Why Your Sales Training Isn't Moving the Needle in B2B SaaS"

Bob Apollo posted an interesting article on the problems with sales training in B2B SaaS sales and the absence of coaching or reinforcement post-training, which renders the training ineffective.

Sales training can evoke dread in salespeople and strong emotions in executive leaders who have been paying for it for years and are still waiting for the uptick in sales acceleration.

With win rates at a historic low (13% at last count), there are symptoms of an endemic problem in B2B tech: when buyers are making a considered purchase that is discretionary rather than an upgrade or renewal. The following post does not apply to PLG or to one-call closes, although some of the ideas have merit.

In many companies, sales training equates to product training. "Teach sellers how to pitch the product, sell our competitive advantages, and they will be successful"—NOT!

Sales training often falls short because it fails to address the crucial skills and processes required for the initial buyer meeting. Mastering this meeting will determine the success or failure of facilitating the customer's buying process to a successful outcome and a sale.

Success in sales depends on how many weekly meetings the salesperson has and how good they are in those meetings, assuming the prospect fits your ICP. These are communication and process skills and techniques that can be quickly learned but must also be taught in the context of your buyer's role and industry, practiced until mastered, reinforced, and certified.

The problems I see frequently that impact sales training effectiveness can be summarised as follows:

1. Salespeople were hired based on their convincing demeanour rather than being professionally screened (OMG) to determine if they possess the necessary qualities and mindset, such as the will to sell and the desire to succeed. They don't need to be liked, but they need a solid ability to figure things out independently. (Ping me if you need help finding good salespeople). These professional salespeople are easy to spot in the training class as they are the most engaged and willing to learn.
2. Many salespeople need to gain basic selling skills, take responsibility for their personal development, and read. I see this in sales training classes when I ask for a show of hands on the sales books they've read in the past year, and one or no hands go up in a room of 10 people. I follow this question by asking what formal sales training they have received, often none.
3. Poor meeting planning (or no meeting planning). If you don't have a planned outcome for the meeting, then every meeting is a success. What questions will you ask? What are their likely questions? What beliefs does the customer have that we may need to influence? In "SPIN Selling", Neil Rackham, written nearly 40 years ago, proposed four potential outcomes from a sales meeting: An advance, A continuation, An order, No-Sale.
4. There is no formal opening to a prospect or customer meeting (this applies to customer success as well), and there is no agreement on the intent and desired outcome, which ties into 3. This is because the company has not instilled a repeatable sales process and a methodology for engaging buyers across their buying cycle.
5. Failing to develop trust and demonstrate competency during the meeting opening ties in with 4. A formal opening that leads with insight and solicits the buyer's questions (which they came to the meeting to get answered) sets the professional salesperson apart from most sellers and sets up success in point 6.
6. Failing to understand why the buyer came to the meeting in the first place ties in with point 5. Buyers agree to meet because they're interested in your offerings, learning from others' experiences, and getting their questions answered. This is a crucial point that most salespeople are unaware of. They didn't agree to attend just to sit through a boring PowerPoint presentation, answer a bunch of questions, or hear about obvious information they can easily find on the website. "Can you share with me what's going on in your organization that caused you to want to attend this meeting?"
7. Failing to understand where the buyer is in their timeline and exploring alternative approaches to solving their problem. "Can you share with us where you are in evaluating alternative approaches to solving your problem/s? Are you just getting started, actively looking, or ready to decide?" This is a critical question, and asking it will help you orient the rest of your meeting and your ability to influence criteria early on?or reframe the buying agenda in the late stage.
8. Presenting a PowerPoint product overview in the first meeting as the sales team does not have a conversational approach to discovery. (See April Dunford #SalesPitch for an excellent roadmap to create engaging conversations, influence criteria and tell customer hero stories that truly differentiate how you sell). If you present in the first meeting without knowing why they came and the job they are trying to get done, they will rate the meeting as a waste of their time and ghost you.
9. Demonstrating the product in the first meeting. Why? If you demo in the first meeting without knowing what capabilities they are looking for specifically, you will likely never see them again.
10. When the time comes to do a demo, not understanding the criteria the buyer rates as essential and doing a "harbour tour" product demo is sure to end in crickets. When it comes to a demo, less is more. Show them exactly what they want to see and no more. See point 9.
11. Failing to close the meeting with a summary of the buyer's current state and desired results from adopting a different approach or asking the impact of change question will almost certainly result in radio silence.
12. Failing to agree on the next steps in a formal written meeting summary that incorporates elements from point 11 and commits the buyer to agree with your summary in writing or by phone means that you have an unqualified prospect and you will never see them again.

That's a dirty dozen reasons why most sales training fails—it is not focused on the most important aspects of the customer's buying process that surface in the critical first meeting.

Another reason sales training fails to produce results is a lack of sales management reinforcement. Some sales managers are not engaged in driving the disciplines to achieve excellent meeting outcomes, and there is little role-playing during training or coaching reinforcement after the event.

There are plenty of other opportunities to fail across the buying cycle, but if you get this first meeting right, you will impact your win rate, and this is where to start investing sales training dollars.

Suppose your win rate from Qualified Prospect is less than 25%. In that case, you must invest here rather than in negotiation workshops, presentation skills, objection handling, social selling, or sundry, which are other ways to waste money that won't move the needle.

But before you invest in training, I strongly suggest that you align sales and marketing messaging using the Jobs-to-be-done framework to capture your ICP's struggling moments, desired outcomes, motivations and the impact of change. Interviewing your best customers will provide you with the actual words customers use to describe their struggling moments, desired outcomes from change, the value they gain from using your products/services, and their stories that you can tell to engage buyers.

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