ranks of sales themselves. Back when they were salesreps, process and measurement was uncommon in sales. It was much less of a critical component for success than it is today. At that same time, the engineers, accountants, and factory workers in that same company were driven by process—the output of their work carefully monitored, measured, and adjusted along the way by (often left-brained) management.

We know that relatively few companies measure the impact of sales training. Among the reasons they tell us are:

• Cost: They believe it’s too expensive
• Lack of staff expertise in measurement
• Internal tracking, analytics, and forecasting systems unreliable
• Lack of standard sales processes against which to measure
• Lack of sales competencies against which to measure
• Afraid measurement might prove it’s ineffective
• Sales cycle too long to allow measurement in reasonable time
• Too many changes at the same time to make measurement meaningful

We know that most of these are excuses and companies that wish to measure the return on their sales training spend can do it relatively easily and inexpensively.

What’s the answer?

As an integral component of your sales methodology, monitor five to eight carefully selected leading and lagging indicators to measure ongoing productivity—not activity—of every member of your sales team. Based upon those behavioral and performance indicators, you can make adjustments to your processes when necessary, redeploying resources, responding quickly to new competitive threats, and providing the field with the right messages, tools, strategies and tactics—before it’s too late.

Here are a few of the metrics companies employing performance measurement best-practices are using to gain transparency into what is really coming down the pipeline:

• Accuracy of reps’ projected dates for opportunities moving from one phase of the sales cycle to the next.
• Average opportunity attrition rate from one phase of the sales cycle to the next.
• Adherence of individual sales people to new behaviors learned during training.

One you have your sales process in place, especially the steps, actions, tasks, qualification criteria, and the metrics (like the examples above), you can automate this with a strong Sales 2.0 Analytics solution.

Installing, then monitoring leading and lagging sales performance indicators and making appropriate real time adjustments in approach, process, and actions is a critical component of stellar sales performance. As Peter Drucker said, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”

ESR’s Leadership Role in Methods for Measuring the Impact of Sales Training

In 2007, ESR began studying the discipline of measuring the impact of sales training. We published our first Guide to Measuring Sales Performance back then, and audited the sales training impact measurement programs and systems of a number of sales training companies, including Wilson Learning, The Complex Sale, Sales Performance International, and Performance Methods, Inc.

We learned a lot since then and have shared our knowledge with numbers of other sales training providers who have built their own measurement systems.

I’ve gathered four experts in the area of sales training measurement for a panel.  They will be sharing with you what works and what doesn’t with respect to measuring the impact of sales training.  Why don’t you join us?

Complimentary Webinar: Measuring the Impact of Sales Training:
How to Document the Quantitative Impact

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Corporate Visions Dave Christofaro, Senior Program Manager, Sales Performance International LaVon Koerner, Chief Revenue Officer, RevenueStorm Bruce Wedderburn, EVP of Channel & Enablement, Huthwaite

Sponsors include:

• Chally Group Worldwide
• Sales Management Association

Photo source: Fotolia.com

Beginning in January, 2011, I will be moderating four new, unscripted, unedited panel discussions on today’s hot button sales issues. Join me online to listen, ask questions, and get valuable insights from 16 industry sales training industry leaders.

• Registration is free and easy
• Each expert panel lasts one hour
• 4 expert panelists per session
• No scripts, no PowerPoints, no posturing, positioning, or promoting.

Can’t attend the one(s) you’d like?  Register for the event(s), and as a no-show, we’ll send you instructions for downloading the MP3 archive.

Measuring the Impact of Sales Training: How to Document the Quantitative Impact

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Corporate Visions Dave Christofaro, Senior Program Manager, Sales Performance International LaVon Koerner, Chief Revenue Officer, RevenueStorm Bruce Wedderburn, EVP of Channel & Enablement, Huthwaite

Sales Leadership Strategies in a Virtual, Mobile, and Social World

Wednesday, January 25, 2011 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Dave Kurlan, CEO, Kurlan Associates Jim Brodo, VP Marketing, Richardson Beverly Lock, Principal, 3g Selling Donal Daly, CEO, The TAS Group

