Sales Training: 12 Obstacles We Must Overcome

1. Sales training is most often reactive. We ask VP of sales what their sales training strategy is. The answers we get would indicate that many either don’t understand what the word strategy means or they do, but it doesn’t apply to training and developing their own people. A tactical approach to sales performance improvement is as much a contradiction in terms as I can imagine. It doesn’t work.


2. Wrong people in the sales and sales management positions. I’ve written about this before. It’s a very, very serious problem. ESR estimates that mis-hiring will continue to significantly hinder sales effectiveness in 2010 with only a single-digit increase in the number of companies employing a formal hiring methodology for sales people and managers. We need to fix that.


3. Selling requirements are not really understood. When ESR assesses our client’s sales effectiveness, we often uncover things that they themselves don’t see or understand. If a company delivers sales training without an objective and comprehensive understanding of their sales-related challenges, it just won’t be effective. And companies do that every day.


4. No foundation methodology in place. I hope you’ve been reading what experts like Jonathan Farrington and Dave Brock have been posting about sales methodology and process. Check out the leading industry experts’ research reports. Is there any question at all that a sales methodology must be the backbone of a company’s sales approach? I write about this subject often as well. Let me ask a simple question. If you don’t train sales reps on how to effectively and efficiently use your sales process, what do you train them on? Some isolated tactics? A few tricks and tips? We’ll never get to real sales productivity that way. If it was going to work, it would have worked by now, right?


5. Flawed training company selection. Literally every day I speak with buyers of sales training who have, as a group, been through all the programs with all the leading trainers. Yet they are still seeking the right trainer. No sales trainer fits every training situation. In fact, no sales trainer fits most situations. The ones ESR covers are very good—industry leading, in fact—for specific situations. When a company selects the wrong partner for their unique situation, it’s like going to an ear, nose and throat doctor when you’ve cracked a tooth.  Same general area, but oh, so wrong.


6. No measurement. Al Case and I just completed a feature article for ASTD’s T+D magazine about how to measure sales performance improvement. There is absolutely no reason why sales trainers and their clients can’t work together to specifically measure not only the financial impact of the training (and process) work, but also use a measurement system to assure that everyone is adhering to what they learned. I’ll have a downloadable PDF for you on this subject when the article is published. (Good reason to subscribe to this blog!)


7. Having a traditional, live, instructor-led training approach only. If you are not leveraging technology to deliver learning, you’re behind the times. If you insist that your salespeople can only learn sardine-canned into a conference room at an airport hotel, you’re wrong.  These days, technology-enabled learning has come a long way.  Companies like The Brooks Group, The TAS Group, Richardson, Miller Heiman, Imparta, SPI and others have developed some innovative learning (and in some cases, selling) applications.


8. Sacrificing learning reinforcement and coaching. The importance of learning reinforcement (including coaching) is undisputed among researchers and impartial experts in the sales effectiveness industry.  Event-based training without reinforcement is a waste of time and money.


9. Lack of investment in tools to support new selling requirements. Although there are wide variations depending on industry, salespeople need technology not only to learn more, but specifically to sell more effectively and efficiently as well. They need tools to manage their pipelines, accounts, opportunities. They need tools for research, networking, communication, collaboration, gaining knowledge, creating and finding leads. Do we leave them to fend for themselves? All of this must be integrated into a strategic approach to sales effectiveness, of which training, of course, is a critical component.


10. The disconnect between corporate learning and sales. In many larger companies there is a long-lived disconnect between the training and sales departments. There are numbers of reasons for this. A team of us working with Brian Lambert at ASTD are tackling this issue head-on in 2010. For now, so long as that disconnect exists, sales is disadvantaged.


11. The continued hope that tips, tricks, and new toys will save the day. I can’t ever leave this point out. Look here for more.


12. Reduced budgets for sales training. The stats aren’t in but we expect the sales training spend in 2009 to be way, way down. Buyers of sales training won’t really every be able to get the protected budgets they need until they track the results of training and can provide a credible, achievable ROI to executive management.

Here they are again:

Those are the challenges that every sales trainer and every company looking to improve the effectiveness of their sales team must overcome. Let me know how I can help.