I’m delighted to be both presenting and participating in a panel discussion at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston on May 21^st.

Using recent research from ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide, I’ll talk specifically about technology-enabled learning—how technology is changing learning and why today, effective sales learning requires technology.

I’ve not been shy in voicing my concerns about the some of the hype and lofty expectations around Sales 2.0 and the distraction that it causes for some of our client companies struggling through the kinds of sales challenges that Sales 2.0 approaches and tools can’t immediately overcome.

At the same time substantive progress is being made on the technology front.  ESR has given credit to those companies who are making real contributions to sales effectiveness through technology-enabled learning and technology-enabled selling—companies like Kadient, Richardson, The TAS Group, SPI, Holden, White Springs, Primary Intelligence, The Brooks Group, Miller Heiman, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Jigsaw, Lucidera, and many more.

As a researcher and analyst, I’ll be in learning mode at the conference as well.  I’m looking forward to understanding more about the approaches and solutions of the companies presenting and sponsoring this event, and learning from those sales leaders who will be attending it.  Please introduce yourselves to me.

Hope to see you there.  If you can’t attend, I’ll keep you informed through Twitter.

Photo credit:  (c) 2008 Dave Stein — Boston from 7000 feet
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Donate $25 or more to the human rights charity Witness.org, email your receipt to me,
and I’ll send you the full-size jpg of this photo.  dave.stein @ ESResearch.com
Make sure your credit card number is not on the receipt, please.

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For those of you who follow the ups and downs, ins and outs of the sales training industry, here is the latest, as of today, April 1, 2009:

• Miller Heiman and furniture manufacturer Herman Miller have announced a merger.  The new business, to be called Herman Miller Heiman, will be offering a new, upgraded version of their highly popular Aeron chair.  It will be called The Silver Bullet™. Preliminary tests show that within two minutes of  a salesperson sitting in the chair (seen on the right), the phone starts ringing with people wanting to buy whatever they are selling, immediately, at any price.  An HMH spokesperson called the new chair, “The Silver Bullet that sales people have been waiting for.”
  

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• Huthwaite, Inc. has announced a new program called S.P.I.N. Stalling. Originally developed with cooperation of Procrastinators International, program participants will learn about the psychology of stalling and how best to strong-arm a reluctant customer into buying something—anything!  By the way, the 25-year-old Procrastinators International has still not scheduled their first membership meeting.
  

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• The TAS Group revealed this week that they have expanded their vision of the role technology will play in sales effectiveness and have decided to acquire Garmin, GE, and The Gap.  York Baur, The TAS Group’s CMO said, “We’re taking anytime, anywhere learning to the next logical level.  You’ll be able to get our content, learning, coaching as well as instant guidance on your deals directly, without a computer or PDA, from your Nüvi, your toaster and even your jeans.”  Baur continues, “By 2011 we’ll be licensing a TAS-chip which will be implanted just behind the left ear in a painless three-minute procedure.”   The TAS Group is negotiating with Seattle’s SEA-TAC airport to have its distance-learning video clips play 24/7 on televisions throughout the airport.
  

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• Selling to Big Companies author Jill Konrath told us she is increasing her productivity level for the remainder of 2009.  Each and every week she will be delivering five webinars, four videos, three white papers, two blog posts and a book for all of us to read.
  

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• The U.S. Congress is about to commence an investigation of why dozens of randomly selected sales trainers all have the same companies listed as references on their websites.  The CEOs from Oracle, Dell, IBM, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Sun, and other technology companies are expected to testify next week as to who their sales training partners really are.
  

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• After almost a century of heated debate, two age-old questions have finally been answered unequivocally, once and for all:  “Are salespeople are born or made?” and, “Is sales art or science?”  Now we can move on to other questions such as, is cold-calling dead?
  

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• Fifty-three purchasing agents from New York City-based multinationals have been granted licenses to carry assault rifles.  They had claimed that during the current economic crisis, sales reps from New York have been even more threatening than before.  Mr. Blake, the New York chapter representative from SPA—the Sales Professionals of America—was outraged.  “If those #^%!@# buyers think they can threaten our &%$@#@$ members with AK-47’s and !#¢Æ§  Uzi’s, they can @!(*(*&@#.  And the horse they rode in on.”
  

