How To Partner With Busy Sales Leaders [Checklist]
How to Partner with Busy Sales Leaders Checklist
[Checklist]
Sales Training Budget
Sales Training Vendor Partner Checklist [Guide]
Sales Training Vendor Partner Checklist
[Guide]
Maximize Free Sales Training Resources [Guide]
Maximize Free Sales Training Resources
[Guide]
How to Measure Sales Training ROI
Training geeks will tell you there are four traditional ways to measure sales training ROI and the impact it has on an organization. It’s called “The Kirkpatrick Model.” In my experience, this model only includes two measurements that sales leaders actually care about. I’d like to add a few alternate levels to consider.
Level 1 is Learner Feedback. The smile sheet has more to do with liking the trainer or getting fed than the impact, and the quiz results are more about short-term memory than anyone’s understanding of how to actually apply skills.
Level 2 is Observation. What happens on the job? It’s observed behavior change, and it’s subjective. “Manager, did Bob use his new skills?” Manager: “Um, I haven’t been listening to Bob all day long, boss. I have 14 people and 200 emails to read…” You get the struggle.
Level 3 is Information Retention. New skills should be fresh in their minds and easy to execute the day after training, but what about 2 months later? 6 months? 1 year? Over time, people are known to fall back into bad habits. Truly valuable training provides easy-to-use (and memorable) skills that stick with the learner over time.
Level 4 is ROI. Calculate sales training ROI by taking the results that went up and dividing by the cost of the sales training. Naturally, there are flaws here, like, “When do we stop measuring?” “What about soft costs of missed revenue?” “What if results fall off?” and “Training wasn’t all we changed that quarter!”
When I advise sales training leaders, I help them solve it all with two little words:
“Contributed to”
Last quarter, new vendor training contributed to a 25% increase in meeting close rates and a 34% increase in show rates. Extrapolated over the period of a year and using our standard meeting to deal close rates, that means an additional 245 meetings and 66 closed deals or $3.1 million in revenue. That’s a 31x return on investment of the $100K training investment. (That’s also expressed 3,100% folks and it’s BIG. It’s also a real case study, BTW).
So, sales training ROI is a big deal. When calculating, the bottom line is nearly always revenue or profit, but there are little wins along the way. Look for bumps in any of the following (and celebrate!):
- Talk time
- Conversations over 2:00 minutes
- Close percentage
- Show rate
- Pipeline velocity
- Average deal size
Combine these as I did over a time period of a year and the numbers get big fast. Even a modest increase in a close percentage or deal size will bring double-digit ROI.
Now for the new stuff. In today’s climate, there are 5 more sales training ROI measurements I advise you to start tracking:
- Applicant increase
- Tenure
- Promotion rate
- Employee satisfaction (a KPI to tenure)
- Ramp time
Yes, nearly all of these are about helping show the link between the career development you offer the new generation of sellers and how many of them come to work for you and stay.
If you’re offering ongoing development, a training budget, a certification, or a partnership with a premier vendor, ADVERTISE THAT (you’ll attract the new generation of sellers!). Then start tracking the average number of applicants over the previous months, but don’t compare pre-COVID (that’s apples vs. bacteria).
Great development keeps people in companies longer. So count what percentage of promotions are now happening internally and whether your investments are moving the needle of employee satisfaction.
There’s a direct correlation between employee engagement (and happiness) and their performance. If they’ve been with your company for 6 years and are consistently meeting or exceeding quota, chances are they’re happy in their role and less likely to leave. Have they missed quota a few times now, or are they not as engaged with their customers as they once were? Then it might be time for a 1:1 to see what is going on behind the scenes.
Finally, my holy grail: ramp time. How long does it take a new hire to get to quota? This critical number not only impacts revenue right where it counts but also determines whether a rep stays or not. Here’s an insider tip:
People who feel successful at work will keep coming back to work.
No, not Earth-shattering, but it might be if you reverse-engineer it. 20 years ago I revamped a new hire sales training program for a computer manufacturer. It was taking reps 9 months to hit their goal. Ouch. (Best practice is 3-6 months and it’s getting longer – we’re now approaching 9 months again) Yes, we took out a bunch of filler courses and implemented my “Just in Time” training approach, but we also did something a little sneaky. We lowered the bar. The VP of Sales and I saw the mass exit happening at six months and we worked together to get reps PAID if they were on track by this point in time. The result? We cut the turnover in half.
Help people win, and they’ll stay and keep winning.