What Sales Management Needs to Know Today About Inside Sales and Cold Calling

Wednesday, February 8, 2012 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Gary Walker, EVP Channel Sales & Operations, CustomerCentric Selling Ron LaVine, Principal, Accelerated Sales Training Sharon Daniels, CEO, AchieveGlobal Leigh Hooker, COO, Miller Heiman

Enhancing Customer Relationships Through the Integration of Sales and Service

Wednesday,  February 22, 2012 – 12:00 ET / 9:00 PT / 1800 GMT

Panelists:

Sharon Daniels, CEO, AchieveGlobal Bob Branson, Principal, TACK-USA John Holland, Chief Content Officer, CustomerCentric Selling Jo Thompson, Procter (an Imparta Company)

Note: Other than an introduction of each participant and sponsor, there will be no promotion by panelists during the discussions.  In addition, questions from the audience will be answered live, via audio, by the panelists.

You will need a computer with Internet access and a telephone or VoIP capabilities to participate.

Call us at +1 (508) 313-9585 for details.

Photo Source: © Ivan Hafizov – Fotolia.com

Strategic procurement/buying/sourcing isn’t a new trend. It’s been around for years.  Although they didn’t invent it, I look at Walmart as the organization that drove execution of the strategic sourcing model to new levels in the 90′s.

Desperate to reduce expenses beginning in late 2008, executive leadership in many corporations looked at the Walmart model and tweaked or entirely revamped how they would deal with suppliers going forward.

So now, as a result of a glut of information available to buyers, salespeople enter into the customer buying cycle much later, then have to deal with a buying organization that may have little regard for their customer, or, and this is the troublesome part, the business unit acquiring the product or service.  ESR has been on the sell side of this process, and it isn’t fun.

As the fourth in our Sales Thought-Leader Series, I’ve invited four experts in the area of dealing with strategic sourcing.  We’ll be having a conversation on that subject Wednesday.  No PowerPoints, no scripts, no rehearsed responses, no B.S.  Plus live questions by phone from the audience.  If you’re interested in the archived panels we’ve had, you can find them on this Sales Thought-Leader Panel Series page.

Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tougher, Strategic Procurers/Buyers/Sourcers

This panel has already taken place.

Panelists:

One more thing:

ESR is offering a complimentary webinar for sales training and sales performance improvement providers only on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 12:00 ET.  You can find more information and registration about the  sales trainer-only webinar here.

Photo source: Fotolia.com

SEC is involved with ongoing research among their member companies and regularly analyzes, interprets, and disseminates that information on sales effectiveness back to their members. Several years ago, SEC determined that they should form a sales performance improvement team, SEC Solutions, which would focus on improving the sales performance of organizations based on best-practices and approaches that SEC gathered over the years from their members.

In August 2010 both Brent Adamson, a co-author of The Challenger Sale and I presented separately at a sales conference.  Although I was somewhat familiar with some of SEC’s research, they were in the process of launching the Challenger Model and I had the opportunity to hear about it first hand from Brent in a group setting.

The Challenger Sale asserts that there are five profiles of sales reps (click on the graphic for full-size):

• The Hard Worker (21% of their sample)
• The Challenger (27%)
• The Relationship Builder (21%)
• The Lone Wolf (18%)
• The Problem Solver (14%)

The clear winner, from SEC’s perspective, is the Challenger.  The loser, in terms of sales performance, is the Relationship Builder.  Surprised?

SEC points out that the Challenger rep has six significant attributes:

1. Offers the customer unique perspectives
2. Has strong two-way communication skills
3. Knows the individual customer’s value drivers
4. Can identify economic drivers of the customer’s business
5. Is comfortable discussing money
6. Can pressure the customer.

Can pressure the customer?  That’s certainly a behavior associated with the concept of a Challenger.  In fact, SEC goes on to assert that the Challenger is really defined by their ability to do three things: teach, tailor, and take control.

Before you fire off a negative comment to me about this approach to selling, understand I’ve heard them all.  SEC Solutions is an ESR sales training/consulting provider subscriber.  We’ve assessed and analyzed their approach, been briefed by their principals, checked their references, and have spoken to dozens of people about this Challenger Model.  Some of the more traditional sellers and sales experts were actually offended at the idea that a salesperson should pressure, challenge, and control the customer. They cited examples of how that approach would never work among their customers or anywhere in the industry into which they sell. Many of these people are Relationship builders, however quite successful in their own selling situations.

