No Time for Practice: Why Sales Training Fails (part 1/2)
I spent about 80% of my first 18 years on earth learning or practicing. For every math test I took in school I practiced every day and night for at least two weeks; for every sports game I played (baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.) I practiced after school three times a week. A young person’s life is filled with practice. Practice is even prevalent in some adult professions as well.
Professional athletes practice up to 100 hours to prepare for each game, the armed forces (ideally) drill for years before they send units to a live battle field, and a musician practices their song or piece of music for months before they perform it in front of a live audience. It is almost absurd to even imagine some professionals performing without practicing.
So why is practice so important? Practice is an important follow-up any time there is an introduction of new concepts or a re-introduction of old concepts. It provides a comfortable learning environment in which people can test and repeat what they have been taught, allowing them to make mistakes and try uncomfortable maneuvers free of “real world” implications. After a person or team has practiced enough, they can take their new concept to the “real world” with the confidence that they will be able to execute. The more practice one has, generally the more confident and likely they are to try their newly learned skill in the “real world”.
In the sales world, practice is especially important after sales training. That’s why it blows my mind that I have NEVER seen a sales organization that commits itself to continuous practice after sales training! In fact, the only commitment that I have seen from companies is to hold salespeople accountable for implementing the new training in the field after NO PRACTICE, or holding refresher webinars to try to keep all the book learning inside their salespeople’s heads. Never have I seen a company create a practice environment in which sales people can test, experiment, and master their sales training to the point of comfort and confidence. What do you think would happen to a professional sports coach who gave his players the playbook on Monday, and expected them to execute the plays perfectly on Tuesday? How do you think the players would perform?
There are several reasons why businesses don’t practice, and I think it is important to address why they are bad reasons:
“We can’t practice because we’re always playing: our business is open 24×7, and if we shut down the business it costs us money.“ This is partly true in the short term, but business is about growth, not maintenance. You can’t grow the business if the skill set of your salespeople stays the same. There are many other things that are ’shutting down’ your business that are highly unproductive….inefficient internal process, CRM data input, salespeople having to navigate silos, etc. Imparting a better skill set in your employees is not a cost, it is an investment with a return. The size of the return only depends on the quality/quantity of the sales training and the quality/quantity of the practice (thus the quality/quantity of the implementation).
“We have to hit quota for this month/quarter, nothing else matters.” This is also partly true in the short term. If you plan on being a sales leader within your company longer than a year, things other than this month’s quota do matter significantly. While you can make short term tactical decisions to hit your quota for this month/quarter like pulling in business that would normally be booked next month/quarter, those decisions largely are unsustainable and sacrifice the long-term. Long Term decisions (hitting quota for 2010) need to be thought of as more strategic investments. Your team’s quota for 2010 is likely going to be significantly higher than 2009, and you need to figure out a way [now] to hit that quota too. There are really only two options within your control. You can fire all your underperforming reps in 2009 and hire superstars for 2010; if you figure out the formula for that let me know because you’ll be the first and will go down in the history books next to the guy who discovered cold-fusion. The second option is to upgrade the skills of your current sales force through training and practice.
“We’ve been through 5 sales trainers in the past 5 years, and we haven’t had a significant improvement.” I would be willing to bet you a steak dinner that’s because your salespeople don’t use the training. At the end of training, salespeople (including myself) are excited to take it to the field. But as they sit down in front of the first prospect/customer they see after the training, they realize that they haven’t even come close to mastering the stuff they learned in the training classroom, and they don’t want to risk using a live prospect or customer as a guinea pig. Sacrificing a ‘live’ customer could literally take food off their dinner table! Salespeople are smart, they are going to use the most efficient way they know how to move the prospect to a buying customer. Until they think the new way gives them a better chance than the old, they will use the old way 100% of the time. The only method to impart enough confidence in the effectiveness of the new training is to allow your salespeople to practice it in a ‘non-live’ environment that promotes learning, personalization, innovation, and feedback. Only then will they have the confidence to bring their new training to the field.