Long story long, employee development has an impact on more than just revenue. There’s a reason training investments are up over 30% as an industry over last year. And if you don’t already have your enablement team running regular reports on these new stats, I suggest you get started or you’ll be late to the party. It may feel like we’re in a war for talent, but I assure you this is only the battle. Use your training investments strategically to attract, keep, and promote your people because this precious resource will become only more scarce.
Want more information on how to measure sales training ROI?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).
10 Signs Your Sales Team Needs Sales Training
Your budget is limited. Your needs are not. So when do you know it’s time to invest in sales training for your team?
READ: New Funded Sales Training Program
Here are some easy benchmarks and warning signs to help determine if your sales team needs sales training:
1. Your New Hire Training Doesn’t Include Sales Training
I know, you hired for sales talent. You shouldn’t need to train them. If I had a nickel every time I heard that… Trust me, they need training. Why? Their old company did it differently, the sales motion was slightly different, they love a different methodology, and maybe they were loyal sellers but not great ones. I’ve had 15-year sales veterans in my virtual sales skills classes and often their learning curve is the steepest. (Head here for more info on what good virtual sales training looks like)
2. The Last 4 Classes Were Product Related
If you’re thinking: “I do training all the time!”, I invite you to check the content. Reps are used to getting product/service updates and company updates, but not skill refreshes. Sales skills should be taught in onboarding AND at least once a quarter ongoing.
Think of sales calls as “game day.” How often did you practice before then?
3. There’s Been a Strategy Change
About half of our clients come to us because it’s been a struggle to change behaviors now that ______ has changed. Sometimes it’s a go-to-market strategy, client coverage, or an addition of a product or service line. You get it. What seemed simple in the boardroom can prove crazy-making when trying to align 50 junior reps and their managers. Just remember, telling them in the meeting only opens the door. Most employees don’t have the capacity nor the inclination to then translate how this will change their approach, their conversations, their goals, etc. Tell, TRAIN, then coach.
4. You Just Listened to Sales Calls and Your Ears Are Bleeding
If you’ve recently implemented a conversational intelligence tool like Gong, Chorus, or ExecVision, you probably thought it would be fun to listen to the customer’s voice. By the ninth call recording, I’m willing to bet you summoned your team leads and training liaison and had a serious talk about rep skills. Enter professional sales skills training.
5. You’re Losing Gen Z or Millennials
If the last 3 exits or thanks-no-thanks job rejections were Gen Z or Millennials, check your training package. A recent article cited “opportunities for development and advancement” as the number one requirement for these job seekers. New hire product and systems training won’t cut it if you want to attract and keep today’s talent.
Are you considering alternate hiring pools and need to teach former teachers, retail workers, vets or tradespeople how to sell?
Assign this task to the professionals, your HR trainer is probably not equipped for that heavy overhaul. Alternatively, congratulations on your brilliant strategy. Great training programs will open multiple hiring pools to you that won’t be open to your competition, and I love finding behavioral traits in an existing hire rather than teaching the skills to someone new!
6. It’s Playbook Time!
If you’ve grown to the point where it’s time to capture best practices and “how a bill becomes a law” at your shop, I’m guessing you have more than 10 reps but under 50 and you’ve been selling between 1 and 3 years. It’s time to document! Before you do, grab some new best practices from a professional sales trainer. The perfect time is after draft one and before it’s finalized. Invariably, clients who just finished their playbook have gone back to update it with our skills and strategies. If you’re not sure which to do first, I do recommend starting the playbook so that what’s already created can be standardized and uniformly improved with training.
7. Flat Growth
If you’ve used the same conversion ratios the last 2-3 times you’ve done headcount projections, it’s time for some training. In other words, rep staffing isn’t always a quantity equation, you should bank on quality improvements as well. Not sure? Ask yourself how many heads you could save in your budget with a 15% improvement in your top-line conversion metric (whatever that may be). We regularly clock 30-70% improvements allowing sales leaders to lower sales headcount! Shift that spending to your “want” list instead!
Now let’s check in on manager training. Most companies invest in new hire training, then ongoing rep training, and maybe finally manager development. Makes sense, there’s only one for every ten or twenty reps, right? Unfortunately, most reps we promote to manager fail in the first 24 months (50-70% according to the Corporate Executive Board), and they can take down great customers AND reps with them. Here are three signs to check:
8. Your Turnover Is Over 65% or Increasing
If you don’t have annualized employee turnover/exit rates on your dashboard, get them – and by manager. Your star sales managers are keeping their teams and promoting reps rather than suffering high attrition. This is a red flag that you have a struggling manager – perhaps one who hasn’t been taught how to lead people yet.
