In
a recent conversation with the head of sales training in a medical technology
company, I was asked, "How do we train our sales professionals to be the
most knowledgeable, credible and efficient in the market?" In other words,
she wants to make sure her sales team is a differentiator! Not just depending
on the quality of the products and services, but that the people in sales truly
make a difference to the client.
This
is not a new strategy of corporate and training executives, but it clearly
communicates the challenges that sales training organizations are confronted
with. During the economic downturn from 2008 and 2009, investment in sales
training declined. But in the past 18 - 24 months, spending for training services
has been strong and is expected to continue through 2012. Where are those
expenditures going?
Each
year, TrainingIndustry.com studies the sales training market (as we do other
markets also) to understand who the best training companies are. In the process,
we learn a great deal about best practices and how buyers are spending their
money.
Below
are a few trends we've seen as it relates to sales training.
1.
Market Growing by 12% - The growth in spending for sales training products and
services is up approximately 12% from 2010. Positive news is growth in 2010
from the previous year was up almost as much. This has been a welcome relief of
sales training suppliers. Some of the larger sales training companies which
have broad market reach and proprietary approaches to sales methodologies have
fared the best during the market - especially those companies who customize
their programs to the client’s needs. Custom content development for sales
training and tools and technologies to assist the sales training organization
to be more efficient has been the strong segments of the market.
2.
Consultative Selling - Consultative selling is not a new trend, but one worth
mentioning because it continues to be the focus of most sales training
strategies. Most any B to B company markets services as well as products, and
needs a sales force that knows how to solve customer
problems; as opposed to pushing product portfolios. Solution selling, spin selling
and the many derivatives of these approaches continue to be mainstream
methodologies.
3.
Retention - Sales trainers have demonstrated a strong emphasis on retention of
skills. Technologies, simulations and role playing continue to be leveraged for
increased retention of skills and product knowledge.
4.
Onboarding - Much of the activity in the sales training market has been
onboarding new training professionals as opposed to re-training existing sales forces.
Simply put, as the economy improves, more sales people are being hired and the
need to get them up and going as fast as possible is critical.
5.
Technology Enabled Learning - The most important trend in sales training has
been how technology is impacting the training process. Virtual training is no
longer a fad; it is standard operating procedure for many sales training
organizations. Keeping sales professionals in the field and minimizing time
away from the clients is critical. Moderated communities of practice through
learning portals are being talked about more and more, although organizations
are still in the early stages of implementation. Challenges in implementing
learning portals are more about how to manage content than how to engage the
sales professionals. The good news is sales professionals are hungry for
information that is timely and relevant and helps them sell more; they just
want a more efficient way to get access.
Sales
training companies who are doing the best to meet the demands of sales training
organizations can be found in TrainingIndustry.com's
Top 20 Sales Training Companies.
As
always, I welcome your comments. Please feel free to send me an email at dharward@trainingindustry.com.