I have planned to cover the below topics in part two of this blog, and would love to hear from you if you have any stories from your company or thoughts on these:
- How often should I/we practice?
- How do you create a practice environment?
- How do you measure the progress of practice (from a sales force and salesperson perspective)?
I will post this entry on LinkedIn again, but if you want me to email you directly when the blog becomes available, just email me here.
I think sales training fails because the time required to truly adopt the content is not adequatley invested. Statistics indicate it takes roughly 28 days to instill new habits… Training typically takes place off-site or in a neutral location, free from distractions etc. Once back in the daily routine and familiar settings most fall back into the old methods.
If there is not a program and process in place to keep training content top of mind over the next 30-days, there is little chance of it sticking. A succesful training needs to incorporate ongoing follow ups to ensure the content is learned and adopted for long-term effect.
Sales training usually fails because it’s:
1. About product
2. About the company
3. About process – sales or business
For sales to be sticky it needs to benefit the sales professional – not add more admin steps to a very busy schedule.
I was running a select comfort store. Before I got there the closing average was only 9%. They had not hit a budget in any month for 10 years. My training was simple. I taught them NLP and Enneagram type casting. Every time a customer came in, we all watched each other from a distance and discussed after what personality type the customer was, and what could have been done different. We did this every day with every customer. (Helped that we were in a store and could do it this way)
By the end of the first month, we hit 120% of budget and the store closing average ended at 51%. (If it’s working keep doing it. Lol) We kept repeating this and never dipped below budget again and our closing average stayed above 50% for a year. After that, I moved on to another company. Whoever came in behind me, changed everything lost all the reps and they closed that location shortly after.
Some say that LUCK, comes with lots and lots of practice….
Great article, I truly agree… I must have met/trained close to 500 sales people this past year, and none of them answered my most basic questions in my presentations.
I think one reason also is that, sales people have the relationships already, and they are comfortable there (comfort zone), as you also bring up, and why change something that works (but perhaps they are not aware that it could work much better).
Going after new prospects is tough enough for sales people. But if it was me, I would certainly try out what I had just been trained. It all comes down to fear, and not being confident in what you do. What can go wrong, we are all people here, we are allowed to fail, or not have the answer to everything.
As to how to train, it is not easy. I still haven’t found any good way, because it is never the same having workshops and breakout sessions during the training, where the practice are done among people who all know each other.
Setting two colleagues in front of each other trying to do a negotiation is not the same, as sitting in front of your customer!
The best way I can see right now, would be for your next sales training, have one of your good and long term customers (i.e. the lead buyer, etc.), come in and help you. First he could do a presentation on what he is looking for when sitting with his supplier etc. Second HE could be part of the practice during the breakout session, where he would be the counterpart, i.e. when sales people have to learn about negotiation, etc… I think you get the idea…
The actual training should be perhaps once a quarter, and perhaps with the same trainer. So get a consultant and keep that consultant on an ongoing basis, for followups.
One may even bring the consultant to some of the meetings and try out the new stuff that was just taught…
I agree, role playing is one of the best methods to apply what is being taught in training. Unfortunately most people fear “role playing”. I have found if ground rules are set prior to beginning role playing, the learning experience is much better. Some ground rules for me always include, we are not here to be the most obstinate customer we can be, we are not hear to make your role partner look inferior or embarrassed. We are to be positive and play NICE with each other. Trying to trip up the partner is not excepted. etc. Once those rules are stated, the fear of rejection and embarrassment subside and the play is more productive.
Great points Donna! I try to set expectations and “rules” in a similar fashion. Doing otherwise can create an adversarial situation and do more harm than good.
Great topic and input. I refuse to do any training with out time for practice and application. I use a 2:1 rule, if I talk 1 minute, they work 2 minutes. The participants come out actually able to apply the ideas. (Speech giving is a different story and there are no long term expectations)
Here is one of the key barriers: The sales managers are clueless about coaching or skill building! I generally insist that managers attend and participate and then do some additional work with them so the practice can continue. Most have no idea of how to engage the participants, guide them or positively coach them. In some of my projects we included a “train the manager how to train” segment right up front before the training project begins. This gives them a chance to do some “training” in the sessions and continue it after the fact.
