Progressive Distributor - Nothing's changed

Nothings changed

Our second annual survey shows that in an industry where change is a constant topic, there has been little change in how distributors teach their salespeople to deal with an evolving marketplace.

by Chuck Holmes

According to Progressive Distributors second annual sales training survey:

1) The probability is no better than 50 percent that you actually budget your sales training.

2) Odds are that whatever sales training you do is very much like the sales training youve been doing for years.

3) If you are a large company, youre more likely to be dissatisfied with the results of your sales training than if you are a small- or medium-sized company.

4) If you are in the smallest category ($2 million or less in annual sales), theres a good chance that you havent done sales training in the last year. Two-thirds of your peers havent.

In fact, the most striking result from the 1998 sales training survey conducted by Progressive Distributor and Corporate Strategies Inc. is that in an industry where change is a constant topic, there is little change to be found. It seems that while distributors are quick to recognize change in the marketplace, there is little or no change in the way distributors teach their salespeople to deal with the marketplace.

The second-most-interesting result is the percent of respondents who say they provide sales training to inside and outside salespeople dropped by more than 10 percent. Interviews with some respondents indicate that the lack of sales training is a matter of decision rather than a matter of omission.

What goes on in training rooms
Sales training in industrial distribution continues to be largely a matter of seminars. For inside and outside salespeople, the most popular delivery systems are supplier-led seminars, on-site seminars and off-site seminars (Figure 1). Other training methods, such as video and CD-ROM, are used by fewer than a third of the respondents.

Regarding what they teach in sales training, product knowledge continues to be the most popular (Figure 2, page 22). In fact, product training is the only subject area named by more than half of the respondents (59.9 percent). Second in popularity is basic sales skills, with 49.7 percent of the respondents saying they provide sales skills training for outside sales and 39.5 percent for inside sales. The only other subject area reported by as many as a third of the respondents is communications (34.7 percent).

Managing training. Or maybe not.
Subject matter and training delivery systems are not the only static areas revealed in the survey. There is essentially no change in how respondents say they manage their sales training.

About one-fourth of the respondents say they do not measure the results of their training, and more than half say they use either gross measures (before and after sales figures) or feedback from participants or customers to determine training effectiveness.

Still, as in last years survey, a majority of the respondents say their training is either very effective or effective, and the largest companies (annual sales of $50 million or more) are more likely to be dissatisfied with their sales training than either small- or medium-sized companies.

Fewer than a third of the respondents say they budget for sales training or capture training costs as an item on the operating statement. Although larger companies are more likely to budget for training than smaller ones, the percentage of respondents who say they have a training budget did not exceed 50 percent in any size category. Of the companies that budget for training, about three-fourths commit 0.5 percent of gross sales or less; however, if money were available, most would spend between 1 percent and 2 percent of gross sales on training.

Opting out of sales training
One interesting question raised by the survey is why, in an industry famous for being sales-obsessed, did nearly a third of the respondents say they have no sales training? Interviews with several respondents indicate two primary reasons.

The first is expected; theres simply not enough time or manpower. Hurried and harried sales managers dont have time to plan an effective sales training program, and if it were planned, they wouldnt have time to implement it.

In the smallest group of companies ($2 million or less in annual sales), two-thirds of the companies conduct no sales training.

But, according to one sales manager, lack of time is complicated by complacency on the part of management above him and the sales force below him.

Other companies dont conduct sales training because they dont see sales training useful in meeting their objectives. At Dynamic Tool and Abrasives (formerly J. M. Tool and Supply), an IDG company in Ferndale, Mich., salespeople are trained in product and product application, according to sales manager Steve Priemer.

Our company deals in a very specialized area, and the value we bring to the customer is in knowing more about the products and solutions than anyone else, he says.

Priemer admits that additional training might be helpful, especially in areas such as time and territory management, but he says Dynamic is meeting its goals and objectives focusing on the product and the customer without formal training.

Tony Anderson of DoAll Industrial Supply in San Diego says he would like to have formal sales training for his sales force, but he wants to make sure salespeople think its worth the time.

The way sales training is generally presented, our salespeople would view it as an imposition, Anderson says. I have to find something that makes them think the time theyre spending in training will make them more money than that same time spent making sales calls.

Anderson says he will continue looking for more than the usual sales training programs.

We need to get away from traditional sales training because the business is no longer traditional. We need something that combines where we came from with where were going to have to go.

That would be a change.

Chuck Holmes is president of Corporate Strategies Inc., an Atlanta company specializing in training, consulting and market development tools for distributors. He can be reached at .