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Press Release:
10 Crazy Mistakes Companies Make in Buying Sales Training
by: By Greg Bennett

1. They Treat Sales Training as Simply an Item to be “Checked Off” Their List.

When it comes to sales training, there are basically two types of companies– companies who are simply “getting some sales training” for their people (almost any training will do), and those companies who are making a concerted effort to understand what their shortcomings are and are finding the training that will truly change the outcomes their sellers are producing.

For companies looking to simply “check-off” training from their to-do list, it’s easy to do – there are literally thousands of sales training programs available, covering every possible sales strategy, concept, technique and style. And they come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges.

However, this “check-off” mentality can be deadly to salespeople, sales management and eventually the entire sales organization. It’s like visiting a doctor and simply buying the cheapest, easiest, least disruptive solution she’s got around the office - “I guess I’ll take that blue pill…it looks easy to take, and cheap too!” Is that what the patient NEEDS? Who knows?

The potential problem of course is the patient may have a dangerous disease raging beneath the surface…and because there was no exam, no evaluation of their condition, and no solid recommendation…the solution the patient is buying may eventually kill him!

We find that many organizations simply don’t understand enough about their own needs, their own fatal shortcomings, their own weaknesses within their salespeople and sales systems, to even know WHAT training to seek out. Thus they end up buying based on the cost of the program vs the solving of their needs (they’re not sure what their needs are!).

The answer is to look carefully and honestly at what your sales organization NEEDS, vs what you (or salespeople) may WANT. The solution may be harder to swallow and not as tasty as a sugar pill…but it just might save your organization in the long-run.

2. They Teach Too Much Strategy and Not Enough Execution.

Look on the shelves in a typical sales office and you’ll find scores of sales books, sales tapes, sales videos, program workbooks, manuals, guides, etc. – all filled with the latest sales techniques or the trendiest strategy-of-the-day. No doubt these techniques and strategies all had value when they were taught. They probably delivered one or two good ideas that one or two people implemented to some degree. But now they’re just old ideas, stored on the shelf and in the deep recesses of a salesperson’s mind.

Let’s face it, there is no shortage of new sales strategies in the world. There are tons of programs and ideas and sales concepts that trainers will gladly come in and teach to your sales team. And this, unfortunately, passes as a “sales training program” for many people. They simply bring in one or two new trainers each year to teach their strategy.

While learning all this strategy is fine…there is a glaring problem – no one is focusing on execution!
By execution we mean the simple act of performing the fundamentals of what makes salespeople successful (which we’ll cover in later points).

It’s like a farmer who brings in consultant after consultant, trainer after trainer – all arriving with their strategies and ideas on how to run a successful farm -- meanwhile he never plants a seed…tends to the weeds…or harvests a single plant. But he does know HOW he SHOULD do it!

The answer is to shift the focus away from JUST learning new strategy and on to the execution of the fundamentals.
We’re not suggesting that the farmer shouldn’t learn new ideas, we’re simply saying that the new ideas will go much further if he’s paying attention to the fundamentals of good farming!

3. They Don’t Focus on the Fundamentals of Sales Success.

We define the fundamentals of sales success as basically the process of FILLING AND FLUSHING.
Filling the pipeline through PROSPECTING.
Flushing the pipeline through CLOSING.
These are the “blocking and tackling” of sales. If a salesperson focuses on these two areas consistently…they will be successful.

Unfortunately, many organizations like to feel that their people are “beyond” these fundamentals. We will hear them say, “Look, we hire experienced, professional people…they should know this stuff by now. We’re interested in more advanced ideas and concepts.”

Thus, they will avoid focusing regularly on these fundamentals of sales success…until there’s a problem.
It’s funny how when there is a serious problem with the results a sales staff is creating, we rarely hear a manager say, “I think our problem is that our people aren’t using enough advanced ideas and concepts!”

Instead, what do we hear? It’s almost always, “I think we need to return to the fundamentals.” Or, “We just aren’t making enough calls.” Or, “These guys just aren’t asking for the order.”
Inadequate filling and flushing of the sales pipeline is at the core of 99% of all sales problems.

