“At the moment sales training is a low priority.”
I received this feedback by email recently from a CEO and was genuinely shocked, in fact I still am. Let me explain why.
During the weeks prior, I’d had several lengthy conversations with the previous CEO, who shared with me how their margins were being squeezed to nothing, customers were in control, their salespeople were unable to articulate value, and as a result discounting was rife.
At the same time, their biggest competitor was already well down the road with training their sales team and as a result, reaping the benefits through increased market share and profitability.
I also found this short article in Forbes, “Seven Lame Excuses For Not Training Salespeople” by Stephen J Meyer, which highlights that just 15% of sales leaders are true believers when it comes to continuously developing their salespeople. It’s a quick read, here’s the link:
In the article he explains, when conducting his survey, the key question was “What are you currently doing to train your team on selling skills?” The majority acknowledge, many sheepishly, that they do “nothing.” Mr Meyer then details the excuses, which I suspect will resonate strongly with you.
However, there is one statement he makes on which my thoughts differ, when he tells us that “I’ve sold training to sales managers for over 20 years”. You see, that’s the same audience he knows contains only 15% of people who really get it, with all the others in denial or procrastinating.
My experience working with sales leaders shows we need to take a step back and be clear why the 85% are not fulfilling the role of training and developing their team as well as they could be. My conclusion is simple – most of them have never been given the tools to do it, they’ve had no coaching to bring them up to speed in core disciplines such as accountability, metrics, pre-post call strategies, role plays and on boarding. It’s only natural that they avoid doing it.
Against this, some CEOs mistakenly believe that because they pay their sales managers and salespeople a lot of money, that they should know it all already. That’s like signing a star sportsperson and expecting them to stay at the top without any coaching.
Instead, the responsibility lies with the business leader, CEO, Managing Director to be the “true believer” in the first instance, and to take ultimate charge of building their sales organisation through the ongoing development of their managers and salespeople.
Posted in Blog on Friday, 14th July 2017 | Comments (0)
