“WE DON’T NEED SALES TRAINING”
It is amazing in this day and age that there are many people in selling who have never been trained and if they have it was many years ago. Buyers are so much more educated and knowledgeable these days that they know as much about what you offer as you do. Competitive advantage is transitory, the best product today will not necessarily command a premium tomorrow, and the lowest price today will most likely be bettered in a few days time. The professional buyers (the procurement people) are also smarter – their aim is to commoditise everything and neutralise their suppliers’, i.e. your advantages.
There is one sector that has escaped commoditisation to a certain extent and that is the area of professional services. These people based businesses need to invest in training and development as their people are their products and differentiators. Even in the “tougher” times this investment continues where as in other sectors the first things that get chopped are the marketing and training budgets. The primary reason why professional services companies have escaped the worst of commoditisation is that they are perceived to add value. When I ran the major and international accounts function in ICL (now Fujitsu) I set an objective that our account managers should have a customer perceived value. i.e. the customer would pay for their time. The reason I set this objective was to have our account managers seen as trusted advisors rather than just sales reps. Those who made the transition were our most successful sales people and coincidentally they had the best sales skills. Trusted advisors they were but their primary role was to sell. Every consultant’s job is to sell, they are always seeking opportunities while on assignment.
Given the above, or even just the first paragraph why would anyone say “we don’t need sales training“? Here are a few light hearted reasons courtesy of Bob Musian:
1. Reduce accounts receivable. This will occur because you will have less sales and fewer customers and won’t have to worry as much about processing invoices and collecting cash.
2. Improve productivity. With fewer customers, staff will not need to spend as much time supporting existing business.
3. Streamline Customer Relationship Management. Again, with fewer customers, ongoing CRM programmes can be minimized. Perhaps even eliminated, thus saving money on software and related IT costs.
4. Reduce out-of-pocket costs. Not investing in sales training means staff will be free to continue producing poorly-performing presentations, ineffective proposals, and non productive customer meetings,
5. Decrease payroll and associated costs. Fewer customers translates to staff reduction, thereby resulting in lower payroll and related overhead costs.
Light hearted they might be and the consequences extreme, BUT the cutting edge of any commercial company is its sales capability. Not investing in sales training is a false economy because:
1. The number two reason that good sales people leave is lack of personal development evidenced by poor training investment
2. It is more expensive to keep poor performers than good ones
3. On a level playing field the company with the best sales person will always win.
4. Good sales people win business when they shouldn’t, and
5. Good sales people are a sustainable form of competitive advantage.
To conclude then good sales people become so through a cocktail of good leadership, training, coaching and positive experience.
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