The answer here is simple – don’t be seduced into thinking that your people need to hear a more sophisticated message than the fundamentals of success.

4. They Give Salespeople the Training They WANT vs the Training They NEED – (they don’t treat them like REAL professionals).

If we truly treated salespeople like professionals, we’d never allow them to pick the training they want vs giving them the training they NEED.
You might be asking yourself, “Wait a minute, what do you mean? If my people are professionals, why can’t they figure out what they need?”

The easiest analogy to understand in this case is that of a professional athlete.
Take the Super Bowl Champions for example. Every year, since the NFL was created, the Super Bowl Champs (along with every other team) gather all their belongings and they trudge out to some empty college campus where they put on training camp.

And what do they do in this annual summer ritual? They return to the fundamentals of the game – blocking, tackling, throwing, catching, kicking, etc. Things they’ve been doing every single year since they were eight years old.
These are athletes who make millions. Who are the best of the very best. And there they are every year…sweating in the summer sun, returning to the core elements of what makes them successful football players and a successful football team.

Ask these athletes about what it is they WANT to do, and their answer may be – “anything BUT training camp!”
We talk with managers who tell us, “I polled the sales staff about what they felt they needed to learn, and none of them felt they needed to work on call reluctance.”

Of course not. Who wants to go to training camp? But who NEEDS to go to training camp? EVERYONE!!!
WE FEEL THAT EVERY PERSON, IN EVERY PROFESSION SHOULD RETURN TO THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SUCCESS EVERY YEAR! ESPECIALLY SALES PROFESSIONALS!

We’re not saying that a management team shouldn’t listen to their sales team about skill-sets they feel they need. However, management must keep in mind that the sales fundamentals, particularly new business generation, involves things many salespeople aren’t comfortable doing (like picking up the phone and making cold calls) – thus they may never say, “We want to work on making more cold calls.”

5. They Mistake Product Training For Sales Training.

Technically speaking, product training is a part of sales training…it just shouldn’t be the core of sales training.
The core of sales training should focus on the fundamentals of what makes salespeople successful – namely prospecting and closing, or as we put it –Filling and Flushing the pipeline.

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with product training, too much of it, without a balance of fundamentals training, can create salespeople who are talking way too much and not listening.
Sellers get so full of product training all they do is run around and spew their new-found knowledge. While they’re doing that, they forget all about questioning, listening and uncovering needs.

The answer is not to forget about product training altogether, but to make it part of an overall training mix – with the fundamentals at the core.

6. They Buy “Sugar Pills” vs Real Solutions to Their Sales Problems.

Many sales seminars are nothing but “sugar pills” – great for a quick burst of energy, but the effects wear off quickly.
We’ve all seen studies that show how much information is actually retained in a typical seminar – only about 20% that day…and only 10% by the next day! Then over time, almost everything drifts away, except maybe one or two basic thoughts (and sometimes all we need are one or two good ideas).

So basically one-day seminars aren’t good for much beyond waking people up temporarily and maybe implanting a few new ideas.
In order to change behavior on a long-term basis, management must be dedicated to a training program that is consistent, on-going, progressive and engaging.

7. They Don’t Insist on a Solid Return on Investment (ROI) From Their Sales Training.

For many managers, sales training is just another line item expense - “What’s it going to cost us?” Rarely will they approach it from the return standpoint with the question, “How much is this program going to create for us?” This is the question to ask when it comes to training, for if the return is always two or three times greater than the expense, who cares how much it costs?

The problem is, most sales trainers really don’t want to have this accountability conversation. Oh sure they’ll talk in general terms about how training is “an investment in our success”, and how you should “see some good results”, but that’s about as far most trainers are willing to go down the accountability scale.

We feel very differently about this issue. We feel that a client not only has the right, but they have an obligation to demand a solid, trackable return on their investment when it comes to a sales training program.

Some of this return should be very tangible and trackable – watching indexes like the number of new appointments booked, or closing percentage, or size of the average order. All of these areas will have an immediate and very real impact on a client’s overall profitability. Other return items are less tangible, sort of like pleasant side effects that happen with good training – like an overall more positive atmosphere, less turn-over, better relationships with management, etc.

