Redefining Sales Training: Fair Process

The Current State of Sales Training: Disconnection from Reality

Sales training in most organizations today is far from what's truly needed. Typically, it's a top-down process with little to no real engagement from sales teams. Sales organizations have shortened their onboarding and reduced training spending, naively expecting salespeople to learn “on the job” with few standards but high expectations.

The problem is simple. We want people to meet corporate revenue expectations, but we cannot standardize "what good is" and how we might make good better. Without having a baseline, there is no ability to measure against anything people are left to feel and react vs think and respond.

The Problem: Detachment and Misaligned Expectations

The gap between sales teams and leadership is growing. Due to their disconnection from the field and the changing dynamic caused by remote work and corporate values, sales leaders may fail to recognize this detachment. In that context, training becomes placatory, focusing more on feel-good messages than addressing sales teams' real challenges.

The Solution: Implementing Fair Process

The 'Fair Process' concept from Blue Ocean Strategy offers a solution to these challenges. It involves a three-step approach of engagement, explanation, and expectation clarity. Organizations can bridge the gap by involving sales teams in decision-making, explaining the rationale behind strategies, and clarifying expectations with forthrightness and maturity.

A real-world example from 2022 dramatically illustrates this divide. A BDR team, hungry for strategy and tactics to improve their win rates, was actively involved in their training process, while the sales team was not. The BDR manager proactively engaged her team and worked tirelessly to gain an understanding of their needs, desires, and challenges. In contrast, the sales manager did the opposite and sat back and hoped for the best, soothing their team and promising excellent training.

The difference between the engaged and disengaged teams who experienced the same Training was a 500% increase in the pipeline from the BDR team, while the sales team's performance notably declined. It got to the point where the BDR team didn't want to provide leads to the sales team because they didn't trust the sales team's skill to win deals.

Call to Action: Shifting Paradigms

Sales leaders need to adopt the principles of fair process, moving from superficial engagement to more personalized, objective, and skill-focused training to produce quantifiable change. The key is to have salespeople express their desire to be better, admit to their leaders that they want to learn, and have room for improvement. If this isn't done, the salesforce will feel judged and resent being made insecure, effectively blocking any engagement from the team.

The Impact: Enhanced Sales Performance and Team Morale

One way to know if you are on the right track is to answer this question: Is your CRM an insight generator or a big brother tool? If your answer isn't an insight generator, your organization needs to catch up on the best part of having a sales team: learning from the experts who talk to your customers daily.?Yes, they are the customer experts, not the sales leadership.

Let's flip the script and ensure we do what is best for the front line and empower, not placate.

When done right, sales training will be your most powerful tool for scaling production. But it requires a shift from traditional methods to a more honest, engaging, and skill-oriented approach. Let's embrace this change, redefine sales excellence, and blow the competition away. DM me to learn more and honestly discuss how we make every conversation count!

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