Others see this Challenger Model quite differently.  Once the nomenclature is explained, some see themselves selling this way and are at once amused and appreciate that someone assigned the label of challenger to behavior that is part of their everyday practice of selling.

This is a serious book.

You know I’m not only bored with books about sales tips, tricks, silver bullets, and shortcuts.  I believe they hurt, rather than help the salesreps and their managers that are in trouble.  The Challenger Sale is a serious book for those serious about selling more effectively.  There is enough research-based content for everyone to, at a minimum, at least consider.   Adopting the model, however, involves a willingness to reorient your thinking, approach, and behaviors to what might be opposite from your present selling and management style and, in fact, your company’s entire customer-facing philosophy and orientation. One risk is that the pendulum can swing too far and your sales team can become glib and arrogant.  I’ve seen it happen before.  But that can be managed like many other risks associated with behavioral change.

The book’s impact on a sales manager could be significant. Authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson provide some real insight into management and coaching, even going so far as providing a powerful coaching guide excerpt and a Challenger Hiring Guide in the appendix.  If you buy into this Challenger Model, you’ll certainly need that hiring guide.  Since you can’t change people’s inherent characteristics, if you want challengers working on your team, you better have a solid process for making sure anyone you hire has the requisite challenger traits.

Aspects of the Challenger approach can work with an existing sales methodology.  In fact, Huthwaite founder Neil Rackham wrote the forward to the book.  ESR sees the potential for sales training/methodology firms to provide the how and the Challenger Model to provide the what so far as the customer conversation is concerned.  More on that we see the Challenger model being adopted by more companies.

Here’s the bottom line

Dixon and Adamson offer here an absolutely stunning whack on the side of the head to any sales leader who is perplexed and paralyzed about how to get their whole team performing in the never-been-so-tough world of complex, B2B sales. It’s a must read. That’s M-U-S-T.

There is more information about the Challenger Sale here.  And here is a preview of the book.

Graphics source: SEC Solutions

1. Charlie Green put up a cool info-graphic last week: How Trustworthy Are You? You probably are aware that Charlie is the guy I look up to when it comes to knowledge and content around the critical subject of trust in selling. Integrity (and the subcategory of trust) are primary values here at ESR.
   

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2. I was featured twice in the November Top Sales World E-zine. One placement was a recent interview Linda Richardson did with me. It’s called “Changing the Way We Sell.”  The second is a new article I wrote about how important objectivity is in sales.  It’s something that not enough salespeople exhibit and it costs them dearly.  Thanks to Jonathan Farrington for including me.
   

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3. Last month I was delighted to be a panelist during an AchieveGlobal Forum in New York City.  Sharon Daniels, CEO of AchieveGlobal, Joel Cataldo, Sr. Director, Talent Management & Development at Arrow Electronics, and I were the panelists.  Peter Ostrow of Aberdeen presented at the conference as well.  Well done, AchieveGlobal.
   

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4. Speaking of panels, ESR has decided to extend our Sales Thought-Leader Panel series.  We will be holding at least two more events during January.  Topics to be announced.  (Let me know your thoughts on this.  You provide the topic(s), I’ll get world-class sales leaders as the panelists.) This time I’m the moderator, not a panelist.  Coming up this Wednesday is Increasing Sales Effectiveness Across a Global Sales Organization. We’ve got some wonderful panelists.  Remember, these are not scripted, no promotions, no posturing, no selling, no PowerPoint presentations.  Just a powerful discussion among the best in the industry.  Here is a link to the Sales Thought-Leader event.
   

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5. Last week I recorded a webinar for ASTD’s Sales Training Drivers upcoming virtual conference in December.  I covered the highlights of ESR’s most recent Report on Virtual Sales Training.  I’ll keep you posted on when the webinar will run.
   

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6. Our friends at DePaul University have asked me to enlist your support in completing their 2011 Sales Effectiveness Survey they’ve posted. ESR will be contributing to the final report in the form of recommendations based on the findings.

See ya,

Dave

Before the event, Donal asked if I would preview their new Dealmaker Index sales effectiveness assessment tool prior to its release.  I spent 15 minutes or so completing a series of questions about my personal selling approach, actions, and activities, and those, on a higher level, of ESR.

