Posted on July 7th, 2008 by Dave Stein
This Wednesday (July 9) I’ll be presenting a webinar about how sales (in general) is not presently getting the job done and what needs to be done about it going into the future. I’ll share relevant research and strong recommendations based upon what we’ve learned through ESR’s research and direct work with our clients. (The webinar is hosted by The [...]
Filed under: Measurement, Methodology, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies, Technology | No Comments »
Posted on June 25th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Two years ago I wrote an article entitled The Fear and Loathing of Sales Training. It’s been reprinted again and again on the web (with permission, thankfully). For those of you that haven’t read it, or would like to read it again, here it is. Feel free to pass it around.
Filed under: Competition, Research | No Comments »
Posted on June 24th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Quite often I get questions about how long it will take to complete various sales performance improvement interventions. (It’s the business equivalent of, “Are we there yet?”) I’ll answer some of those questions one by one before I philosophize: Q: How long it does it take to get a sales team performing at quota (and [...]
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Posted on June 18th, 2008 by Dave Stein
How many sales people do you think regularly seek out tips about selling on websites, in magazines, books, newsletters, etc.? We have not done any research on this (if someone has, let me know), but I would expect the answer is: “a lot.” What’s wrong with it? Same answer: a lot. Here’s why. Many salespeople [...]
Filed under: Methodology, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I recently spoke with a VP of sales for a $3 billion company. He told me that they used, (direct quote) “a little Miller Heiman, a little solution selling and a little Neil Rackham.” One of the many important points Rick Page (CEO of The Complex Sale and author of Hope is Not a Strategy and Make Winning a [...]
Filed under: Methodology, Sales Training Companies | 3 Comments »
Posted on June 11th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’ve been listening in on deal management and war room calls with our client who had gone through classroom-based sales training in late April. They’re a public company, so the pressure is on to close business by the end of the quarter. I didn’t expect the process work, training, technology support and coaching to have an [...]
Filed under: CRM, Measurement, Methodology, Sales Training Companies, Technology | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by Dave Stein
That’s a question I’ve been asked again and again, by journalists, CSOs, training company CEOs, CLOs, consultants and our clients, when they first engage with us. When I tell them that’s not a question I can easily answer, they may think I’m trying to sell them something. Well, in essence, I am. I’m trying to [...]
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Posted on May 21st, 2008 by Dave Stein
From phone calls we keep receiving it’s apparent that there is a boatload of sales VPs out there who still don’t understand that long-term sales effectiveness improvement doesn’t come from shrink-wrapped speeches or out-of-the-box, stand-alone, sales training programs. I spoke with the distressed training director of a large company who told me that he was given [...]
Filed under: Sales Training Companies | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 16th, 2008 by Dave Stein
In my recent post about the fragmented sales training industry I wrote about the hundreds of smaller sales training/consulting shops out there. Salesengineering.com is one worth noting. (ESR published a piece on them a while back when they were still TechSellEnts). The reason I’m excited about them today is their most recent newsletter with presents a case study quantifying [...]
Filed under: Measurement, Sales Training Companies, Technology | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 30th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I had to leave the training session shortly after lunch on the second day (out of three). More on the program in a minute… Last week I had an interesting discussion with Barry Trailor from CSO Insights about how old-style classroom sales training often doesn’t get the job done these days. We agreed that some classroom [...]
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