9. Low Employee Engagement Scores
Consider this a leading indicator KPI of attrition. It is NOT a buyer’s market anymore and if you have a great rep they are actively being recruited out. New generations demand ongoing development opportunities, so be sure you have a line item in your budget every single year. If not, you simply won’t be able to compete for talent.
10. You’ll Be Scaling in the Next 18 Months
If you’ve proven your concept (product fit and funding or even the voracity of digital sales vs. field selling), you’ll be planning to add headcount. When doubling (or more) in size, the critical path is your management team. Sales management training helps provide a consistent rep experience (teams will juggle), a consistent sales process, a consistent definition of what is a good call, consistent performance evaluation, and consistent hiring. I think you’re getting the keyword here. Consistency will allow for a smooth scale. Without it, you’re trying to replicate the Wild Wild West and you’ll experience a spike in rep (and manager) attrition 3-9 months after your hiring waves.
Bonus: Before you scale is also the right time to upgrade your onboarding experience. You’ll need a standard curriculum, testing, wave-based hiring, sandbox systems, and a professional sales curriculum. Do this before tripling the team’s volume in class!
If you’ve found a few signs that your team needs sales training, I hope you’ll reach out and have a conversation. We’re happy to help you decide what skills would help most even if you don’t ultimately outsource to us.
Ready to invest in sales training?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).
Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget for 2024
Tons of amazing sales trainers and enablement folks fell victim to RIFs because of this year’s slow economy.
It’s unfortunate, but not surprising, right? We all know that when companies cut spending, training is one of the first things to go.
I’m here to talk to the progressive leaders who are seeing things turn around and planning for next year.
I beg you, please budget – or over budget – to bring your trainers and enablement people back so you can focus on reinvesting in your employees.
READ: How to Budget for Sales Training
Before the economy went south, we were fighting for talent (hello, Great Resignation).
And what were these people looking for? Hint: Not just a paycheck.
- They want career growth
- They want learning opportunities
- They want a chance to do good
- They want a boss they don’t hate
- And, of course, they want more money 🙂
Then, we cut their learning.
Oh, and then we left them at home on an island with a swamped sales manager drowning in Slacks and emails and without the ability to listen to peers to learn how to do their jobs.
Folks, we have a crisis ahead of us.
DOWNLOAD: Sales Team Retention Survey
That’s why I’m here to offer you the chance to get ahead of the problems that are coming.
- Plan ahead for 2024 training budgets
- Bring back your trainers/enablement folks
- Do more than buy video-based learning (it doesn’t work, trust me)
- Buy reputable training content (check out The Sales Bar)
- Train your managers (they’re the key to motivating reps)
Sellers are struggling. Our close rates are going down, our engagement rates are going down, and satisfaction rates are going down, this isn’t a coincidence. We quit training them and put them on an island with busy managers (who can also use some skills).
Do your future self a favor, and get back on track with enabling people to succeed. They need that investment so they can get these wins, be successful in sales faster, hit quota sooner, and stay longer.
Not sure what you should budget for sales training? Email me at LB@factor8.com and I’ll share some stats in the industry that will help you hit goal and be best-in-class.
Are you looking for sales training?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).
How to Create A Sales Team Development Plan and Budget
Professional development opportunities are a major factor in the decision to change jobs. That’s according to numerous research papers, including our recent Sales Team Retention survey. So if you want to improve employee satisfaction and stave off attrition, then a sales team development plan must be a top priority.
By giving your reps a roadmap to build their skills and advance their careers, you give them a compelling reason to stay in your organization. Read on for actionable tips to build the perfect development plan for your sales team.
Why is sales team development critical?
Sales team development is more important than ever. Ambition found that 98% of sales reps would stay with a company forever if they were given ongoing development opportunities.
What’s more, companies that invest in sales team development put themselves at a significant competitive advantage by retaining talent. Losing a salesperson costs an average of $115,000.
Your sales team is only as good as the people on that team. By investing in their development, both as individuals and as a group, you can improve their ability to meet quotas and move the needle.
How to build a sales team development plan
Sales development doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of a lot of intentional strategy and effort and requires a commitment of resources from the organization.
