How To Get Budget for Inside Sales Training
If your Inside Sales team is relatively new, chances are you don’t have a defined training budget at your disposal (am I getting warm?). I’d also venture a guess that your somewhat green team could definitely use some inside sales training. (Still warm?) Which means that either:
- You’re individually training each of them yourself (ouch!)
- You’re sending them to some form of field or other training that doesn’t seem to actually fit
- You’re pulling out your hair and ready for some help! (ooh! Now she’s hot! Ha ha)
We’re here to help!
STEP ONE: DETERMINE NEEDS
The average company spends around $1000 / rep / year on training. Companies that score in the “best practices” range for sales spend closer to $2K. This goes right next to your incentives and recruiting budget my friends. Every year. In the meantime, ask for the equivalent of $1750 / Rep. You have some gaps to fill. This should buy you a few days of training per rep.
STEP TWO: FIGHT FOR BUDGET
Enter the Big-Bad–Doesn’t-Want-to-Spend-Money-On-Your-Silly-Little-Team-Boss:
“Why would I spend money on training! I heard that by the time you back to your job, you’ve lost 90% of what you’ve learned in training and 3 months later the rest is gone too. And by the way, these Reps will be gone in six months anyway, right?” (Whoa Boss Man!)
Don’t panic…we’re gonna get through this. Ready for your side of the negotiation?
You (Superstar Inside Sales Leader): Sure, sometimes that is true (with bad training) but did YOU know that:
- A recent survey found that 40% of employees who receive poor training leave their positions within the first year (and site “lack of training” as a reason for leaving!)
So providing good sales training will reduce attrition!
- A second study found that companies with training programs that “exceeded expectations” achieved 94.8% of quota – ten points above companies with mediocre programs (and X points above you today with no training???) – So providing good sales training will raise our performance to quota!
- Best in class sales training improves individual performance by an average of 20% – So if we raise even 10%, we should recoup ____ $$ and pay for training in X months!
- 85% of companies rated best in class in Sales use an outside professional sales trainer / curriculum – So we probably should buy this not build it. I’ll do the legwork…
STEP THREE: FIND YOURSELF A VENDOR
So, what does good inside sales training look like? How can you prevent the “fall out”? Check out my recent video for quick tips to get the most from that training budget you fought so hard to get!
Hope this helps you Super Star Inside Sales Leaders out there!
Cheers!