The Problem with Sales-Less Training

US Business believes in training and raised the total spend to over 8 Billion, with a B, in the year prior to last. As the economy has improved, so has the corporate directive to better train its most valuable asset, its people.

But to me, a disturbing trend seems obvious and the omission glaring. It is that training is Sales-Less. Everything excluding specific sales training lacks the simple "connectedness” that it did in the past. A linkage between what a company does, why it does what it does, and the benefits of everyone being able to speak the value proposition of the organization. is missing. "Poof"

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a certain cynicism regarding the ability to communicate value because it looks so much like sales. My contention is, and I hope you agree, that a linkage between sales and training is essential and if we included a component of sales (communicating value) in all of our training, and I mean all training, from onboarding, to product, to leadership, to functional skills, to mentoring, to all of the content on which we train employees, if we included a component that developed all employees ability to speak a value proposition in a way that generates interest, we jumpstart sales, employee engagement, employee satisfaction and brand within an organization.

To that end find following a simple checklist review that you can use to look at the training your company pays for, to see if it truly is developing your most valuable assets skill set to best promote your company, engagement, well-being, and growth within your organization and the products that you’re trying to make the world aware.

One:

           Randomly grab one of your training elements and see how many times your company’s name appears within the training. This may sound like the simplest, most basic approach, but there’s not a marketing individual within your organization that won’t say the more times your company appears before internal and external customers, the more brand recognition engagement and attachment people have.

Two:

           Review the training. Are the exercises within the training relating only to product and or operational skills? (i.e. Does the training that you are involved with you or your people, is it teaching them about how to do something or is it teaching them how to do something understanding they may have to speak it to someone else.)

We at Saleslinkage estimate that between 70 and 80% of your staff, mid-level, and high-level executives have customer facing engagements on average 3 to 5 times a day. If indeed this applies to your organization, does the training your people receive prepare them to not just solve a problem, but to do it in a way that projects the benefits of doing business with your company and presenting your organization in a positive light? Does the training promote engagement with the customers in a way the e and your customers during those moments of truth in a way that makes them ask what else can I do for you? Or a customer to ask what else can you do for me?

Three:

      Lastly, all quality training has a summary and conclusion. As anyone in your organization completes this training, be it on boarding or any other form of information and process transmission, are your people being asked if they can convey this information in a way that makes other people, namely your customers and clients, to ask questions? Not questions of the material, but questions about your company, your product set, your services and all the things that make your company someone they would like to do business with?

Clearly, there is an expectation for return on investment for training. The challenge, of course, is so much of the value in training is intrinsic, and may not have a specific result that is measurable other than your engagement survey, employee satisfaction or some other nebulous measurement.

If you want to understand if your training is helping your company, the next time you get a chance to engage someone who’s just completed the training ask them what they think of your company and see if they can relate the training content they just completed to the value proposition that they need to communicate to the customers that they interact with daily.

Everyone Sells (if they are armed and trained with how)...So no more Sales-less Training, please.

Founder of SalesLinkage Consulting and Training, Author, Coach and Mentor. To learn more about SalesLinkage and Training, Call Robert at (562) 547-9048 or email at [email protected]