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• Sales legend Rick Page was overheard in the Hartsfield airport in Atlanta saying,  “I really do hope I catch my flight.”
  

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• The next release of Salesforce.com will include an interface to activity sensor mini-applications on salesreps’ computers. If the salesrep is active on their computer but does not update the required data, Salesforce.com blocks access to MySpace.com, Facebook.com, YouTube.com, Ebay.com, Zillo.com, Meebo.com, Friendster.com, Orkut.com,  AdultFriendFinder.com, and Zappos.com  for 30 days.  Russian hackers are already selling software to bypass the restriction.
  

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• LinkedIn estimates that the number of sales-related groups on their site will top 1,000 by mid-year.  That will be close to one-half the number of sales-related blogs ESR expects to be live by that time.
  

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• In Silicon Valley, more than 10,000 out-of-work salespeople  paid $100 each to download a document entitled One Hundred Foolproof Ways to Hide Gaps in Your Resume. Another site was discovered last week already boasting 12,000 downloads of, How to Enlist Estranged Family Members As References.  You may remember that just one year ago today the video, How to Forge a W-2 and Other Income Verification Documentation surfaced on YouTube.  There have been more than one millions views.
  

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• With promotional webinar attendance down in 2009, WebEx is recommending that companies prospecting for customers pay them for attending the one-hour webinars.  A senior executive at WebEx said, “If you pay them, they will come.”
  

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• Following a number of snarking incidents Robin Fray Carey of SocialMediaToday.com has decided to change the name of The Customer Collective to the more appropriate The Customer Invective.
  

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• Well-respected, prolific, and seriously dapper UK sales top sales expert Jonathan Farrington has some explaining to do.  He recently dropped his signature eyeglasses whilst at London’s Heathrow airport, Terminal 1.  Coincidentally, a local ophthalmologist happened to be standing there, recovered the glasses and, after a moment’s inspection, noted that the lenses were, in fact, clear glass.
  

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• The Harvard and Stanford Business Schools announced today that they will be offering fully accredited Masters of Professional Selling degrees beginning in 2012.  Harvard’s Chancellor I. Kangettitforu Holsael said, “We’re thirty years behind the times.  With more than 7 million salespeople in the U.S. alone, and sales productivity at an all time low, we are taking a bold step.  We want our B-school to be relevant to the business community. Sales is not marketing.  It finally needs to be respected and supported.”
  

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• Immediately following the Obama administration’s announcement this morning of an investigation of plagiarism and pirating among sales trainers, as many as thirty popular sales tips websites were taken down, with “Under Construction” showing up on home pages.
  

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• A recent survey of eBay sales shows that a sales training shingle can be purchased for as little as $3.00.  Clever names for new sales approaches have leveled off at $1.03.  Names using acronyms are going for a dollar more.
  

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• Responding to the financial crisis, IBM issued new guidelines.  Their coveted top performer sales award club will be held at the Admiral’s Club at O’Hare airport later this month.  Each attendee will be given a voucher for a meal at the food court.  Tickets for short-term parking will be validated.
  

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• Social media advocate Axel Schultze announced today that he is upgrading his dial-up modem. “Present technology supports considerably faster communication.  1200 baud just doesn’t do it for me.  I know if I move to 9600 baud, everyone will quickly follow.”  You may remember that Axel was in the news last month after having convinced senior executives at Wal-Mart to have all their in-store sales associates spend 50% of their time at work on Twitter to prospect for additional business.
  

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• The interest around Sales 2.0 is expected to continue gather momentum.  The term has proved to be such a money maker for some, that Chrysler, who owns the Jeep brand, is making a Sales 2.0 model of their venerable Wrangler, in an attempt to duplicate the success of their Eddie Bauer model.  Celebrity Cruise lines is even considering a four week “Sales 2.0 Cruise to Nowhere.”
  

