Dave Stein's Blog for Sales Leaders

Back in October I delivered the keynote at SMT’s conference.  I shared with the audience ESR’s list of 12 obstacles that must be overcome for sales training to begin to have the degree of impact that a few the leading sales training companies are having with every client.

Sales training is most often reactive. We [...]

Filed under: Hiring, Measurement, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies, sales process | 5 Comments »

Update: This conference is sold out.
I’m delighted to be both presenting and participating in a panel discussion at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston on May 21st.
Using recent research from ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide, I’ll talk specifically about technology-enabled learning—how technology is changing learning and why today, effective sales learning requires technology.
I’ve not been [...]

Filed under: Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies | 1 Comment »

When it comes to marketing, Miller Heiman leads the pack.  I recently spoke with Elizabeth Vanneste, their Chief Marketing Officer. Elizabeth brought Miller Heiman into four telecommunications companies where she had previously worked. She joined the Miller Heiman team last June as a sales VP and took over marketing three months ago.
Elizabeth shared with me that [...]

Filed under: Buyers, CRM, Economy, Marketing, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Relationships, Sales Training Companies, Technology, sales training | 3 Comments »

There have been some interesting conversations taking place on The Customer Collective on the subject of the adoption of social media and the changes required in approach and skills for B2B salespeople.  If you’re interested in a little entertainment—snarking, social media-style—I would suggest looking at these two posts and more important the comment thread that [...]

Filed under: Methodology, Professionalism, Relationships, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies | 21 Comments »

In my post yesterday I wrote about how sales training companies are faring during this economic crisis.  Some are doing well.  Others less so.
An area of considerable concern to those companies that are investing in sales performance improvement is the cost of travel.  This is yet another area where the traditional hotel conference room training [...]

Filed under: Buyers, Presentations, Sales Training Companies, Technology | No Comments »

Each year ESR publishes its annual Sales Training Vendor Guide.
The 2008 Guide, which was published last December, compares and contrasts 19 leading sales training providers across many different capabilities such as depth and breadth of offering, program effectiveness, educational design, available customization, post-program reinforcement, learning technology support and measurement.
Although the 2008 Guide came in at [...]

Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Industry Analyst, Measurement, Methodology, Research, Sales Training Companies, Technology | No Comments »

Chris Hens, President and COO of White Springs, presented at the Richardson client forum last week.  The subject was in-context sales learning and reinforcement.
With a background in sales training, Chris has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face with respect to sales performance improvement.  White Springs has worked with Complex Sale, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, ValuSelling [...]

Filed under: CRM, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Pipeline, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies, Technology, sales process | 2 Comments »

At one point during one of the workshops I facilitated in Ireland two weeks ago, a CEO said, matter-of-factly, “… and you know what the half-life of sales training is…”  He was discussing how his company took a more formal approach to sales effectiveness than just sales training, and the benefits that structure and process was delivering to his company.  [...]

Filed under: Measurement, Methodology, Sales Training Companies, Technology, sales process, sales training | 4 Comments »

Training Magazine recently published an article I wrote.  It’s about innovation in sales training. 
There are a couple of points in the article I’d like to comment on.  The first:
“Innovation has been slow to come to some of the larger training companies, as well. There are two major reasons for that. First, some of the companies [...]

Filed under: Sales Training Companies, Technology, sales training | 4 Comments »

I recently noticed a schedule of public training classes to be run by SPI (Sales Performance International).  I wrote an email to Tim Sullivan, a director at the company.  Tim is a well-respected thought leader in the sales performance improvement industry (and writes the Selling Geek blog, which is on my illumio feed list). 
My email to [...]

Filed under: Measurement, Research, Sales Training Companies | 1 Comment »