Why don't more sales organizations invest in sales training courses?

Let's be frank about this, most sales trainers have sh*tty programs.

The goal isn't training better sales people, but "booking" enough sessions to keep the lights on.

Is it any wonder why there aren't any results after 90 days? It's a cycle of recklessness that only hurts the salespeople that we claim to be helping...

Maybe we shouldn't be investing in that type of training at all.

Here are some of the excuses I am given:

1. sales organizations have become too reliant on marketing and are spending too much money there
2. "we hire the best" or "our people are really senior" is often heard as reasons
3. when things are tight, money is not spent, or it is put into marketing or product training
4. they try to do it internally with the management team
5. perhaps the VP of Sales feels exposed doing training if the numbers are off
6. don't need training if the numbers are doing well
7. product reliant - better products are the answer

Here is my answer:
- every excuse would be addressed or improved with sales training, even if they only got a 90 day lift. For example, if 100 people had 1,000,000 quota each (total 100,000,000) and only 10% (10 sales people) improved by 5% ($50K) that is a $500K increase in sales. Even if the investment was $100K, that is a HUGE ROI.

Jonathan London - www.ipgtraining.com

If you ask sales managers why they are not training their sales people, you will get one of the standard responses:

1. The economy is bad.
2. Our numbers are down.
3. No budget for training.

However, the real reason these sales managers are not training their sales people is poor leadership.

Unfortunately, training and people development has become an afterthought for many companies. Companies who have abandoned their sales training programs assume new sales hires come fully trained with a Rolodex of prospects, and are ready to hit the ground running. However, if more companies adopt this same philosophy, where do all the new sales hires go to receive the training and development they need to be successful and advance their knowledge and skills?

I know I have a strong bias on this subject, since I was blessed to have received nine months of intense sales training at AT&T's National Sales School. This sales training experience benefited me throughout my 30 year corporate career. At that time, there were a number of companies that had similar outstanding sales training programs including IBM, Proctor & Gamble and Xerox to mention a few. All of these companies were recognized as the market leaders in their respective industries. Is there a direct correlation here?

Top sales performers are made not born, and it's time for U.S. business leaders to wake up and recommit to training, developing and mentoring their current and future sales leaders. Abdicating the responsibility for people development to someone else is poor leadership, and leads to organizational failure.

Training groups have become their own worst enemies.

Too many corporate "universities" have become nothing more than procurement activities seeking to round out a curriculum that, on paper, appears to check the boxes, and call it a day. They preach wanting to transform their sales organizations and avoid becoming commoditized, but in a fit of irony, they are willing to put out RFPs and then threaten to reverse auction the vendors, as well as build their own content, if they don't get the price point.

Also, to appease Sales and the lack of desire and commitment to be trained or take any time out of the field, these corporate L&D groups have pushed an agenda of chunky, virtual, self-paced training with no reinforcement, no legitimate practice of the concepts, and no accountability. And, then they seek to justify this as the hip, "new way" to train. When in reality it disappears like cotton candy.

The result is no discernible ROI... and before you know it the slippery slope of apathy has turned into an avalanche of irrelevance.

Your question can take several paths, but the essence of your question is cultural and tied to the core values of any organization. Many firms say their people are their greatest asset and yet when you look at the C Suite table, the Chief Information, Technology, Operations, Finance Officers, etc are all present and yet no where is there to be a Chief People Officer. Only when the C Suite truly believe in their people being their greatest capital assets, then and only then will these organization realize that investing in ongoing professional development is critical to their sustainability. The current culture for many organizations believe training is a cost not an investment. Given that much of the training is not sustainable, this also could be part of the problem.

Hi Lauren! The key word in your question is “invest.” “Invest” is the #1 reason why some companies don’t … they view training as an expense not an investment.

Several other possible causes …

Some companies and sales execs believe that the very notion of training implies that something must be deficient or wrong. So CYA kicks in and training, if it happens at all, becomes remedial or even punitive.

They did some sort of sales training in the past and “it didn’t work.” Perhaps they ran a program on the cheap and expected an instant million dollar lift. Or maybe the vendor overpromised and under-delivered.

And some folks are simply weird about training: a sales VP once told me, “Train them? If I had to train them, I wouldn’t have hired them!” Good thing he’s not a surgeon or air traffic controller or football coach.

The good news is that custom sales training + tenure + solid sales management almost always produce good results for the participants and for the company! I urge businesses to make the investment!

Lauren, as you can see from Leeanne's, David's, John's, and Michael's responses, there are a multitude of reasons for not investing in sales training. All of the answers are correct. And selecting the right training methodology and training company is daunting.

Training is often viewed as a vaccination. Giving the team a shot of knowledge and motivation wears off. Not only does it not work, but salespeople do not buy in because they have good reason to not believe in faulty practices.

