Re-Thinking Sales Training – 2011 and Beyond

In our last blog, (Winners Versus Losers – What Does Research Tell Us?) we discussed one thing that the best-in class companies understand really well - “programmatic” thinking.  The top companies understand what the components for sales training success are, but they’ve also organized those elements into a coherent whole for on-going improvement.  We also discussed how programmatic thinking and execution can be difficult in sales, because sales organization can be very volatile and prone to change (the average tenure of a CSO is about 22 months). 

To maximize their return on sales training investments, sales leaders and managers need to consider three key issues before investing in a sales training initiative, as illustrated below. 

• What roles are involved in our sales model?
• What best practice competencies (set of skills) are essential by role for high performance?
• What types of vehicles provide the best ongoing learning (and application) experience?

In most corporations, there are multiple selling roles in the overall sales model. These areas may include major account sales, territory sales, inside sales, channel sales, etc. It is important to consider the mix of roles in the sales model in terms of the appropriate sales training and development approach.  It is equally important to have a clear definition for each of these competencies (by role) as well as objective tools to assess your organization’s proficiency levels at any point in time.

A third critical consideration is how the learning will actually take place – across time. We have refined this perspective to incorporate four distinct types of learning. Each of these types of training play an integral role in successful learning, retention, and application.    An effective continual learning program considers roles, content, and each of these types of learning.  When thoughtfully designed, the program provides a planned, step-by-step approach for learning and performance improvement.  Based on research, many “best-in-class” companies apply the concepts described here and have created “programmatic” approaches to on-going improvement.

Today, Sales Performance International is announcing a fundamentally new offering based on continual learning principles that we genuinely believe will benefit our customers, and drive sustainable performance gains.  We call this new offering SellingStream, a comprehensive continual earning program for sales organizations.  Unlike traditional event-based training, this new offering provides a steady stream of planned learning and reinforcement activities that significantly increases the retention and application of new skills.  A subscription-based pricing model better aligns program costs with benefits that accrue across time, and subscribing organizations have unlimited access to a wide array of learning and reinforcement assets to address specific selling and management challenges.  But most importantly, each program includes measurement of key learning and business outcomes – isn’t that what really counts?

We believe that continual learning is the future of sales training and sales solutions, and today’s announcement is just the beginning.  On January 19, 2011, we’ll be conducting a webinar with TrainingIndustry.com to explore the possibilities for 2011 and beyond.  Please join us by Registering Here>>>