Everyone is talking about the decline in sales performance, and an awful lot of sales gurus are scratching their heads right now. I don’t have all the answers, but my scalp is certainly not suffering!

The fact is, that there is no single answer: It is not that organizations have stopped investing in skills development training, because they haven’t. Neither is it the case that sales leaders have become less competent, I don’t think they have.

It might be true that the quality of the training itself is degenerating, and I certainly believe that too little attention is paid to ensuring that the right development option is delivered.

Here’s what we know: In to-day’s highly competitive selling environment, there is less room for apprenticeship, as organizations need to see a swift return on their investment.

Therefore, Sales Directors need to allow sufficient time to enable their investment in training and development to “pay off”. Introducing ongoing reinforcement programs will help accelerate the benefits gained from the training and development investment.

A Variety of Development Solutions:

Skills development can take many forms, including:

• Formal and informal mentoring
• Sales coaching by managers or professional consultants
• Classroom training
• Distance or e-learning

However, the most successful companies use all of these options to create a “blended learning” experience.

I believe training is an essential part of the profession of selling, as it is in any other profession.

Training, particularly sales training, is a lengthy and complex process if true learning is to take place (i.e. if behavior is to be modified) Too often, insufficient thought is given to what is to be achieved, by whom and how.

The whole situation firstly needs careful analysis with regard paid to the limitations of training, as well as to its value. Then the program can be formulated and, very important, evaluated against specific objectives.

Only in this way can we be sure that the training is in fact achieving positive results.

Finally, formal training can also have a huge influence on skills development, especially if it is implemented with two additional ingredients:

• The training must be based on what the salespeople need and should be tailored to address diagnosed performance gaps. Using a diagnostic approach – a formal sales team skills audit, (shameless plug, forgive me!) saves an organization money and time, because there is nothing to be gained from teaching people something that they are already doing well or conversely, that they don’t need to do in the first place.
  
  A well-targeted program is far more likely to engage participants’ full interest because they’ll see its immediate relevance to their daily results.

• Any training program will be more effective when the skills that participants learn are reinforced on a regular and continual basis. For maximum impact, every level of management must reinforce training. Such reinforcement can come in many forms, but the best way is for the sales manager to serve as a “model of excellence” who provides an ongoing demonstration of required skills so salespeople begin to live and breathe them.