Sales training should be ongoing, flexible, customized, and individualized, but most of what is being sold are canned curriculums giving the "good" trainers and "good" programs a bad name.

All great comments from professionals that I respect!

The short answer Lauren is that companies continue to look for the quick fix, which as we all know does not exist. I see this a lot now that social media has come on the scene. Sales are declining so companies think that if they just teach their people LinkedIn, the problem will be solved. Of course, that is just utterly ridiculous. Whatever is going south in a sales organization today will not be fixed by teaching their folks how to better use technology. If that were the case, CRM systems would have lived up to their promise of creating high performing, revenue generating sales engines. Didn't happen. Technology merely enables.

Companies continue to insist on paying for a half-day or 1-day training program expecting somehow that revenue will magically turn around, that their sales culture will improve or that mediocre sales reps will now become superstars. Not gonna happen...ever! As Dave pointed out, when you want to incite real change in an organization, it takes time and a holistic approach to looking at all aspects of the business. Everything from people skills, to processes, to barriers to success, management capabilities, technology being used, etc.

Finally, I agree with Dan that vendors are also a large part of the problem. They pander to the quick fix mentality and many of the programs being delivered today are horrible. They are not tailored to the needs of the company, the methods being taught are old school and outdated and many of the people delivering the training need some serious coaching on how to present and facilitate programs.

Until companies stop paying lip service to the idea that people are their greatest asset and they actually invest in developing and keeping great people - nothing will ever change.

This is a valuable conversation and one that we don't often hear about. We live in an "instant gratification" society - companies routinely ask us for "just a quick session" or an annual "half day" or perhaps a day - but that doesn't work.

Adults learn through doing, and through repetition and reinforcement. That's why training doesn't work for so many - they:
- don't get buy-in from the leadership
- leadership does not participate
- they do not do a pre-assessment
- they do not benchmark progress
- then can't measure it

The good news is that there ARE people out there who CAN help in this area - but not through the "old" ways of conventional "just bring a trainer in" thinking. It takes a real commitment, a special team (or individual), and behavioral knowledge to affect change.

Note to all people who think sales training has no value. Apple's Channel Sales training team created an online training program that was instrumental in turning Apple around back in 1998. The popular perception is that bringing Steve Jobs back was what did it, but I was there and saw it happen. This was back in the days of CompUSA etc. The training was so popular with the sales staff that store units and regional units were having contests between each other to see who could get the highest scores, complete the set of courses the fastest, and ultimately the highest sales. It was great fun to go out to the stores and have them deal with you as a customer to see how well the training worked.

Lauren, Thanks for the question - am enjoying all the posts. There are many pearls of wisdom here, and I can relate to many of them, especially having lived through some of the wrong tactical approaches over the past 10-15 years.

I am considered a "senior salesman", but I feel very lucky to work with many young salespeople today. I am even luckier to have gotten the "old fashioned" training at IBM in the 70's and 80's, as John referenced above. I feel it allows me to share some ideas and experiential knowledge but also to gain from the ideas, thoughts and approaches from the younger employees. I know that I don't know it all and I try to learn each week, if not each day.

I intend to continue to monitor FOCUS as a source of discussion / information and continue my professional development. And I think that is another point - Salespeople and their management should consider themselves to be professionals. As such, they need to continue to develop their skills and abilities, whether through company provided programs or through individual efforts.

Thanks.

Gary - I have been writing and talking about developing the greatest asset of any organization - its people for many years, much to little or no avail. The conditioning from the K-12 or K-16 experience is still very strong along with the belief of needing a quick fix. And that sales assessment you took would be very beneficial to the program you are creating.

Lauren,
I think you have some great answers to date, but I will add my take.
As others have indicated a lot of "training" is not effective. It doesn't stick. Training is a sub system or tactic not a solution by itself. It will not make up for poor management, a poorly developed strategy, etc.
Many people believe that great sales people like leaders are "born" not taught.
I find much of sales training focuses on tactics and techniques. I had enormous success utilizing a behavioral based sales training model. It focused on why people were struggling and building a relationship sales model versus a product sales model. It improved results drastically.
Taking sales people "off the road" is expensive and companies are impatient. They want immediate results.
Training isn't always the answer...

good answer Lauren :-)

I don't know why either. Thanks for asking this question because I would kill to have had a personal mentor or went through some sales training. I have battled for two years to be a success and would love to learn more.

Lauren, a great question is one that arouses tremendous interest, which you have done. Here's an addendum to why training fails.

One of the great challenges of education is different modes of learning such as written, visual, auditory, there different combinations, and multiple aptitude levels. Add in the enormous information dumps and workloads people carry today that have created an ADD society and you have paint remover eating away the stickiness of training.