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Thanks to Jonathan Farrington for his early opinion this post, with his real glasses.
My sincere respect and appreciation for many Sales 2.0 vendors and, especially, Nigel Edelshein.
Photo credit:  Herman Miller Heiman

When it comes to marketing, Miller Heiman leads the pack.  I recently spoke with Elizabeth Vanneste, their Chief Marketing Officer. Elizabeth brought Miller Heiman into four telecommunications companies where she had previously worked. She joined the Miller Heiman team last June as a sales VP and took over marketing three months ago.

Elizabeth shared with me that her firm just added 15 sales consultants and kicked off a new partnership in India.  They have a new program, Securing Strategic Appointments, in which the participants learn, among other things, how to craft the right message, with valid business reasons, to meet with customer executives.  In addition, the program lays out specific plans for getting those critical appointments.  Elizabeth says there is a lot of interest in using these skills for selling to the government.

We talked about the economy and travel restrictions.  Miller Heiman has set up additional public sessions.  I wrote a post about public sales training sessions a while back.  They are, under certain circumstances, something to consider.

Elizabeth and I discussed technology as well.  According to Elizabeth, Miller Heiman has made significant progress with their e-learning offerings and their sales enablement tools that integrate with the top nine CRM systems (through White Springs).  Miller Heiman consultants are also now performing Blue Sheet reviews via webinars and conference calls, helping to keep their customers’ costs down.

Back to Miller Heiman’s marketing.  Miller Heiman’s brand equity is substantial.  That’s not only because they’ve been around for thirty years.  (Other training companies have been around that long or nearly that long.)  So far as sales training companies are concerned, Miller Heiman is predominant on the Web.  I’ve got Miller Heiman tagged in Google Alerts, as well as 40 or so other sales training companies.  There is no question that Miller Heiman significantly outnumbers the others with hits coming from blogs, articles, other companies’ websites (Hoover, for example), conference agendas, news, and other sources.

“Strategic Selling,” a trademarked Miller Heiman brand, is certainly widely recognized, but has become so often used generically, that it may not be connected to Miller Heiman as often as they would like.  This is similar to the issue that SPI has with their trademarked “Solution Selling.”

Miller Heiman’s leadership position in marketing isn’t something to take lightly.  After all, with the close relationship sales should have with marketing in most companies, a training company’s ability to market themselves effectively is a proof statement of an understanding of some of the most important issues, isn’t it?

Finally, this all may sound terrific to you if you’re searching out a sales training company. I can only warn you that selecting Miller Heiman or any other company based upon this or any other one-page write up is precisely the wrong thing to do.  ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide, Third Edition, will be published later this month.  In the Guide, Miller Heiman and two dozen other providers are evaluated, compared and contrasted.

Disclosure:  Miller Heiman subscribes to ESR’s research.

Photo credit: DesignImage.com

There have been some interesting conversations taking place on The Customer Collective on the subject of the adoption of social media and the changes required in approach and skills for B2B salespeople.  If you’re interested in a little entertainment—snarking, social media-style—I would suggest looking at these two posts and more important the comment thread that follows: David Brock’s Why Do Sales People Have Such a Bad Reputation? and Axel Schultze’s Death of a sales man (sic).

Axel, a proponent of social media for B2B sales made a strong case for massive adoption, now.

What follows is my comment to Axel’s post in Death of a sales man.  There are a number of other comments to read, most of which make some good points.

I agree with many of your points.  I see things a bit differently … with respect to where some components of some sales peoples’ jobs are headed in the short term.  Technology, and more specifically, social media are playing a larger and larger role.  No argument from me there.  I know that as a researcher, as a business person, as a salesperson, and as a buyer!  I’m engaged.

Here, however, are some points for consideration:

• Some major market segments are today very, very far away from regular and widespread use of social media between buyers and sellers.  Industries such as industrial equipment, insurance, and some sub-sectors of health care have a long way to go.  There are other segments as well.  Government sales is in that category.  Those lagging industries and local, state and federal agencies, for the time being, are employing more traditional ways of learning about products and services—Web 1.0—looking at alternative vendors’ websites and discussions with salespeople and the experts they bring to the party.  Attempt to come at them through social media and you’ll likely find no one at the other end of the tweet.
• Certain modes of selling will lag significantly in the adoption of social media as a selling tool and capability.  As one example, the success of the strategic account manager (SAM) presently depends on many of the more traditional sales skills and capabilities to drive the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue they each bring to their companies each year.  Will that change?  Sure.  But not this week, this month, or maybe even this year.  If the seller tried to alter that relationship it would be very risky. [The premier source of intelligence on that discipline is SAMA: the Strategic Account Management Association.]

