Sales training projects are still not achieving the predicted results and experts are still stumped. There is only one explanation left: the living dead are terrorizing sales training projects.
It must be zombies, because training experts have heroically tried every other option: novel training solutions; tortured explanations on why training fails; curative approaches developed; and finally, changing the name (see Sales Change Management , et al.); but to little effect. Analysts continue to report a 60% to 80% failure rate:
- Only 30% … succeed - 2008, McKinsey survey
- …85% to 90% of sales training has no lasting impact,… 2011 ES Research
- Up to 85% of sales training fails to deliver a positive ROI…, HR Chally
- … something is seriously broken in the sales training model. CSO Insights
- …less than 25% of companies get a good return … ASTD 2010 Study
Relentless
In implementing new behaviors or skills the first step has always been the same: determine what the trainee(s) knows or can demonstrate. Apparently recognizing the threat Zombies posed to this process, trainers increased their efforts; upgrading assessment processes with prodigious data collection and analysis of market and sales processes; and, just to be sure, asking the CEO.
This seemed logical (well, maybe not the last one), because, the thinking went: You can’t develop an effective solution unless you understand the problem. With the right assessment; training, evaluation and change management methods can be applied to fix the problems in improving sales productivity.
Sounded good, but the failure rate remained high. Trainers doubled-down on their assessment efforts, but their “corrections” remained ineffective. The only result, an increase in the reasons training wasn’t creating lasting changes. Zombies, apparently, are not easily deterred.
Ineffective
Zombies are notoriously difficult to kill, being already deceased, and many ineffective approaches were tried until science solved the problem . Similarly sales training “corrections” are numerous and ineffective; and, it turns out, science may have something to say about this, as well.
A 2005 study performed by Paek and Hawley, “A Study of Training Program Characteristics and Training Program Effectiveness among Organizations Receiving Training Services from External Training Providers,” presented at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management , offered an interesting finding: … training needs assessment has no relationship with training program effectiveness. … it is found that the quality of training needs assessment does not relate to training program effectiveness.
Educationally, assessments compare an individual’s knowledge or skill to a standard; for example, a person’s reading skills to what is age normal. Effective when used to measure improvement in stand-alone skills, they are ineffective when used to prescribe improvements in a process specific to a company and market.
You can devise measurement criteria for a sales process, but there is no matching norm for comparison, other than the prior effectiveness of the same sales process.
Most sales training assessments are measurements against what the examiner believes has been successful in the past; creating assumptions about what needs to be changed now, but based on what was previously successful. Training becomes an attempt to recreate a past success; unfortunately a success dependent on the specifics of the past.
The qualities of the variables affecting a current rep or sales process (worldwide economy, new technologies, competitors, prospect knowledge, etc.) are continually changing. A “moment-in-time assessment” of a process involving constantly changing variables is immediately incorrect; producing a version of Zombieland ’s surviving-in-a-zombie-infested-world rules; a continually expanding list, which never shows any success in obliterating zombies.
Zombies rule
The current use of assessments forces organizations and sales trainers to predict the future. Sure they are right once in a while but the odds are definitely bad; and the results prove it.
However, there is hope. A Solutions Focused Approach (SFA), developed in the 1960s, has been highly effective at getting humans to adopt more effective behaviors. SFA focuses on identifying what is working, when it is working, and how to get it to work better and avoids discussion about the cause of problems.
Today’s sales training assessments are the first step in “solving the problem”; which, according to the SFA peer-reviewed research, means they are actually a major cause of failure. SFA researchers have shown focusing on, or attempting to understand the “problem,” is counterproductive to the adoption of more effective behaviors.
This all sounds like common-sense, doesn’t it? Or maybe you are thinking this sounds more like weak-kneed, left-wing, touchy-feely flaming pablum. Consider, however, SFA methods deal directly with how humans behave; react when they are not performing well; deal with problems; and how they identify changes leading to more successful behaviors and better results. Remember, in spite of disquieting evidence to the contrary, all sales team members are probably still human.
Eliminating zombies!
What to do? Focus on the present; not the past or the future. SFA research says use what is really happening (use a representation of reality) to:
- Focus on what is working;
- Stop doing what isn’t working;
- Define actions (goals) and objective feedback to improve the success rate of each sales process step.
Sounds simple enough but how is reality “represented”? Like any good zombie eliminating tool, it’s right in front of us, the sales process. Now you may think your sales process is the “problem,” and it may be in shambles and apparently in the control of mutant space monkeys. But, sales teams have to start at where they are, and the goal of sales training is, or should be, to make what is working work better:
- Write the process down; in order, where an action or event leads to the next step.
- Eliminate any activity which cannot be objectively and concretely counted. No exceptions!
- Focus like a crazed zombie hunter to evolve the sales process from one where you are counting sales team activities to one where you are counting how prospects react and move through the sales cycle.
- Introduce targeted new behaviors and skills to improve individual sales rep results at each step. Implement small measurable actions; continue only if successful; drop if there isn’t an immediate sign of success.
- Use training experts and coaching to improve skills directly associated with making reps more effective at each step in the sales process.
Successful changes in individual behavior will evolve or be implemented solely based on what each rep needs to do at each step to improve results. New behaviors will be sustained because they will now be part of each individual’s normal and daily activity.
Jeff Hoey is author of the eBook Want Sales Training ROI? Don’t do Sales Training , available at Amazon. His writing can be found at blog.asuccessfocus.com .
Written for TrainingIndustry.com
