Don’t waste money on sales training

by Todd Youngblood

Ask any sales manager about the need for continuous sales training and you instantly get agreement that it is important. So why isn't there more of it going on?

The fact is, most money spent on sales training is wasted. Typically, it annoys most reps, bores many and is usually totally forgotten within 30 days.

This is true due to three missing links:
Credibility - "Who is this sales seminar leader and why on earth should I follow his/her advice?"
Relevance - "Maybe this stuff works in the X industry, but I don't see how it applies here."
Reinforcement - "I'll implement these new ideas just as soon as I have the time."

You can get around these issues and reap a much bigger payback from your training budget with a sales excellence council. Here’s how to make it happen.

First of all, put the best of your best reps on it, those who are most respected by the rest of your team. In fact, make it an award in recognition of sustained superior performance. (This alone will go a long way in addressing missing links one and two.)

Next, provide proof that you're serious about mining the brains of these folks for the benefit of all your reps. In other words, provide funding for and relentlessly conduct monthly half-day sales excellence council meetings. The objective of these meetings is to identify, clarify and communicate sales best practices: the tactical actions that produce the fastest, most tangible results for your business.

At the risk of being repetitive, the mission of your sales excellence council is to:
• Identify - Identify the best sales practices of your best reps.
• Clarify - Write them down in specific, easy-to-understand detail.
• Communicate - make sure all your reps know how to replicate the power of each best practice.

As you get your sales excellence council launched, three things will likely surprise you. First is how few discrete sales best practices you and your best can actually write down quickly.  You’ll look at your first list and instantly recognize that success simply cannot be due to these eight or 10 relatively simple aphorisms.

The second surprise will be that most of the initial practices will relate to attitudes and behaviors. You’ll also see that the “how-tos” outnumber the “what-tos” by a wide margin. That’s when the classic flaw of sales training becomes clear. Sales trainers are at their most annoying and boring when they lead you by the nose step-by-step down the road to success. 

By their very nature, sales people are hyper-competitive and hyper-creative. Just go to one of your eagles and say, “I’ll bet you can’t…,” and watch them figure out how-to in a flash. Your challenge as a sales leader (and the challenge of your sales excellence council) is to tackle the toughest part of selling. You need to identify the myriad “whats” of sales success in your business.

The third surprise is the difficulty of documenting well – the writing and diagramming that makes quickly communicating your findings to the rest of the sales team possible. This is why many firms find it helpful to use an outside facilitator to start and keep the ball rolling. This person needs all the classic qualifications of a sales trainer plus expertise in knowledge management, process engineering and documentation.

I'll conclude by stating the obvious: Your best reps will always be the best source of sales tactics and strategies that work. Don't waste time and money on standardized sales training. Tap into the gold mine you already have on the payroll. Divert your sales training budget to the implementation of a sales excellence council. . .now!

Todd Youngblood is managing partner and CEO of The YPS Group Inc., a sales process engineering and sales training firm. The YPS partners are all obsessed with the sales productivity of their clients. He can be reached at , or at www.ypsgroup.com.

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