We can’t throw out all the old concepts, approaches and skills just yet.  Many billions of dollars of business will get done this year by sellers employing the skills taught by Miller Heiman, Wilson, Huthwaite, Holden, SPI, The Complex Sale, and the other larger as well as single-person firms. My firm studies those companies and has audited the performance improvement results that some of their clients have achieved.

I know there are many reading this that think that stuff is old and irrelevant.  I agree.  It is, but only in a minority of B2B selling situations.  Mainstream corporate and government sales success is still driven by overall compliance with a buyer-centric sales methodology.  I know some don’t want to hear that.  But the fact is this: research proves that compliance with many traditional sales best-practices is getting the job done for many companies.

So, if my points about social media being relevant to a relatively small piece of the B2B market are correct, we are potentially doing a real disservice to many sales people and managers by distracting them with representations that the whole world of selling is changing, now.

I would estimate that 80 to 90% of direct salespeople in B2B sales need to get better at the more traditional approaches to selling–for the time being. This is important:  There is significant room for improvement in sales performance through sales leaders adopting the best-practices of top-performing selling companies in areas other than social media.

Here’s the bottom line for me, Axel:  If a salesperson’s buyers have really embraced social media as a way to establish and build relationship with those who would provide them with valuable products and services, great.  Those companies do exist.  But in general, and regretfully for some I’m sure, we’re just not there yet.

Special favor: I’m really interested in your feedback on this subject.  If you’re a sales leader, would you please take this brief Kadient survey?  It will help us figure out what is really going on with respect to the use of social media in B2B sales.

Note: I suggest the reader peruse the comments to this post.  Wow!

Each year ESR publishes its annual Sales Training Vendor Guide.

The 2008 Guide, which was published last December, compares and contrasts 19 leading sales training providers across many different capabilities such as depth and breadth of offering, program effectiveness, educational design, available customization, post-program reinforcement, learning technology support and measurement.

Although the 2008 Guide came in at 170 pages, the ESR/Arena (right) was, for many, the highlight of the report.  With appropriate deference to the Gartner Magic Quadrant, we designed the ESR/Arena to provide a quick, graphical perspective for those who would read the report.

We released a standalone copy of the ESR/Arena early in 2008. We found that some buyers of sales training were leaning toward making decisions about vendor selection based solely upon a single glance at the Arena.  We’re certainly delighted that they have that degree of trust in us, but that is precisely the wrong way to go about such a critical decision.

Selecting the right sales training company—the right way—is a process.  There are no shortcuts.  The foundation, and most critical component of the process, is a comprehensive assessment of the selling company’s situation.  I’m not talking about a quick, “The reps need training in cold-calling,” or “They need to get higher in the customer’s organization.”  Hundreds of millions of dollars a year are wasted on training based upon such short-sighted and matter-of-fact statements.  I know.  Performing postmortems on failed sales training interventions is part of what we do at ESR.  And now is a really bad time to spend money getting your people trained only to find that there has been no measurable improvement.

Now that I’ve offered that disclaimer you can take a look at the 2008 ESR/Arena. (Click on the graphic for full size.)  There are a few things for you to keep in mind:

• This graphic is a year old.  A number of vendors have gone through changes during the past year.
• There are eight additional vendors that ESR has included in our coverage that are not represented in the 2008 ESR/Arena.  (Here is a complete list.)
• There are literally hundreds of other training firms, from one person to many, that could very well be the right one to meet your company’s training requirements.  Your perfect partner may very well not even be on this chart.
• No single vendor that ESR covers is right for every company.  It’s your job, not theirs to make sure you’ve selected the right one.

ESR’s 2009 Sales Training Vendor Guide will be published early in the year.  It will include 26 vendors and considerably more information about training programs, CRM integration, Sales 2.0 technology, and other critical capabilities than previous Guides.

Chris Hens, President and COO of White Springs, presented at the Richardson client forum last week.  The subject was in-context sales learning and reinforcement.

