Moe Revenue

What Companies Really Want From Sales Training

My experience with sales training requests in over a half dozen senior executive roles were all amazingly similar. The justifications attached to the appropriation requests contained combinations of the following:

• Our reps can’t get to the decision maker.
• We need our reps to be more aggressive.
• Morale needs a boost.
• We need better closing techniques.
• Marketing is cutting back promotions so we need to generate more referrals.
• Our new products may need new sales techniques to make the plan.
• We just moved a number of customer service folks into sales.
• The only budget number we are exceeding is our discount allowance.

I approved most of the requests but my goal was always centered on one topic – to gain better forecast data. The lack of revenue skills in our sales reps was mostly a result of less-than-effective selection processes [a topic for another post]. The real impact to the company was fictional forecast numbers that, in most cases, caused crisis management cash-flow challenges.

My point is this – companies don’t really want to buy sales training – executive teams see this being about as relevant as teaching first-year calculus to aerospace engineering departments. What companies want are what I call “bankable forecasts.”

Your sales process needs to be grounded in your forecast model or you have the cart driving the horse.If you want to learn more, please see Sections II and III in Sales Revenue System 2.0 [available at www.Amazon.com and through the CRO Store at www.CROsuccess.com ]. In the book you will find instructions on how to install our bankable forecast process.