As such, it’s important to have a clear plan to get you from Point A to Point B. A cohesive development plan includes role definitions, resources, expectations, and timelines. Here are some steps you can take to develop your own.
1. Establish a sales development budget
On average, 1–3% of the total annual budget should be earmarked for development. Small to medium businesses are spending more than $77,000 annually on outsourced sales training and development. Large companies spend more than five times as much.
If you under or over-spend on sales development, that will create bigger problems down the road. Over-spending without generating results will cause you to lose buy-in among executive stakeholders. Under-spending is unlikely to generate positive results.
By understanding your needs, you can set a realistic budget that suits your goals and needs and, more importantly, moves the needle in the right direction.
Download our Sales Training Budget Guide to help you determine how much to budget for development.
2. Reallocate unused resources
There’s no point in spending money on tools and resources that no one uses. A great way to invest in development without increasing costs is to look for resources that you aren’t using. Rather than waste those dollars, use them to grow and improve your team.
3. Identify high-impact opportunities
Most companies have limited budgets. This is especially true in today’s economic climate.
The key to an effective sales team development plan is knowing where to spend the most time and money. After all, you want your limited resources to go where they’ll have the greatest impact.
This is where having high-quality managers makes all the difference. When you support your managers and empower them to make decisions around resource allocation, they can effectively support your sales reps at every stage of onboarding and production.
Effective managers understand the best delivery methods for training and development. Live in-person and virtual training sessions are both great options for team training. For companies that are local, live training sessions are refreshing in today’s remote-heavy work environment. Getting reps face-to-face for in-person training is worth the cost of the return. For remote companies or spread-out teams, virtual sessions are a great alternative to in-person meetings. For best results avoid pre-recorded training videos. When participants are able to meet in person or join a live virtual session, they feel more engaged and collaborative, which promotes learning.
4. Prioritize your tools and tech stack
Not all tools and technologies are created equal. For example, many sales teams have a digital resource library—a big expense content bank that no one uses. It’s important, then, to look at your current resources and decide which are actually empowering your team to do their jobs better.
Instead of thinking of technologies by their product class (e.g. “asset management platform”) think of them based on the problems they solve for your organization (e.g. storehouse of information to educate our reps).
When you break out the mold, you may find other more creative solutions to the problem (e.g. interactive, live training sessions vs. pre-recorded talking-head videos).
5. Make use of free resources
While it’s important to invest resources in sales development, there’s a wide range of free courses, webinars, and training available online. In an interactive group setting, these resources can be a valuable tool—and they don’t require additional buy-in from budget holders!
However, it’s not enough to simply throw these free resources at a rep without any context or structure. Prepare discussion questions and exercises to test skills during webinars and presentations.
When reps take part in live discussions and practice the skills they’re learning, they’re more likely to retain and apply them when they hit the floor.
6. Think outside the classroom
Training and lecturing are two different things. Lecturing is telling someone how to do something, while training is actually showing them.
Take new hires out of the classroom so they can see skills being put to use in real-life scenarios and how to put them into action themselves.
7. Focus on moving the needle
Hiring and training salespeople is an investment. To get the best return on that investment, you can’t treat it as a one-and-done. Skill retention requires applied learning and repetition.
Don’t waste your investment by neglecting follow-up sessions, coaching, and feedback. Good coaching builds on the skills learned in training and helps reps understand where they are and where they need to be.
8. Leverage gamification
Gamifying information is an easy way to improve retention and increase problem-solving. New hires who are challenged to solve problems and demonstrate skills outside of the pressure of the sales floor feel safer trying new things. Contests, competitions, and similar tactics help reps use skills in dynamic ways.
Who needs a sales development plan?
You may be wondering: do you even need a sales development plan?
The answer is YES if you want to:
- Meet quota consistently
- Retain your team over the long haul
- Improve morale
- Grow and scale your business
Regardless of size, every sales department needs certain skills and information to be successful. A comprehensive sales development plan lays the foundation for your team to build and adopt these skills.
Reach out to learn more about our customizable virtual sales training programs and get the best out of people.
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10 Actionable Tips for Creating Your Sales Team Development Plan + Budget [“Sales Shot” Workshop]
10 Actionable Tips for Creating Your Sales Team Development Plan + Budget
[“Sales Shot” Workshop]
How to Budget for Sales Training [Guide]
How to Budget for Sales Training
[Guide]
How to Build Your Training and Development Plan [Webinar Recording]
How to Build Your Training and Development Plan
[Webinar Recording]