The Value and Perils of Customized Sales Training

Yesterday during The Top Sales Experts Roundtable, Linda Richardson made a strong case for customized sales training.  It’s not something she has to convince us at ESR about.
Many organizations want a customized sales training experience, whether it be live or virtual.  This can be good or bad, depending upon what experiences and materials are customized, [...]

My 2009 Word of The Year, So Far

One of my most-used words these days is “scrutinize.”  Merriam-Webster says it means “to examine closely and minutely.”
At ESR, we find ourselves using the word fairly often:

VPs have been asking us about how to determine which sales reps to keep and which to redeploy.  In this current economic situation some of what salesreps depended on [...]

Powering Through The Economic Crisis

You may have noticed that I’ve been posting less frequently during the past two weeks.  ESR is in the midst of a number of projects and new initiatives.  In addition, I’ve been on an increasing number of phone calls with clients, prospects, vendors, sales training associations’ leadership, and business associates.
I wrote Here’s What’s Going On [...]

ESR’s Approach For A Sales Performance Improvement Initiative

As ESR is completing our Sales Training Vendor Guide we are updating a number of our models.  Here is a presentation of our sales training approach model that we deliver to project teams tasked with finding, evaluating, and selecting sales training companies. The content is based upon work we’ve done with clients during the [...]

Sales Hiring From a Recruiter’s Perspective

As ESR continues to assess our clients’ sales challenges, we maintain that having the wrong people in the sales jobs is, in many cases, the biggest inhibitor to the success of a training intervention.  My interview with Todd Harris of PI Worldwide highlighted one of the tools available for sales leaders to get an objective [...]

What About Your Salesreps Who Work From Home?

A lot more salesreps are working from home now than even a few years ago.  But working from home isn’t for every salesrep or every company.  Now’s the time to look at this issue.  It could mean the difference between your home-office reps making their numbers or not.
A post on (Jigsaw’s CEO) Garth Moulton’s blog [...]

Here’s What’s Going On

ESR has a unique perspective on sales performance improvement. We don’t deliver sales training or sales consulting. We’re sales training industry observers, analysts, researchers and advisors to our clients on what works in sales effectiveness and training.
Here’s what’s been going on at ESR:

A large client in the financial services sector is working very hard [...]

Sales 2.0: Does It Enable Effective Selling Or Is It Yet Another Decoy?

As ESR continues to work with our clients, observe salespeople and research sales effectiveness, we’re frustrated and concerned with the increasing hype around Sales 2.0.
Is Sales 2.0 real?  Yes.  Are Sales 2.0 applications actually helping salespeople to win business? Yes.  There is no question about that.  But we believe in numbers significantly less than some [...]

Predictive Testing For Salespeople. No Reason Not To Do It.

I’ve been a proponent of psychometric/predictive testing for salespeople for many years.  I was a non-believer until Nancy Martini, now CEO at PI Worldwide, put me through their Predictive Index and SSAT (see below) in 2001.  After I took the two tests online, Nancy emailed me the manager’s version of my results and I nearly [...]

I Would Buy From This Guy!

Although I met Charlie Green a number of years ago when we were both presenting at a sales conference, I’ve only recently gotten to appreciate his perspective, his integrity and his intelligence.
Rather than me tell you about him, I asked him some questions instead.  Read, learn and enjoy.
Dave Stein: You’ve created a fabulous brand [...]