Harlan, gets back tot he old “train the trainer” approach that has been around for a while and works.
Salespeople are not motivated by classroom sales training as it rarely comes close to selling or managing accounts in the real world of selling. Management too often tries to make selling a “perfect” practice when the reality is that the art of selling is never perfect. If selling were easy then everyone would be doing it (perfectly).
Eric- this a great observation! Practice is the key. I have been in sales for over 10 years and one of the best programs I attended required the team to go back a literally create a schedule to practice the class material. We roled played all phases of the sales call, and teleprospecting.
I enjoyed this piece… keep it coming!
Eric,
You’ve hit on one of the biggest complaints sales executives have—they spend a great deal of hard and soft dollars on sales training and then they see little impact from the training. Your observation that practice is the key is really half of the primary issue.
Sales training as it has been delivered for decades is at best 98% information exchange with maybe 2% roll playing. In fact, I’ve seen numerous discussions of the best way to deliver the information. Training really isn’t—shouldn’t—be about information exchange. Information exchange only is worthless—just ask any sales executive who has paid for it.
If we really want sales training to be effective we have to sell it—or buy it depending on which side of the table you’re on—as a twofold process: the actual information exchange event and then either a post-event contract to provide one-on-one or small group coaching or a train the coach session.
Sales training should be far more about behavior change than information exchange. Unfortunately, as currently sold, it is almost exclusively about information exchange.
Few salespeople are capable of self-coaching. Taking the information one has learned and turning it into behavior isn’t an easy task. Many salespeople leave a training event with little or no idea of how to take what they’ve learned (most of the time it isn’t new information, so it really isn’t ‘learned’ but existing knowledge has been reinforced) and turn it into effective action. Those sellers don’t even try to implement it.
Many other salespeople have an idea of what to do and give practicing it a shot, but then stumble and sputter. They have no one deeply versed in the behavior to turn to for coaching. They quickly get discouraged and move on to something else.
If we trainers want our product to do what we claim and if sales executives want their investment to pay off, the way sales training is delivered must change. If we don’t find a way to turn the information into behavior we’ll continue to see failure the normal result from training sessions.
Agree with you, practice is the key, some companies train their sales force, including role play for practicing, however, the key to making better salesmen is to develop the strategic agility, sales is about think fast based on customer’s response to overcome objections.
Here’s a twist. How about before buying training you make sure you have the right people in the training (on the right bus and in the right seats)? Two mistakes companies make in purchasing training. One, they “assume” everyone on the team is trainable (the trainer makes this mistake also), and two, they look at it as an event, vs. a process (ongoing reinforcement of the training).
Not everyone is trainable and it’s a huge mistake to assume everyone is. This is why I use my assessment tool “before” I train and I will not allow anyone that comes back non-trainable in to the training. A non-trainable person will (1) not get better,and (2) he/she will blame the training why they aren’t gettng better and becomes a cancer to the training since they started out non-trainable to begin with.
Paul is correct. Most training is just about info. exchange, not behavior change and I’ll add to that technique trainng without both behavior modification “and” negative beleif change, technique training ( and with practice.role playing, etc. as a key component), alone will never work as well. Another reason why I “objectively” assess skill sets, behaviors, and beleifs, “before” I train and then train as a “process”, of ongoing, reinforcemenet style of training to “gradually” change negative beliefs, behaviors, and install new skill sets. You can’t do all of this and have a successful team and training in a one day event.
Steve, with all due respect, I disagree. Salespeople can be motivated by classroom sales training “if” two things happen. One, you have the right people being trained, as I mention before, and two, you have the right trainer training the right way and on the right stuff (an objective assessment will only tell you what that right stuff is they need). Sadly, the reason most training is neither fun nor motivating is a direct result of # 1 and a lousy trainer. I conduct much of my ongoing, reinforcement training on Monday’s here in Denver and I hear from the salespeople/students constantly, “I never thought I would be motivated to looking forward to Monday, but coming to class does that for me”
I am a sales trainer, providing customized programs. When I followed up my early training sessions after a year I was disappointed to see how little was still being used.
