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 [...]

The Fear and Loathing of Sales Training

Two years ago I wrote an article entitled The Fear and Loathing of Sales Training.  It’s been reprinted again and again on the web (with permission, thankfully).  For those of you that haven’t read it, or would like to read it again, here it is.  Feel free to pass it around.

How Long Will It Take?

Quite often I get questions about how long it will take to complete various sales performance improvement interventions.  (It’s the business equivalent of, “Are we there yet?” I’ll answer some of those questions one by one before I philosophize:
Q: How long it does it take to get a sales team performing at quota (and remaining there…)?

What’s Wrong With Articles Containing Sales Tips?

How many sales people do you think regularly seek out tips about selling on websites, in magazines, books, newsletters, etc.?  We have not done any research on this (if someone has, let me know), but I would expect the answer is: “a lot.”
What’s wrong with it?  Same answer: a lot.
Here’s why.  Many salespeople think that [...]

Sales Training Vendor Du Jour

I recently spoke with a VP of sales for a $3 billion company.  He told me that they used, (direct quote) “a little Miller Heiman, a little solution selling and a little Neil Rackham.” 
One of the many important points Rick Page (CEO of The Complex Sale and author of Hope is Not a Strategy and Make Winning a Habit) [...]

Observing a Sales Training Program (Part 3)

I’ve been listening in on deal management and war room calls with our client who had gone through classroom-based sales training in late April.  They’re a public company, so the pressure is on to close business by the end of the quarter.
I didn’t expect the process work, training, technology support and coaching to have an impact [...]

Come On, Dave. Which Is The Best Sales Training Company?

That’s a question I’ve been asked again and again, by journalists, CSOs, training company CEOs, CLOs, consultants and our clients, when they first engage with us.
When I tell them that’s not a question I can easily answer, they may think I’m trying to sell them something.  Well, in essence, I am. I’m trying to sell [...]

Checking the Sales Training Box

From phone calls we keep receiving it’s apparent that there is a boatload of sales VPs out there who still don’t understand that long-term sales effectiveness improvement doesn’t come from shrink-wrapped speeches or out-of-the-box, stand-alone, sales training programs.
I spoke with the distressed training director of a large company who told me that he was given a [...]