Hey sales leaders: Stop training your reps so much.
Many sales orgs treat training is the best and only solution to performance gaps.
Reps aren’t selling to high enough personas? Train ’em.
Reps are only sending quotes, not solution proposals? Train ’em.
Reps aren’t using the tools you’ve bought for them? Train ’em.
But here’s the rub: Training is often the wrong solution.
Sometimes it’s wrong because of timing. You train them today, but they won’t actually need to apply it until a month or two from now.
Sometimes it’s wrong because it’s overkill. The substance of the training is so straightforward, it could just as easily have been documented in a cheat sheet.
Sometimes it’s wrong because of misalignment on best practices. The enablement team is training on a way of doing things, but there’s widespread disagreement among management that that’s the right way to do it.
Sometimes it’s wrong because it’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Someone saw this one rep do this one bad thing this one time — and all of a sudden, the enablement team is asked to create a training.
So what’s the alternative?
Make sure there isn’t a less labor-intensive and costly method of addressing the need — before you decide on training as the solution.
Some examples:
–Documentation & job aids. Simple documentation is often the best solution — provided that it’s placed directly in a rep’s workflow when they need it. In fact, even if training IS part of the solution, documentation is still essential.
–Manager-led reminders & reinforcement. All sales managers have regular team meetings. Sometimes just talking about the desired behavior change in these meetings a few times is sufficient.
–Announcements. It’s true that telling ain’t training, but sometimes just telling people is enough, especially for simple, tactical things.
–Testimonials. Sometimes it’s sufficient to just having a rep share an approach that earned them a little victory. This is especially relevant when there’s lack of alignment on what the right way is to do things.
–Incentives. Reps are often coin operated, so sometimes just creating a SPIFF is enough to elicit the desired behavior change.
–Nothing at all. You’d be surprised at how often this ends up being the most appropriate solution.
Happy selling.