You Don't Need Another Sales Training Program

As a pharma consultant, I am in the business of selling sales training programs. Nevertheless, I can tell you that most sales organizations don't need another training program. More often, they need specific interventions.

Millions of dollars are wasted every year on extensive sales training programs that never get used. Why? Because sales training departments are in the business of buying sales training programs, and consultants are in the business of selling them. In the process, simple solutions are overlooked.

Consider a story shared by Richard Pascale in The Power of Positive Deviance.

Pascale describes a consulting engagement in the 1990s with one of the world's most powerful biotech companies.

Asked to help with the disappointing sales of novel asthma product, Pascale discovered two sales representatives from Ft. Worth, Texas who were selling 20 times the volume of their peers. (Yes, 20 times the volume!)

Upon examination, Pascale discovered that the sales representatives were taking a unique approach.

As opposed to focusing exclusively on product benefits, they spent time showing physicians how to administer the new product. (The drug was administered intravenously, novel to the physicians being targeted.)

The point? Small interventions are often a more powerful alternative than the implementation of an entire sales training program.

Pascale had found a simple solution: A small change to sales approach created 20 times the sales volume.

SMALL IS BETTER

As a consultant, I often encounter situations where a problem is readily identifiable, but proposing a simple solution is never enough. Why? Sales training departments want a ‘program,' a slick system with bells and whistles.

The point is not to say that sales organizations should abandon the implementation of sales training programs. The point is that large-scale interventions are often selected at the expense of smaller and more effective interventions.

Sales leaders call consultants and ask, ‘What programs do you offer?' Nine times out of 10 there is no need for another sales training program. More often, they need a specific solution to a specific problem.

Sales leaders who shift their mentality to looking for small solutions first have an edge, especially when the real solution is specific and subtle.

 The suggestion? First, before thinking large-scale change, think small tweaks.

(Source: “Why you don’t need another sales training program” by Scott Moldenhauer, President, Persuasion Consultants, LLC │Apr. 18, 2011)