Expensive Sales Training Won’t Solve Your Business Problems

A Madness-free Method to Boosting Sales Performance

I recently spoke with a CRO who was rolling out a new sales training methodology for her sales force. She talked about how well this particular methodology had worked for her last Fortune 500 company. She was excited to use it again, this time to reskill a customer service team to prospect for new business. There are many sales training methodologies out there, and each has its adherents. Every company I’ve worked for has used a different one. From my position on the marketing side of the business, I haven’t noticed much of a difference.

Given my background in product marketing, I consider myself a champion for my sales colleagues. They are my internal customer, and I treat them the same way I do external customers: I work to understand their problems, I empathize, and I create solutions that work for their reality. 

Yet so many leaders, especially in the C-suite, do not understand the needs of the people they entrust with winning them business. These executives recognize that training is necessary to sales performance, but they tend to view it as a one-size-fits-all panacea instead of examining the fundamental keys to building an effective sales force. They choose a sales methodology, they introduce it with fanfare–often without advance notice to Marketing, who might be able to improve adoption by aligning collateral and sales tools–they hold a few training events, and then they expect sales staff to be able to directly and consistently apply the methodology to selling their products.

Because I like to understand my internal customers, I have been through some of these training sessions with my sales colleagues. I once asked some of the more veteran sales reps what they thought of the particular method we were learning. They rolled their eyes and rattled off the different methodologies they had learned at various companies. They confessed that while they might adopt a technique or two from each sales method, they usually stuck with whatever seemed to work out in the field.

Now, I am not arguing that sales training is unnecessary, or that any of these sales methodologies are wrong. I am simply sharing the fundamentals that every company should commit to before adopting one of these expensive systems.

Here is my madness-free method for building an effective sales force:

1. Offer a product that solves an urgent, pervasive problem.

2. Develop a clear value proposition.

3. Set realistic quotas.

4. Write your sales compensation plan to support your business goals.

5. Hire sales managers who can coach and mentor.

6. Create marketing programs based on buyer personas.

Offer a product that solves an urgent, pervasive problem.

I freely admit that product development and strategy is not sales training. Yet I have seen far too many companies treat a shiny new sales methodology (usually whichever one the newly hired head of sales evangelizes) as the solution to a fundamental business problem: lack of product-market fit. 

Companies all too often overlook the obvious truth: Selling becomes so much easier with a product that people actually want to buy! Or maybe they know that their offering isn’t compelling or competitive in the market, and they think that smoother sales people will make up for it. Either way, my advice to executives is not to assume that because sales are down, training must be the issue. Companies should assign staff–and not just those in Sales–to continually interview potential buyers in the market to understand their goals and challenges. 

Does the company actually help customers solve an immediate problem? Do many potential customers have this problem? When Product teams are attuned to buyer needs, they create a solution to an urgent, pervasive problem, thereby building a solid foundation for selling.

Develop a clear value proposition.

When it comes to crafting a simple, compelling value proposition, too many companies leave the sales team to their own devices. And while sales professionals should certainly have a voice in creating the value proposition, they shouldn’t be in the driver’s seat. If you have a product marketing function, this is squarely in their domain.

I recommend that the person in the product marketing role draft a one-sentence positioning statement and a 60-second pitch based on input from leadership, Product, Sales, and Success colleagues; vet it with key stakeholders; and roll out the final version to the entire company. The pitch should include the positioning statement, solution statements, and differentiators, and may also be modified for key buyer personas. Codifying the value proposition in this way gives Sales the talking points they need before layering on the selling skills from any given sales methodology. No amount of training can make up for a tepid value proposition.

Set realistic quotas.

This should be a no-brainer. If you set realistic quotas, salespeople will be motivated to succeed. They are more likely to behave responsibly with company resources, respecting the time and priorities of colleagues in Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Customer Success. 

Set quotas that are unrealistic, and salespeople will treat each potential sale as a four-alarm fire that requires help from every department. Some of these salespeople will do whatever it takes to hit that sky-high quota–offering deep discounts that undercut company profitability, promising features that undermine the product strategy and roadmap, selling to buyers and accounts who will almost immediately become churn risks, and derailing the work of multiple departments who are sucked into a swirling vortex of sales support. 

In short, unrealistic quotas lead to bad behavior and put your business at risk. Set quotas that salespeople can reach.

Write your sales compensation plan to support your business goals.

I was once thrown out of a meeting at the company sales kick-off. It was time to share the compensation plan with the sales team, and the CEO asked me to leave, saying that compensation was confidential. I complied, but once we were outside the door, I shared my concerns with him.

“I don’t need to know how much money they are making,” I explained. “But I do need to know how they are incentivized. I am launching a new product this year. It was designed for a different customer profile than the one we have historically sold to. Does the sales team have any incentive to sell the new product, or are they going to keep selling the same stuff to the same customers?”

Sales compensation plans should help the company meet its business goals. Any departure from business as usual–new product, new buyer, new pricing, new service model, new market segment–is a potential source of friction in the sales process that should be addressed in the compensation plan. A good sales compensation plan defines the path to quota. 

My father-in-law, who for many years was a top-performing salesman and manager in computer hardware, laughed when I recounted being thrown out of the meeting. He shared with me a story of his own, in which he closed double his quota in sales.

“Everyone from my manager to the CEO kept asking me how I did it,” he chuckled. “I told them I sat down and read the comp plan, and then I just followed it.”

Hire sales managers who can coach and mentor.

Effective training is not a one-time event. And the person best equipped to provide ongoing sales training is the sales manager. While salespeople can learn skills from outside trainers, whom do they call when a deal gets stuck? Their manager. Whom do they email when they need approval for a discount? Their manager. Whom do they go to when they’ve got a gap in their pipeline? Their manager. For the love of Dale Carnegie, hire sales managers who can coach and mentor their teams.

Create marketing programs based on buyer personas.

Finally, a key part of effective selling is having the right tools. Companies who are tuned in to their market create their marketing programs and collateral based on who their buyers are and how they purchase. This is why Marketing teams need to seek input from potential buyers in the market, instead of waiting for Sales to request collateral. While salespeople may be able to tell you whether or not a particular message or piece of collateral moves conversations forward, that is a lagging indicator. 

What problems do buyers face, where do they go to learn about solutions, whom do they trust, and whom else do they consult in making decisions? Research, research, research! And then you can develop the marketing programs and assets that will make buyers interested in your company before your salespeople call on them.

Conclusion

While sales training can accelerate performance, it needs to be grounded in solid business practice. Training is no replacement for the business fundamentals of product-market fit, a compelling value proposition, targets and incentives aligned to market reality and business needs, on-the-job coaching, and effective marketing. Executives and sales leaders should consider these foundational elements before attempting to address lackluster sales performance with expensive training programs. Maybe then sales people won’t roll their eyes when asked about training.