With a background in sales training, Chris has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face with respect to sales performance improvement.  White Springs has worked with Complex Sale, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, ValuSelling and SPI, among others, to automate sales and opportunity management processes and to connect those to a company’s CRM system.

Richardson has been, and continues to be, a leader in non-traditional (other-than-classroom) learning.  They’ve engaged with White Springs for embedding and integrating their sales learning content into their established tools and business practices.  Chris calls this embedded sales learning. (See graphic, courtesy of White Springs.  Click for full-size.)

Why is this so important?  In order to increase sales effectiveness, more salespeople must complying with the sales process that has been designed for their selling situation.  When that process is modeled in software such as this and they are provided learning reinforcement within that software, it will increase compliance, contributing to sales performance improvement.

Whether you’re shopping for sales training, sales process work, Sales 2.0 tools, or CRM, be certain that your sales processes (qualification, discovery, opportunity management, etc.) are top-of-mind. The vendors you should consider must have the proven ability to support technology-enabled selling and learning.  ES Research has done a considerable amount of research in this area. 

To: Sales Trainers, Authors and Experts

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Bob Beck story this week, it’s worth learning about.  Here are four posts to get you started:

• Hey! Stop Plagiarizing My Content! (This blog)
• Noted Sales Guru Caught Plagiarizing? (Geoffrey James’s Sales Machine Blog — Thanks, Geoffrey)
• Plagiarism, Concealment or Coincidence? The Case of Bob Beck (Charles Green’s TrustedAdvisor.com)
• Plagiarism, Concealment or Coincidence? The Case of Bob Beck (TheCustomerCollective.com — duplicate post from above, but with different comments.)

There are two important things to learn from this:

1. If you are legitimately creating your own content based upon your insights, research, experiences and unique perspectives, you a target for having your intellectual property stolen and used for the financial gain of someone else.  I’m certain you know this isn’t new in the sales training industry.
2. If you are on the other side of the equation and you pirate, plagiarize or just plain steal what others have created, and represent it as your own, you’re likely going to get caught.

Here is a tip for those of you who want to uncover where your content may be republished on the Internet:

1. Sign up for Google Alerts here: http://www.google.com/alerts. 
2. Select a unique phrase of a few words from each piece of content you’d like to track. 
3. Do a Google search on the phrase, enclosing it in double quotes.  The quotes are very important.  Here are two of my phrases: “quantified business value attributed to each”  And, “a little Miller Heiman, a little solution selling and a little Neil Rackham.”  (Note: This step will let you know where those phrases might have already been used.)
4. See if the phrase is in fact unique.  If it isn’t select another one.
5. If someone copies your content (which contains that unique phrase) and posts in on the Internet, the likelihood is that it will be indexed by Google. If it is, you will receive an email.

Finally:  If you find an instance where someone has plagiarized your content and can prove it, as I Geoffrey (on behalf of others), Charlie and I have done, provide me with the details privately.  (Don’t just send me the link.  Save the actual webpage containing the plagiarized material to your computer, in case the culprit decides to remove that content. In Internet Explorer it’s File, Save As, MHT format – Web Archive-Single File.)  Perhaps someone can comment on how to do that with Firefox.

I’m going to do what I can to help rid the industry of those that practice purposeful copyright infringement.  Will you help?

Training Magazine recently published an article I wrote.  It’s about innovation in sales training. 

There are a couple of points in the article I’d like to comment on.  The first:

“Innovation has been slow to come to some of the larger training companies, as well. There are two major reasons for that. First, some of the companies that have been around for many years are still being run by the founders, some of whom are reluctant to invest in content, educational design, technology support, and high-quality facilitators. The reason? Investments such as those impact their personal income, and as a result, innovation suffers.”

Last week I spoke with Tim Young, who joined CustomerCentric Systems (one of the sales performance improvement providers that ESR covers) last January.  Tim’s background is in marketing services.  He’s a savvy guy focused on growing CCS.  Unlike some other companies in the sales training space, here is a company whose principals, Mike Bosworth, John Holland, Frank Visgatis, and Gary Walker decided to invest in the future of their company. 

