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

My firm, ES Research Group, Inc., enables sales training providers to be considered and selected in opportunities where they can best impact sales performance.

Here’s a short video that explains what ESR does for sales training providers.

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How do we help you?  In several ways:

First, as a sales training industry research and advisory firm, ESR is interested in collecting information about you, your company, your products, and your services.  We want to know your areas of focus, expertise, and differentiators.  We want to validate your strengths with your references.  We want to be able to understand precisely what it is that you do and how you do it.

Visitors to ESR’s website can invest in a formal evaluation of you or your firm, with commentary by Al Case, ESR’s Principal Analyst and Research Fellow, or a member of his team.  That will provide a degree of exposure that you are probably not experiencing at present.

Next, we work with you, in an advisory role, to better prepare you for competing in this tough sales performance improvement environment.  We will look at your products and services, your program content, website, and marketing plan.  We will audit your virtual or online programs.  We will provide comparisons to other sales training providers and share with you where you can and cannot effectively compete.  We will be your adviser in the area of long-term business strategy as well as technology-enabled selling and learning strategies.  To put it simply, we enable you to be in the best position to be selected for the kinds of training opportunities for which you are the best fit.  Is this new for ESR?  Not at all.  We have been advising some of the leading sales training companies since 2005.  We have also provided guidance and advice to smaller firms and even individual sales trainers.

Buyers of sales training come to ESR and our website for advice on sales training approaches in general, and more specifically which providers best meet their requirements.  As part of ESR’s approach for evaluating and selecting sales training providers for our clients, we are in the position to make recommendations on providers for our clients’ consideration.  Although we can’t provide any quid pro quos, the providers with whom we are most familiar and are best in their areas of specialty are often included in those evaluations.

If you are a sales trainer and have not registered on ESR’s website, you need to do so right away.  Here is the link.

Feedback from some sales trainers and experts:

“My relationship with Dave Stein goes back to when he was a consultant, trainer, and author. Dave really understands salespeople and their managers and, more importantly, what they need to learn and do to sell much more effectively.

I was delighted when Dave started ESR. His deep knowledge of B2B selling and sales training, and his significant experience consulting with business leaders and owners puts him solidly in a trusted advisor role. He understands the value of methodology, and he knows when technology should be applied. I count on him and his team to provide insight about the market, my company’s approach, our opportunities, our weaknesses, and what we have to do to remain an industry leader. He’s never shy about telling us what he thinks. And more often than not, he’s right on target.”

Donal Daly, CEO, The TAS Group

“I often reach out to Dave and the ESR team, I think of them as my strategy “help desk.” Whether it’s technology, distribution or market penetration strategy questions I always benefit from the objective perspective of ESR.

Dave and his team have really taken the time to understand what we do, how we benefit clients and most important, how we are differentiated. The time they have invested has resulted in gaining new customers where we had no presence.”

Brian J. Dietmeyer, President, CEO, Think! Inc.

“Dave Stein has been a trusted advisor to our business since ESR’s inception. The deep market knowledge that Dave and team possess can be an asset to any sales training and consulting firm – from my perspective, nobody knows this business better than the ESR guys!”

Steve Andersen, Managing Partner, Performance Methods, Inc.

From a LinkedIn recommendation:  “Top qualities: Expert, High Integrity, Creative.  As the leader of ES Research, Dave has created an organization that provides independent evaluation of sales training and performance providers as well as publishing research and information relative to the industry. For buyers and providers alike, ES Research serves an essential function.”

David DiStefano, CEO, Richardson

“Dave’s insight and advice gave me confidence to move my business full steam ahead. A few key insights: He assured me I was doing better than I thought compared to the sales training industry.  That made me stronger and more confident.  The best money to be made was in training larger groups – my ideal client was 6+ salespeople. I have secured contracts with companies with 27 salespeople, 20 salespeople, 52 business owners (apart of network of 700), plus three other smaller contracts of 9 salespeople.  My revenue goal for this year is $350,000 and I’ve already secured $321,000 for this year and I have a few more great opportunities to secure for fall.”

Lisa Leitch, Teneo Results

From LinkedIn: “Words to describe Dave: Opportunity Creator, Modest, Relationship Developer, Visionary, Member of the “Action Faction”, Talent Fanatic. Dave is the rare person who delivers consistently.”

Greg Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, Sales Benchmark Index