Creating and implementing a successful curriculum requires customizing solutions to these needs. Executives will buy into to sales training programs that address these hurdles.

Great discussion and points made here. In my 25 years in Silicon Valley Sales/Marketing teams - Sales Training all too often:
* required full awareness building through reference model redesign (aka are too disruptive to implement well)

* do not provide sales teams immediately customer facing content to put into action on day 1 ( they are classroom only fire hose sessions )

* sales leadership is not provided usable post course tools to reinforce the key learnings with their staff.

* sales team members are not solicited for post course feedback (what works & doesn't) and adaptations they've made that does work for them. They are simply required to "drink the Kool-aid".

* the courses are not designed enough from the buyers, customer or prospect view. They rarely asknowledge the emotion and trust building that is requried - and that these ties rarely happen at the desired speed of any quarterly sales goal.

Sales-driven organizations can get caught up in a short term results orientation and training is an inherently long term commitment. The sales training I've experienced seemed like point-in-time solutions - they get you motivated for the day or two you're in the sessions, but once you walk out it is business as usual. Unless management fully embraces the sale training philosophy and forces long term sales team adoption, it is difficult to measure any true ROI.

Also, it seems the more rapid turn-over of sales personnel makes investing in training a bit of a waste.

These rich answers are so compelling - I'm in good company:-)

I believe that more and more organizations are stepping up their sales training investment more than ever because they realize they can no longer sell the way they did and still survive.

They seem to be checking their sales egos at the door and coughing up the investment to train their teams. Not only am I getting more requests for initial training but lots on the reinforcement and refresher front and contrary to what Dan says about "most sales trainers have sh*tty programs" I'm definitely not in that category.

It simply does not work alone! It does not work unless there are two vital attributes:

1. Training Reinforcement - practice sessions, case study groups, etc. All geared at what sales people actually experience.
2. Managers who coach - meaning they ask, listen, and develop actions that inspire effort which leads to progress and ultimately results. Sales training can work but not without these two attributes.

Great info!

My perspective is different than many here because I've not trained commercial salespeople, but partners in big law firms. For 20 years that many in our space refer to as the Golden Age of Demand, this reluctant, part-time "sales force" was sufficient, and training was perceived as additive, not essential. I was in the "good to great" business, using a combination of workshop, individual planning, and just-in-time tactical coaching to take partners with $1m portfolios to $3m, $5m to $10m, etc. Only 20% of those enrolled in this very expensive, high-touch program performed. Fortunately for me, the 20% generated a massive ROI, and I told them in advance what to expect, so the firms didn't worry too much about the deadwood.

Fast forward to 2008 when law firms panicked amid the onset of the Great Recession. They cut every imaginable line item expense, including all forms of training.

Now, faced with a Buyer's Market, they're beginning to grasp that they'll need a much higher percentage of rev gen oars in the water making a contribution.

What they don't understand is the need to stratify their population and match the education/training/coaching to the individual lawyer's circumstances. In fact, the distinction between education (knowledge transfer), training (the actual doing), and coaching (feedback loop) doesn't yet exist, and represents the major educational challenge for our industry.

We have all the frustrations cited in this thread, e.g., management apathy and ignorance, low perception of urgency/value, etc. On the other hand, motivation by the formerly complacent lawyers is inching up as they realize that, without clients of their own, they're vulnerable to summary dismissal.

Because firms must now train a larger population, but don't yet have the stomach for real per-head investment, we've created virtual training, by which lawyers learn by doing, managing an avatar through a series of "say/do" decisions as they progress through a networking event or sales call. Because it's scalable, it's affordable. Because it's asynchronous and mobile, it's convenient.

That said, we've created a new category and struggle with all the challenges of a new category. "What is virtual training?" I'll let you know how it turns out, but it's great to find a forum where my tribe hangs out. Somehow, pushing the big startup rock up the steep hill every day is easier knowing I'm not out there alone.

If any of you training veterans are inclined to spend a few minutes evaluating something new on behalf of a struggling startup, I'll appreciate it. Go to www.rainmakervt.com. Click on the red "Free Test Drive" triangle at center right. After supplying your name and email address, it will take you to a virtual networking event. Brutally candid feedback welcomed. Thanks.

Conventional sales training doesn't work because we're talking about changing behavior. Its the same reason why diets, home exercise equipment, and New Years resolutions don't work.

I was once told that "the only time change occurs is when the pain of changing is LESS than the pain of staying staying the same". I wish I could give credit to whomever said that because it is so true.

For sales training (or any training) to take hold you need three simple things:

* a base line assessment - the best map is worthless unless you know where you are starting from.

