A friend who works in sales just sent me a PowerPoint Presentation of a reputable training company in the field of sales titled just like above. It was a rather plain sales brochure trying to create awareness of their services.

The problems as resulted from a study involving 100+ sales managers on the market were no surprise for any professional in the field:

1. Listening the client
2. Preparation of the sales call
3. Professional development
4. Handling objections
5. Negative attitude

The authors also suggested that such problems could be “repaired” through training which I seriously doubt because I am perfectly sure that a great majority of the sales representatives have been exposed to such trainings before (except maybe last year in some companies) and problem still persists.

In my opinion there is one problem which should be ranked first in the list and that is… the sales representative’s manager. Should he be performing well his job there is a slim chance that sales people would keep having the rest of five problems.  However, I have to admit, would be rather unlikely that the 100+managers would happily say: “I am the main problem of my people, should someone more professional replace me… no problems”.

And it is more profitable for training companies to keep persuading the bottom of the pyramid, because it is larger and business will always be there. No company will search for a drug that will keep you healthy no matter what until you die because is not profitable.

It is amazing how people think that others once will understand the reason and the way for a change they will automatically change. (Everybody understands how and why smoking is dangerous but still a lot of them (including myself from time to time) keep smoking. This is why I am skeptical that training alone can properly address the problems above.

This is probably a question that should not be missed in any job interview for a managerial position. I do not like too much superlatives in supporting a point of view so I would resist stating that setting appropriate targets is the most important skill of all in a managerial job. However, both my sales and consulting experience convinced me that this skill is seriously overlooked in today’s business (especially sales) world and has one of the highest costs on the success of the organization. (more…)

It is said that Albert Einstein had hung in his office a poster that mentioned: “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts”. Although this seems rather easy to understand it is often overlooked by business managers in their quest to prove soundness of their decisions. This comes as a consequence of business tendency to promote in management employees with quantitative and analytical skills rather than the intuitive more qualitatively inclined ones. (more…)

I happened to have a question whether 360° feedback shall be used as an “unequivocal” instrument in evaluating performance of managers.

Although at the first sight seems quite a good idea I have my doubts as whether it will provide a real value in evaluating performance of managers, especially in creating a link between rewards of managers for their activity and 360° feedback results.

Here there are a couple of reasons why: (more…)

A coment posted on: http://social.eyeforpharma.com/story/demonstrating-impact-training-and-development-programs-sfe

I do have a couple of comments on this interesting article, most of them actually building on Nick Pope’s (my regards for a beautiful workshop led in Barcelona SFE conference in spring 2008) ideas and insights.

One of the obstacles I see in measuring the effectiveness of T&D programs is a language conflict at the top. Senior executives (others than HR) are too much financially oriented. They want to see how much they get for how much they pay and less about others. HR executives in their attempt to comply with this and are looking for programs that have some kind of proof in this regard. In between is the sales executive who has to implement with little involvement in the equation (I am speaking about the real implementers in field). Actually there is a little room for articulating a vision about desired competences and specific processes to reach and certify them. Without such vision sales people often have the chance to witness one totally new training rollout or initiative every 2-3 years. Many of them are made to look like something totally new and are implemented as if no previous skill or training has been recorded earlier. (more…)