Before I tell you what I got for my effort, here is some background from The TAS Group’s press release.  “Based on an analysis of 92 sales performance factors, mapped against proven successful approaches, the Dealmaker Index measures the effectiveness of sales organizations and sales individuals across areas such as deal close rates, sales cycle management, value creation and sales opportunity development. It analyzes their activities, behaviors and attitudes and their strategic alignment with their companies and the resulting sales velocity they can achieve.”

The output was a very detailed road map of what I and my company needed to do to elevate performance. There are three outputs:

• The Executive Summary Report identifies 5 key action areas for immediate improvement, as well as an overview of the company’s Dealmaker Index.
• The Company Detailed Analysis and Recommendations Report, provides guidance to the company on Strategic Alignment, Sales Process Analysis, Sales Velocity, Sales Coaching, Social Media, Customer Retention, Competitive Differentiation, Sales Methodology, CRM and Revenue Performance Management. This comprehensive report, tailored for the individual company typical exceeds 3000 words of in-depth advice.
• The Personal Dealmaker Index Report looks at the performance of the individual sales professional, analyzing his or her capability, how he or she approaches a sales engagement, his or her personal sales perspectives and the efficacy of his or her use of sales systems and infrastructure.

Click on the graphic to see a full-size view of an excerpt of my results. This is one of the outputs from the tool.  Here is another.

I analyzed the reports from the Index comparing what its findings and recommendations and what I know to be ESR’s (and my personal) selling strengths and challenges.  After all, one of the services ESR providers to our sales training buyer clients is evaluating their sales effectiveness. That’s a core competency here at ESR. What I found is in the areas where the Dealmaker Index was inaccurate, I was somewhat inconsistent with my responses to the questions. ESR has a bit of an unusual selling model with a number of components, markets, channels, and products. I didn’t do a very good job of delineating them. GIGO.

For the average salesperson or sales manager, this tool is a really good place to start with a diagnosis of your selling challenges, validation of your strengths, and recommendations for both.  I don’t see any weaknesses in the tool.  If it were to provide an inaccurate report, the reason would be the person inputting the information wasn’t able or willing to provide accurate data.  Unlike the best psychometric tests, you can fool the Dealmaker Index, but who’d want to?

My recommendation is go to http://www.dealmakerindex.com. It’s free.  It’ll take you 15-20 minutes.  Read the output reports carefully.  I’d be very surprised if you didn’t learn something important.

By the way, Donal Daly will be delivering a complimentary webinar Thursday, November 17th at 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST 4:30pm GMT / 5:30 pm CET.  The subject: 92 Signposts to a Roadmap for Sales Success in 2012.  Here is a registration link.

The results show that, over the past two years, rapid advancements in technology, combined with a sluggish economy, have produced a dramatic leap forward in both the types of training provided and the subject matter delivered through virtual training.

The report was published today. Here is the press release: ESR’s 2011 Report on Virtual Sales Training.

These changes represent a significant and unprecedented evolution for the sales training industry. There is no going back to what everyone was doing just three or four years ago.

Here is some of what is covered in this Report:

• Average investment in sales training by salesrep
• Who makes sales training decisions
• Who is responsible for the sales training budget
• Mandates for virtual training
• The reasons companies train virtually rather than in traditional classrooms
• How long the improvement from virtual training lasts
• The differences between live virtual training and asynchronous (on-demand) virtual training
• The strengths and weaknesses of each
• What sales training content is best delivered virtually
• Delivery methods, including Internet- and computer-based
• Customization trends
• Relative increases and decreases in virtual versus live training
• Barriers to adopting virtual training and classroom training

This information is vital for sales organizations and training providers that want to thrive in this new environment.

This is one of the 10 charts in the 32-page Report that reveals changes in the sales training environment. (See note at bottom of post.)

Click on the image for a full-size rendition.

If you are an ESR sales training buyer or sales training provider subscriber, click here to access the Virtual Sales Training Report. The Report is included in your subscription.

Click on the link to purchase the Virtual Sales Training Report.

Important note: Written permission is required from ESR for quotation from this chart and/or any content in the Report or Executive Summary.  Getting permission to link to this post is not required.