- February 26, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I still conduct a limited amount of training with some of my personal clients. We work with companies in more than 200 industries, from startups to multi-billion dollar corporations, that call on every possible vertical and decision maker, in nearly every geography across the globe. I find that even the most seasoned and resistant of salespeople get to this point: When they realize how much more there is to selling, how much more effective they can be, how much more business they could generate, how they don’t need to have the best price, and how much easier selling can be, they become eager learners. That brings us to the question to be answered in today’s article: If most salespeople become eager learners and embrace good sales training, why don’t all companies experience equally tremendous revenue growth from sales training?
Some companies simply don’t experience an increase in sales from sales training. The difference between the those that do and those that don’t usually lies with leadership. When sales training is driven by leadership, revenue grows. When the training is simply approved, but not driven by leadership, revenue rarely improves.
The symptom of this is how seriously sales management takes its role of supporting the training. When sales managers hold their salespeople accountable to change and consistently coach to the sales process and content, even mediocre sales training will have a positive impact. However, when sales managers fail to hold their salespeople accountable for change and don’t consistently coach to the process and content, even the best sales training in the world won’t have as much impact as it should.
The key to successful sales training has less to do with the sales training itself but everything to do with two other things: (1) Leadership’s engagement; and (2) training and coaching sales managers to help them expertly execute the coaching and accountability of their salespeople. Sales Managers are the glue that holds everything together.
Let’s go to my two favorite analogies – my son and baseball – to provide examples for what we are discussing.
My son has been the subject of dozens of analogies for my articles, and lessons from his baseball experiences are always my favorites. You can read 30 of those analogies in my ebook, 63 Powerful Sales Tips for a Huge Increase in Sales.
He’s a high school sophomore and in addition to his varsity baseball team and the college showcase team he will play for this summer, he has a hitting coach who works with him for 3 hours each Saturday and a New York Mets minor league catcher works with him for 30 minutes each week. The coaching holds him accountable for applying and practicing the adjustments that are unique to him. With the coaching, he’s a super star. Without the coaching, he would be progressing like every other player on the roster.
We take the sales management element and the importance of great coaching, very seriously. That’s one of the reasons we offer our corporate sales leadership training to non clients each year. This year’s annual Sales Leadership Intensive is fast approaching. It’s May 22-23, outside of Boston, and even though it is still almost 90 days away, I have just 2 seats remaining. If you/and or your sales leaders would like to become great sales coaches, coach up your salespeople, and grow revenue, this is the even where you can make that happen. [Update – this training is sold out as of March 5, 2018]
And in the shorter term, you can join a panel of experts on this subject on a TopSalesWorld roundtable tomorrow, February 27 at Noon Eastern. Register here.
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