* clear, definable goals that are predicated off of that baseline assessment and a slight "stretch" for your organization.

* reinforcement of the behaviors that help reach those goals - find out what behaviors will accomplish the goal and set up things (rewards, or punishment if that's your style) that make those behaviors repeat.

I'm not saying to turn your organization into a psych 101 experiment, but unless you reinforce the behavior you want (and on the other side of the coin extinguish the behavior you don't want) no amount of sales training will help. You have to make the proper sales behavior a habit...I leave you with a poem about that subject - it is simple and profound.

"I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half of the things you do you might as well turn over to me and I will do them - quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed - you must be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of great people,
and alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine though
I work with the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a person.
You may run me for profit or run me for ruin - it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am Habit."

Another useful perspective comes from two unrelated sources who seem to view workplace performance through a similar lens.

The first is the work of the Gallup Organization, whose results from interviews with a million employees (not necessarily salespeople) are published in their ground-breaking book, "First, Break All the Rules." In essence, they say that training is misguided, i.e., that we should stop trying to "fix" people. Instead, because people are motivated to be good at what they do, we're better off changing people's jobs to better align with their skills and aptitudes, rather than trying to change the person to align with the job.

The second is Daniel Pink's book, "Drive," which describes what he terms "Motivation 3.0," which contrasts with command-and-control (M 1.0) and incentive-based motivation (2.0). This is a meta-research book that shows that the scientific literature on motivation has concluded that we have three anthropologically-hardwired drives (hence the title):
-- Autonomy
-- Mastery (the pursuit of it, anyway)
-- Purpose (larger than oneself)

A few years ago we created a major account process based on these principles, in which we predefined a number of contributory roles necessary to accomplish the team mission, which had three components:
-- Delight the client
-- Grow revenue
-- Prepare for the client's future as a way to prepare for our own

Team membership was based on opting into a contributory role. (This eliminated hangers-on, who are dead weight and can be obstacles.) Along the way, the team defined and populated additional roles as needs got revealed. At the end of 2008, the team leader reported results: a 35% increase in revenue from a client who had declared a flat legal budget for the year; got meaningful initial revenue in two new service classes for which the client had not previously hired the firm; accomplished every one of the team members' individual goals.

These results were from lawyers with no sales experience or training, not professional sales people or account developers. Finally, in August, 2008, we pulled the plug on our coaching and guidance. The lawyers managed the process for the rest of the year without assistance, thereby solidifying the process as a firm asset and eliminating consultant dependency.

I mention all this because the unstated, embedded assumption in sales training is that every sales person must have a complete array of skills and aptitudes. This seems equivalent to baseball teams trying to recruit and develop a team made up entirely of 5-tool players. (For those not baseball fans, these tools are "hit with power," "hit for average," "base running/stealing," "fielding," and "throwing.") A true 5-tool player is extremely rare.

I made a list of everything that "the compleat salesperson" would have to do:
-- credentialing via thought leadership,
-- targeting and profiling,
-- prospecting and lead generation,
-- relationship development,
-- opportunity vetting and development,
-- solution selection and correlation,
-- stakeholder alignment and decision management,
-- solution specification and implementation oversight,
-- performance feedback,
-- reference development and referral mining,
and back to the beginning of the loop.

Each of those items is itself a macro, so we're talking about a lot more than five skills/capabilities.

Perhaps we're unwittingly engineering sales processes that guarantee failure because they require all sales people to be what almost none can be.

Lauren, wait a couple more years, and the question will be "now that sales training is gone, can we be sure it won't ever come back?" The reason is that salespeople are starting to teach themselves and learn for themselves. They simply need access to ideas and content, much of which will come from - themselves. Outside providers will supply some tools and just-in-time content, with the technology supplying the networking to facilitate exchange of ideas. A lot of those training companies with their turgid manuals and acronyms will disappear because their "content" - to which no one paid any attention - will be found out in the real world. Salespeople are very practical; they will use what actually works, which is why they ignored 50 years of sales training and trainers. Rather like CRM, it's the suppliers that are on the side fo the salespeople that will do well. It's no coincdence that salespeople generally dislike CRM and sales training, the two most common "cures" they are offered. Neither has made much difference out there on Monday morning.

Because Sales personnel know everything, everyone knows that :-)

most sales organization prefers ready skill rather than to make it by doing invest time and money

Interesting answers to this question - my take on this question is that most organizations want to train (or better their sales team) but they do not know where to start. They have no real idea where the sale performance gap is within the team.

You may be interested in a recent blog on this topic - http://www.hiringsimulation.com/2011/09/using-simulations-to-assess-your-curr... . Shows you how Simulations can assist in pinpointing where to invest in the team. Hope this helps

Craig Bissett - www.hiringsimulation.com