The answer is to DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY from whichever training program you’re considering. Together with the trainer, come up with four or five trackable, traceabale, tangible indexes that you will track to determine the success of a program. Even suggest that the trainer tie a portion of their fee to the success of the program.

This involves a bit of risk for the trainer, so the opportunity for reward should be there as well. Perhaps you can work an arrangement where you agree to pay 50% of the program as an upfront fee, and the remaining fee is tied to performance, plus a 25% bonus should you hit even higher numbers.
We feel that any training program or trainer that can’t provide a solid return on investment tracking process and be willing to tie compensation to results, doesn’t have real confidence in achieving success.

8. They Don’t Understand ‘Call Reluctance’ As the Silent Saboteur of Their Sales Training Plans.

Call Reluctance is a silent killer of sales careers and sales organizations. It will also sabotage your sales training efforts – leaving you scratching your head as to why sales results aren’t improving after all the training you’ve provided for your people.

One of the most common problems we hear from managers regarding their training is, “We still aren’t improving our results!” Chances are good that this sales team may have recently completed a two or three-day seminar on something like the “Art of Selling” where they learned tons of new strategies and ideas. Maybe they role-played several scenarios and watched well-produced video tapes. The results however, haven’t changed – pipelines are dry and sales are barely trickling in.

The problem is call reluctance. Salespeople are very susceptible to catching it, and the chilling part is, no one may even know this person is sick!

At these seminars, salespeople learn great strategy -- all about how to qualify, question, present, answer objections, close and negotiate - but if they’re not making enough calls and filling the pipeline, all of that training is useless!
Managers buy training to help equip their people, but without addressing call reluctance, it’s like covering someone in band-aids who has a deadly blood disease.

The answer is not to stay away from strategy training, it’s to elevate call reluctance prevention training and activities to go along with it!

9. Sales Managers Aren’t Engaged In the Training.

When sales managers don’t attend training it sends powerful signals to the sales team:
a. This isn’t that important…don’t pay attention!
b. The manager doesn’t believe in this training enough to want to learn the strategies and be able to help the team.
c. The manager is beyond learning…but the team is still stupid and needs help.
d. The manager would rather sit back at headquarters instead of being out on the front line with the troops.

We’re not suggesting that managers need to sit in the training class 100% of the time, but a regular presence where sellers can observe their participation is important.

Here are a few ways managers can make an impact by participating in any training program:
• Talk with the trainer prior to the course and find out how you might participate in a productive way.
• Help the trainer observe role-plays and offer feedback.
• Jump in and role-play yourself (willing to do what you’re asking your team to do).
• Follow-up the program by forming small groups to begin implementing the strategies you like into real-life action steps.

A major part of our training program is the making actual cold calls and it makes a great impact when a sales manager sits down and bangs out some calls right along with the sales crew!

10. There’s No Long-Term Follow-Up.

With all the money spent on training, it’s a crime to not follow-up on the ideas and strategies that are introduced to the sales team. Yet this is exactly what happens in 90% of cases – the trainer doesn’t offer follow-up and the management doesn’t ask about it.

Selling is like any other profession; to master something new it takes not only learning it, but taking action over and over again. Once you’ve taken action , you analyze the results, learn some more, then continue taking action.
Learning selling strategy in one two-hour session without follow-up would be akin to learning how to fly by sitting in a two-hour training class, but never climbing into a plane.

The answer is to develop a long-term plan for keeping the material in front of the sales team long after the trainer is gone. Some ideas would be to schedule time in sales meetings to review a few concepts, or maybe do regular role-playing exercises to practice the new methodology (sellers love to role-play though they won’t admit it – we just don’t do enough of it).

About Greg Benett

Greg Bennett has been training salespeople since 1988. He is a partner in company called Contact Based Selling. The company specializes in Cold Calling Boot-Camps, called Sales Fundamental Camps (also known as Hell Week™!) both for larger organizations as well as “Open Internet Camps” for individuals and small companies who can take the camps online. For information on the Camps and on Greg Bennett, please visit Sales Training Tv.
Or contact Greg at email  or call (303) 978-9896.