I now sell my training as a chamnge/enhancement of the corporate sales culture. I require Sales Management leaders to attend the sessions with the sales force. I strongly reccomend that the Executive Managment team spend two hours with me so they understand my messaging and speak the same language with their teams. I strongly recommend the company contract me to train their customer service staff as well. Everyone involved with customers should be on the same page.
Finally, I send reminders from my program each month in a newsletter for discussions at regular meetings. Every 12 months I reccomend a remedial session which includes any new material I have developed in the last year.
When I am able to deliver training as described above, it sticks. It’s very successful and the results are excellent.
OK, all, this is great – ensure your clients send managers to training, reinforce with practice, get the client to bring you in to reinforce the lessons, assess the sales team in advance to see which ones are really “trainable”, put management through separate workshops on how to coach, treat training as a process and not an event, etc. I think as sales effectiveness consultants/trainers, we all strive to get our clients to buy into this, as we know that the one-off workshops aren’t going to do much for increased sales. The question I have is how many of you are successful getting your clients to agree, and more importantly, pay, for this type of solution? Even if they don’t bring you back in, there is an added cost to the organization of devoting this type of care and attention to the training process (i.e. time in field coaching, practice sessions, replacing people assessed as “non-sales performers”). I find so many companies just want a workshop, agree that the rest is important, but rarely make an effort (or write a check) to actually make it happen. Do you just say “no” to the opportunity in these cases, or do you (like me – I hate to say), take the workshop assignment for the immediate payday, and then hope to win a longer term engagement?
If for any reason the sales training program is adopted from the top down… poor results are really the only outcome. Often times, we rely too much on the sales team to adopt best practices on their own time & pace. The sales team & processes are only good as their leaders.
Jay’s point is excellent; not only does sales leadership have to embrace, engage and utilize the training, executive management (especially in small and mid-size businesses) must ‘violently’ endorse and subscribe to the tenets of the training.
But that also means putting the money where the mouth is! Since we have all long subscribed to the axiom that ‘compensation drives behavior’, comp plans must reward and reinforce the training.
Of course one could argue that following the training will increase sales success which, in turn, will increase compensation. And that is a true, but insufficient, perspective. We must compensate for the positive behavioral changes that the training drives. If, for example, training focuses on developing the salesperson’s consultative discovery skills, a short term incentive should be put in place for capturing and recording (in the CRM system) data that management believes are critical to understanding the needs of the prospect/client.
Training is about affecting behavior change. It may be an oversimplification, but rewarding changed behavior (not just results) could be a key to post-training success. Management and leadership should build the cost(s) of these rewards into the expense of training… and might even get a faster payback and sustainable ROI.
Without a firm foundation the best training will fail! If self development were easy, everyone would do it. That’s why companies, managers and trainers alike should first take the time to develop a team of highly motivated and self sufficient people that effectively manage their own minds! A great salesperson knows where they are going and know how to get there. They have been given the tools to create a road map to success, and are focused like a lazier on the goal at hand. Unfortunately no one seems to take the time to teach these techniques. Build a strong foundation and insure that when your training is delivered they will determinedly take the next and most important step which is ACTION!
Best regards,
Janetta Wilson
As is well documented above, practice is essential; as is the need for coaching and feedback from one’s manager. Unfortunately the typical sales training model is flawed:
Too much information is provided (“the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure” )
The manager doesn’t facilitate the session and MAY not even be present or familiar with the content (therefore no consistent coaching can take place)
The process is most often one directional – Reps sit and listen (adults learn best in an environment of collaboration)
There is little or no accountability (what is the change in behavior?)
While Director of ADT University I found a solution that shatters the model above and like Victor Kiam of Remington, “I liked the company so well, I bought (into) it.”
We offer a multi-media set of tools for the manager to facilitate a one hour, skill specific session, once a month, with Rep collaboration, role-plays and testing.