I go on to discuss special requirements that companies have with respect to sales training:

“Most companies have heterogeneous sales teams with salespeople who are experienced and inexperienced, skilled and not so skilled, with right-brained tendencies (selling as an art) and their left-brained counterparts (selling as a science). Employing a one-size-fits-all approach to training results in little learning and considerable resentment on the part of a fairly large percentage of classroom attendees.”

Companies that are moving toward individualized learn-anytime and -anywhere will have the advantage going forward.  Leaders like SPI, The TAS Group, Sandler, Miller Heiman and Richardson (among others) are providing technology-enabled learning tools to meet those challenges head on.

During a discussion with a CEO client Wednesday about his VP of sales, the subject of strategic thinking came up.  Here are some thoughts on that subject and a recommendation.

One of the many capabilities required for success in complex selling and most sales management positions is the ability to think and act strategically.  Too many people in sales and sales management are tactical—responding and reacting, rather than having a vision of a final outcome and a plan to get there. 

I’ve seen many salespeople and their managers learn to see things strategically. Certainly some DNA is involved. But exposure to different sales approaches, books, coaches, consultants and case studies can all help.   Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, for example, is certainly a must-have on the bookshelf of anyone serious about a career in selling.  

Much of what I learned early in my career about sales strategy came from guys like Jim Holden, Rick Page and Bob Miller and Stephen Heiman’s book Strategic Selling.   Actually, those resources got me pretty far, initially.  I could out-plan and out-strategize the competition.  So could the salesreps that worked for me.  That competitive edge served to motivate me to learn more about advanced selling strategies. 

Later on, when I was a full-time competitive sales strategist, I bought the book Thinking Strategically.  Although the applications of strategy discussed were broad in scope, the book powered me to a new level.  In fact, I still reread certain sections of the book every year or so.  That’s how valuable it is to me.  But be advised: It’s not easy reading.  There is considerable mental work involved.  If The Art of War is elementary school, Thinking Strategically is graduate school.

The book was originally published in 1991.  It hasn’t lost its potency.

Earlier this month Miller Heiman was acquired by Sterling Investment Partners of Westport, Connecticut.  From the press release: “The business was acquired from Leeds Equity Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, for an undisclosed price.”  (Disclosure:  Miller Heiman subscribes to ESR’s research.)

On Monday, I spoke with an enthusiastic Sam Reese, Miller Heiman’s CEO.  Sam walked me through Leeds’ divestiture of his company.  According to Sam, Leeds is one of the most disciplined private equity firms. They had set aggressive performance objectives when they acquired Miller Heiman in 2005.  Once Miller Heiman achieved those objectives, Leeds did as they promised their investors they would do, they divested.

Sam told me that one of the challenges he faces is not growing Miller Heiman too fast.  He is intent on maintaining quality and a high level of customer satisfaction.  He talked about record-setting revenues, landing big new clients and expanding their global presence.  Sam said that he tries not to be over-confident.  Sam is the second sales training company CEO I spoke with in two days that said they were overperforming against their goals and objectives.  Interesting during these challenging economic times.  That’s a subject I’ll get back to over the next few weeks.

Miller Heiman’s clients should expect to see a new focus on front-end prospecting tools and process as well as back-end coaching.  These are two prominent areas that ESR has identified as critical for companies seeking to derive more value from sales performance improvement initiatives.  Miller Heiman’s clients should see investments in these area as good news.

My intent in this post is not to provide an in-depth analysis of Miller Heiman.  I’ll leave that up to ESR’s analysts.  But one point is worth mentioning.  Miller Heiman enjoys significant brand equity resulting from a 30-year history and large numbers of companies and sales reps having gone through Miller Heiman training over the years.  They’ve got a lot of fans out there.

With that strength, though, come two potential weaknesses as perceived by some of the buyers of sales training we work with: First, a diminution of sales process and training as competitive advantage when competitive sales forces use the same methodology.  In other words, if my competitor is using Miller Heiman, I should choose something else—going with Miller Heiman as well won’t give my team an advantage.  (Actually that’s flawed thinking, but I’ll cover that at another time as well.) The second perception is that Miller Heiman’s approach, IP and coursework are dated.  That’s a challenge Sam and his team will have to overcome.