ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide Published Today

ESR’s Sales Training Vendor Guide: Third Edition was published this morning.
The Guide analyzes, compares, and contrasts 23 leading sales training providers across many areas including:

Solutions Range
Range of Target Companies
Range of Target Audiences
Range of Training Programs
Adaptability
Range of Instructional Aids & Tools
Quality of Instructional Design
Measurement Programs
Post-training Reinforcement
Supporting Technology
Yield Growth
Return-On-Training (ROT)
Utilization among sales teams
Ease of Learning/Adoption

The Guide weighs [...]

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 [...]

Should You Spend Your Money On Sales 2.0 Or Sales Training?

Sales training is more than 100 years old.  With few exceptions, it’s not very sexy.  Many salespeople believe (PDF) they’ve been through enough of it to last a lifetime.  For many reasons, most of their managers don’t see any value, so they take a tactical, event-based approach just to check the “trained my people this [...]

New Year Resolutions For Sales Leaders

Pick one or more of the resolutions below.  Commit, execute, enjoy the results.

I’ll never hire another sales rep who can’t get the sales job done. First, completely understand the position and the skills and traits required to be successful.  Evaluating whether a candidate meets those requirements requires [...]

How Are Sales Training Companies Faring In This Economy?

A few of our clients have asked how the mainstream sales training companies are doing during this economic crisis.  Let me provide you with a few data points.
I received an email today from one CEO saying, “We are completing a great year with a 30+% growth.”
Based upon my understanding of current sales training demand, another [...]

The Sandler Sales Training Story, From A Franchisee

I got caught up a few weeks ago with Rich Geise, a friend and former colleague.  With 30 or so years in sales and sales management, Rich is a Sandler franchisee, based in Villanova, PA.
Rich told me Sandler’s appeal is growing.  He described that what most salespeople feel coming out of traditional training classes is frustration, having been [...]

What’s The Half-Life of Sales Training?

At one point during one of the workshops I facilitated in Ireland two weeks ago, a CEO said, matter-of-factly, “… and you know what the half-life of sales training is…”  He was discussing how his company took a more formal approach to sales effectiveness than just sales training, and the benefits that structure and process was delivering to his company.  [...]

A Challenge for Sales Trainers

Karl Goldfield contacted me the other day.  illumio flagged one of his posts, so I read it. 
In this post, Karl goes on a rant about technology and sales training.  Here is my favorite part of his (unedited) challenge to sales trainers:
If you are not tweeting your blog posts and sending newsletters to keep your mind trust strong in [...]

If I Have to Sit Through One More Sales Training Class… (Part 1)

A colleague of mine is a partner in an outsourced telesales firm.  I know him from his past life as a salesrep.  He worked for several big name technology companies and was consistently the top performer.  He is a sales heavy-hitter if there ever was one.
He and I were discussing sales training.  He said, “I can’t tell [...]

The Future of Sales Effectiveness

This Wednesday (July 9) I’ll be presenting a webinar about how sales (in general) is not presently getting the job done and what needs to be done about it going into the future.   I’ll share relevant research and strong recommendations based upon what we’ve learned through ESR’s research and direct work with our clients. (The webinar is hosted by The [...]