From Practice Range to Sales Mastery: The 8 Requirements for Game-Changing Sales Training
By Dave Kurlan
Should companies provide sales training for their salespeople and sales management training for their sales leaders? Should individuals be expected to have mastery in the 21 Sales Core Competencies by the time they are hired? Let’s use sports as an example and then return to sales.
Any kid can go to the sandlot with a bat, ball and glove, and figure out how to play baseball. Some will play Little League. The boys who love it, want to continue playing, and are serious about getting better, will get lessons and/or play travel ball, practice every day, and hope to play in high school, college and beyond.
It’s mostly the same for most competitive team and individual sports.
Then there’s golf. More often than not, people begin playing golf as adults rather than as 6-year old kids. But the premise is essentially the same. Grab a set of clubs, go to a public course, and figure it out. Those who are serious enough get lessons, and those who want to become great golfers get coaches and practice every day.
Sales? It’s ALMOST, EXACTLY the same.
Anyone can start selling. Whether it’s the first job out of school, or a career change, entry-level sales jobs are mostly awful but plentiful. New salespeople get on the phone and/or begin knocking on doors, make sales calls, and figure it out. But that’s where things differ from sports.
Most salespeople figure out the basics which, from our sports analogy, means they suck at the beginning. But the three “ifs” we asked about sports apply to sales too.
Do they love it? Sales comes with a lot of failing so maybe they don’t.
Do they want to stay with it? The money is good so maybe they do.
Do they want to become great? That doesn’t seem important to about half of all salespeople. One of the many analyses our sales team evaluation includes will identify who can become great.
The interesting thing is that we are no longer talking about a hobby. Selling is a career. It’s what they’ll do every day, not how they’ll fill their free time. It’s how they’ll support a family, not take time away from them.
But most salespeople:
Have never read a book on sales – “Sales books are all the same.” Not so for Baseline Selling!
Don’t watch videos or podcasts on selling – even when they’re free! You can watch nearly 100 right here.
Don’t invest in a sales coach – it’s expensive but if it doubles your income it’s worth it.
Don’t enroll in sales training – not even online self-directed courses. Great self directed courses are right here.
Don’t practice the suggested 30 minutes per day. Scrolling social media feeds seem more important.
Never improve, doing the same things they figured out in year one, every year thereafter. They continue to suck. Statistics from Objective Management Group (OMG) and their assessments of more than 2.5 million salespeople prove this with only 15% of all salespeople being good and only 5% being great.
While salespeople might believe their companies should provide training and coaching, that’s not the case in other professions where people are expected to have degrees in medicine, law, engineering, marketing, business, and more, or licenses in the trades BEFORE being hired. There simply aren’t any barriers to entry or continuing education requirements in sales.
I understand that most people don’t attend university to major or minor in sales because sales doesn’t even appear on their high school career day list of options, and most schools don’t offer sales as a degree program. So a lot of people enter sales in much the same way they come to golf – either by accident or later in life.
This logic would suggest that it is necessary for companies to provide the sales training equivalent of a college education in sales. But after 40 years of conversations with CEOs, the three things I have typically heard are:
We’ve never done that before (non-believers)
We tried it once and it didn’t help (burned)
How do I know it will work? (skeptical)
If you think about it, a company that has previously provided sales training to their sales teams have experienced only one of two outcomes:
Measurable increases in pipeline opportunities/value, win rate, average order size, margin, and/or revenue (and they should return to the company that helped them with those achievements!)
No measurable increases (was it lack of commitment, the content, the methodology, the sales process, the trainer, lack of coaching, lack of accountability, lack of practice, uncoachable and/or untrainable salespeople, the frequency or duration of the training or something else?)
Whether you lead a company, a sales team, a territory, or manage a large customer, sales training that moves the needle should address the following 8 areas:
Expectations: What will happen, when will it happen, for what duration, what must you do, how will it be measured, and what will be expected of you?
Application: How much customization will there be, how will the training be applied, and how difficult will the application be?
Practical: How practical, real-world, down-to-earth, and understandable will the training be? How much of the training will be based on best practices?
Confidence: How can I/we be confident that the training will work? Confidence leads to trust which leads to engagement, internalization, ownership and mastery
Expertise: The trainer must be world-class – no exceptions – with the ability to keep everyone fully engaged and participating
Content: The content (including sales process and methodology) must be time-tested and proven
Memorable: The experience must be fun, entertaining, educational, transformative and game-changing
Results: Nothing about the training matters if it doesn’t deliver improved results
So, to answer: Yes, companies should invest in training for salespeople and leaders. No, mastery isn’t expected at hire—but with the right sales training program, it can be achieved.