As I recall when playing sports – not only was practice essential, but so was visualization. Its importance to sales teams has been totally overlooked. After past trainings, I’ve been guilty of being one of the first reps out the door, not being able to sit still or take any more info in. And what do we do once out the door? Check VM and email. We jump quickly back in to the old routine trying to make up for lost time. With no practive and zero time spent on visualization, it’s not likely we’ll fully apply new skills to our old spiels…. We may use positive visualization to aim at finishing the quarter over goal – but are we using this method to see the road there? (Especially when we’ve been asked to take a different route?)
Unless there is an actual structure to follow up from training, the best training will fail. From my experience, salespeople will stick with what they are comfortable with & not apply what they learned in training. You need to inolve & train the sales management team to monitor, coach & hold the reps accountable over the long term. Plus, you need to have reps PRACTICE their newly learned skills (i. e. simulation, NOT just role play) for them to understand the process and become comfortable with it. Salespeople need to know that this will be the sales culture going forward, & that they will need to either get on board or work elsewhere.
Just my $.02.
I agree with Sean and just wanted to add one thing, if you can show them using a real account or deal on how it is done, it may move them away from their comfort zone. From my experience in sales and provided programs to develop sales people for many years, I know that sales people like to spend less time on paper work(methodology) but more time understand their customers and the actual execution of closing deals. Once they see that the training can actually works(their personal ROIs), the training will likely to be more successful. I have experienced actual cases of participants actually applied what they learnt and closed significant deals.
Possibly organizations fail to implement what is taught and this could be an inherent weakness of a given training program or manager. In sales, few sales situations are alike. The human emotion is integral to the give and take of discussion. One cannot benefit greatly from practice. However, the individual will benefit from preparation such that the variables that occur in any sales situation is handled most effectively. You could call that practice; I would call it in “Tiger” terms approach.
This is a great discussion topic and one that I also encourage with prospective clients before beginning a training relationship. Clients need to know why sales training typically fails so we can properly address each potential issue and execute preventative measures.
Effective sales training implementation is a matter of effective behavioral modification. Too often sales training is treated as an event, rather than an ongoing process of continuous development.
First, as John addressed, it’s essential to ensure the organization is training the right people – individuals who are behaviorally suited and have the proper selling/achievement/communication propensities for the position. I’ve had great success and client feedback from my Human Capital assessments in this regard.
Assuming that is in place, I agree with Eric’s article point 100% and will add a lobster to the steak dinner bet that most salespeople still don’t use the training they’ve learned in live situations, instead falling back to their old ways (regardless of how effective they are).
Again, this is a matter of behavioral modification whereby the salesperson has practiced and reinforced the training to the point where it becomes automatic in their selling interactions. Like mastering any new skill, this does not happen overnight and countless sales people fail to effectively adopt training simply because they don’t put in the time (and effort) it takes to do so. In order for sales people to effectively adopt training they must consistently work on their game through a disciplined and committed practice regimen.
I conduct and encourage not only regular sales meetings with role-playing, training reinforcement, etc. but also opportunities appraisal and “live” calls where I can coach and adjust behaviors in real-time.
May The Sales Force Be With You
I followed this disscution also on Linkedin. A lot of interesting feedback from experinced trainers.
I’m very interested in this subject mainly because the training budgets reduced and my clients would like to receive shorter, less expencive and more efficient programs.
Reading all your comments, 2 questions are coming in my mind, and I would like to hear your answers:
1. Remember? When you were working in sales, how did you feel about being trained? What was usefull? What was boring? What did you apply?
2. Now you are a trainer (consultant). To how many trainings did you participate (as trainee) during the last 12 months? What was usefull? What did you apply? How do you learn now?
Thank you very much!
Respectfuly yours,
Bogdan
I agree with Sean and just wanted to add one thing, if you can show them using a real account or deal on how it is done, it may move them away from their comfort zone. From my experience in sales and provided programs to develop sales people for many years, I know that sales people like to spend less time on paper work(methodology) but more time understand their customers and the actual execution of closing deals. Once they see that the training can actually works(their personal ROIs), the training will likely to be more successful. I have experienced actual cases of participants actually applied what they learnt and closed significant deals.