Top 5 Reasons NOT to Invest in Your Sales People

Reason 1)  Sales training doesn’t work.

Granted, there are more ways to go wrong than there are approaches that work. Here are some underlying causes of sales training failure.

A)   Sales training is often treated as an event, and not an ongoing process. Mastering selling skills is like mastering golf or playing the piano -- a set of skills developed over time. High levels of sales performance depend on skill mastery, so that your sales people can function optimally under pressure in buyer/seller situations. You can’t master a skill by reading a book, listening to a tape or attending one day seminars.

Selling is a skill and skills are developed over time

    

To give your next training effort a lasting positive impact, here are some rules to keep in mind.

—Sales management must be prepared to coach reps, to support the new skills. The training program must have a plan to achieve 100% management buy-in and to prepare your managers to support and reinforce the process on a daily basis.

—Provide processes and tools that reinforce the training, and increase willing adherence to a systematic approach.

—The infrastructure may require updating, for instance you might need to adjust your sales force automation tools or your compensation plan.

B) The second cause of failure is the training program doesn’t fit your company or your people. Properly assess and customize up-front. At the organizational level, the training may not fit your processes and culture. At the individual level, most sales training is ‘sheep dipping’ -- giving everyone the same treatment. Sales people, especially the senior ones, never ‘buy in’ to the program. They see it as ‘the management fad of the month. If your sales team is typical, you have people at different levels, with a variety of personal development needs.

C) No Buy-In—the third cause of sales training failure.

Keys to buy-in are:

• Senior People
  A successful program will involve your managers and senior sales people in customizing a program that provides a set of tools that your sales people can use and have success with, the next day. This involvement also starts the buy-in process even prior to the first training session.

• The Messenger
  The program must appeal to a wide audience. The messenger is as important as the message - only an entertaining and experienced trainer will win over your toughest seasoned veterans.

• Critical Dimensions
  A one-legged stool always falls. The fourth root cause of sales training failure is that most sales training is one dimensional, focusing only on selling technique. There are three critical dimensions to optimizing sales performance -- attitude, behavior and technique. Technique-only training is doomed to failure.

A successful program includes development on all three points of the success triangle, on an ongoing basis and helps your managers graduate to effective coaches, mentors and leaders.

Reason 2)  Sales people are born, not made.

This belief leads many business owners and sales executives to search for sales super stars, and most often results in frustration and high turnover in the sales force. There are two reasons for this:

• Superstars aren’t often for hire. Superstars tend to be in high level positions at other companies and simply aren’t available for you to hire.
• You can’t skip practice and expect to win. If you owned a major league baseball team, even if you had the best talent, would you skip spring training?

Reason 4)   That’s why I hired the sales manager.

Reason 5)   I don’t see the return on investment.