The Top 5 Reasons to Postpone Sales Training

Should You Postpone Sales Training?
Sales training can be a critical investment in performance, yet the timing of that investment is often overlooked. Many organizations rush to schedule sales training without considering whether the conditions are optimal for learning and application. Postponing sales training may sound counterintuitive, but doing so strategically can maximize the return on both time and financial resources.

There are many valid reasons to delay or postpone sales training.  The value and timing of business sales training, like every other sales investment, must be compared to and aligned with shifting business priorities and initiatives.  ASTD research found that nearly 70% of sales training programs fail to achieve measurable improvement in performance because the content is introduced at the wrong time or without sufficient reinforcement.

Given the speed of change today and the constant pressure of competition, what timing makes the most sense in terms of the value and business impact of the training?

The Impetus to Improve Sales Performance
The majority of sales teams are being pressed to deliver higher growth rates while their buyers are simultaneously demanding more value at better price points.  To make matters more challenging, there are fewer barriers to entry causing competition to increase.  This perfect storm means many companies are:

• Trying to design and introduce more new products and solutions faster than ever before.
• Launching major shifts in their go-to-market sales strategies in terms of solution sets, target clients, value propositions, portfolio mix, and geographic reach.
• Struggling to hire sales reps fast enough who can sell complex solutions to different types of buyers.

The Top Priority: Profitable Revenue Growth
When we talk to sales leaders, there is one priority that never seems to change — profitable revenue growth.  If this is true, then the question becomes, is sales training important to ensuring profitable revenue growth?  Because sales training develops new sales skills and techniques gradually over time, the impact of training can be difficult for some companies to quantify.

The Impact of Sales Training
The good news is that we have measured over 800 sales training projects and know that profitable revenue growth from customized sales training is possible.  Sales teams that do training right, grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable than their peers.  To ensure your sales training hits the mark, follow these three research-backed best practices:

• Define a Clear Sales Strategy
  Start with a clear, believable and implementable sales strategy about where you are going to play and how you are going to win.  Sales training without a clear sales strategy is just wishful thinking.
• Align Your Sales Culture
  Once your sales strategy is clear enough, your next step is to ensure that your sales culture (the way things get done) is healthy enough, high performing enough, and aligned enough with your sales strategy to help, not hinder, sales growth.
• Invest in Sales Talent
  Once your sales strategy and culture are aligned toward profitable growth, it is then time to attract, develop, engage, and retain the top sales talent you need to execute your sales strategy.  This is where sales training comes in.

The Top Five Reasons to Postpone Sales Training
Because sales training is just one avenue to improve profitable revenue growth, there are certainly situations where it makes sense to postpone sales training.  Here are the top five reasons from our clients:

1. The Sales Strategy Is Not Clear Enough
   You should postpone sales training if your go-to-market sales strategy is not clear enough, believable enough, or implementable enough in the eyes of your leadership or sales team.  It is hard enough to change sales skills and behaviors; it is almost impossible if everyone is not on the same page in terms of your target clients, unique value proposition and the critical few strategies to meet you objectives.
2. The Sales Culture is Unhealthy or Misaligned
   Think of your sales culture as how sales-related things really get done — the way sales people think, behave, and act.  Our organizational alignment research found culture accounts for 40% of the difference between high- and low-growth companies.  Before you embark on sales training, make sure that your sales team is healthy and engaged enough to want to take their performance to the next level.

   Then make sure that the way your sales team treats customers, makes decisions, views risk, creates loyalty, goes to market, shares information, is measured, gets rewarded, and delivers results matches your growth strategy.  Do not let culture gaps provide excuses for missed sales targets.

3. You Really Do Not Have a “Solution” to Sell
   Oddly enough, too many companies who want to teach their sales reps to sell value-added solutions do not actually have a full solution to sell; they merely have bundled (and often independent) products. Solutions solve a pressing customer problem or achieve an important customer strategic objective.  You should postpone sales training, at least the solution selling approach, if you only have “features and benefits” to sell, regardless of how complex the product offering may appear.
4. You Are Not Ready (or Willing) to Reinforce the New Sales Skills and Behaviors
   Sales training without the proper reinforcement only changes the behavior of 1-in-5 sales reps.  To ensure that new sales knowledge, skills, and attitudes transfer to the job, you must invest in:

   Sales Support Resources
   Make sure your sales teams have the necessary time, information, tools, technology, supporting sales processes, and structures to drive increased revenue the “new way.”

   Sales Reinforcement
   Make sure you provide and align sales success metrics, incentives, consequences and recognition with the newly desired sales skills and behaviors.

   Sales Coaching
   Our research shows that sales reps who receive frequent sales coaching outperform their peers 4-to-1.  Invest in sales coaching if you do not want your sales training investment to waste away.

   You should postpone sales training if you are not willing to hold people accountable to the new way of doing things while providing the consistent and frequent sales coaching and support required to succeed.

5. You Know Not Everyone Is a “Keeper”
   While no one can excel at everything, we do believe that anyone can improve in almost any field.  We know sales people can change and improve their sales performance with the right attitude and support.  With that being said, if you are convinced that some on your sales team will never have the right attitude or aptitude to succeed in the “new way,” it may makes sense to let those people go before you invest in sales training.

Can You Afford to Postpone Your Sales Training?
While the five reasons above should be considered before moving forward with sales training, things will never be perfectly aligned.  There will always be pressure, change, and uncertainty.  Fundamental solution sales skills required to be successful do not change much and take time to develop.

The Bottom Line
To get the most from your sales training investment, make sure that your sales strategy is clear enough, your sales culture is aligned enough, your sales team has enough of the right people, and that you are willing to reinforce the new skills and behaviors.  And remember, the longer you wait, the longer it will take for your reps to execute your new sales strategy.

Ready to move forward and want to get sales training right?  Download The 6 Top Reasons Business Sales Training Fails (and What to Do About It)