Reshaping the Sales Landscape:

Transcription

1 LearningDiscoveriesClub Learning for tomorrow Reshaping the Sales Landscape: How training has evolved to meet changing development needs Discoveries Report Summer 2013 To view the full 36 page report, please register to become a member of the Learning Discoveries Club. KnowledgePool Group Ltd

2 Contents Foreword 3 The Sales Training Market 4 Shifting the focus: the new trends in sales 7 The different types of sales roles 10 Components of a sales training programme 14 Case studies Using graduate recruitment to influence a new sales culture 16 Learning to sell advice, not a product 18 Creating energy sales experts 20 Developing the sales mindset 22 Value-based solution selling 24 Analysis of the supplier market 26 Which supplier should I use? 29 What next?

3 Foreword The sales landscape is changing. The market has become more complex, with modern channels and new routes to the customer. This shift has pushed companies to give more thought to an appropriate training intervention for their sales workforce, ensuring it is linked to service, process and business values. Key to this is the focus on different sales roles, and matching development programmes to the relevant skills and capabilities needed to be successful. We have identified three fundamental trends within training; the rise of the challenger role, increased focus on the end-to-end sales process and the alignment between sales and the rest of the business. There is a growing weight of evidence demonstrating the success Report of a structured approach to sales training. Extract As a result, training spend for sales is on the rise. An increasing number of companies are seeing the value in this type of expenditure, recognising it as a core investment for improving business performance. Rachel Firsht, Strategic Market Analyst, KnowledgePool 3 KnowledgePool Group Ltd

4 Sales training is now increasingly being seen as a strategic investment, considered to be a business critical capability The Sales Training Market There is a common perception among business leaders and sales people that being good at selling is not something that can be taught through training, but rather a person is either a natural salesperson or they re not. Trainingindustry.com 1 has estimated that the global market for sales training in 2012 was $2bn. In itself this might seem like a lot, but represents only 1% of the total $292b invested in training in 2012, and is especially low when compared to something like leadership training, where annual investment in the US alone is around $13.6bn 2, which is 10.3% of the overall training spend in the US 3. However, investment in sales training is on the up. We are seeing a growing weight of evidence and case studies from successful companies investing more heavily in sales, while spend in this area has seen year-on-year increases over the last three years. Sales training is now increasingly being seen as a strategic investment, considered to be a business critical capability with a direct link to company performance in a similar vein to leadership development. Sales roles are changing Sales people have traditionally been divided into two camps, and this split has commonly manifested itself as the hunter/farmer analogy. The idea being that there are those who are solely focused on finding and closing deals the hunters and those who aim to build and nurture customer relationships the farmers. The reality is the lines between the two are becoming blurred as the market becomes more complex, with the customer becoming increasingly sophisticated and more routes to market for selling products and services. Sales people are expected to be able to demonstrate the attributes and behaviours of both of these role types to be able to flex between a transactional and consultative approach, depending on the situation. Consultative selling is an effective method when used in the right situation, e.g. in complex solution sales. In other cases, a quick, transactional approach will be the best course of action. The impact of sales training The argument that many of the best sales people have a natural ability when it comes to selling has some truth to it, but training s place on the agenda of senior management teams is growing and there is an increasing weight of evidence that demonstrates the value of training. Case studies from several sales training specialists show impressive ROI figures. Imparta worked with Telefonica O2 to create a Sales Academy, which resulted in a 19% increase in win rates for the mobile services provider 4 and more than 200m of extra sales. Similarly, a training programme run by sales specialist bigrock for the mortgage provider of one of the UK s major high street banks resulted in a 74% uplift in sales 5. This led to a 34% increase in profit for the mortgage division. 4

5 Survey data from a recent ASTD report 6 on the sales training market found that 94% of sales people feel that sales training helps them to do their job better, while research from Aberdeen Group 7 has found a correlation between training for sales staff and best-in-class sales organisations. A best-in-class business is defined by the research group as the top 20% of companies where 83% of all sales reps reached their quota in the previously measured year. This is compared to the industry average (the middle 50%) where 52% reached their quota and the laggard businesses (bottom 30%) where just 6% of sales reps reached their quota. According to an earlier Aberdeen Group report, the majority of best-inclass sales companies see training for their sales staff as a must have rather than a nice to have. Best-in-class sales teams consider training to be a vital or integral part to their overall executive management responsibilities. Relevant Importance of Sales Training by Best-in-Class Bersin & Associates Leadership Development Factbook The State of Sales Training, 2012 ASTD Group 7 Sales Performance Optimization 2013: Aligning the Right People, Processes, and Tools Aberdeen Group, February KnowledgePool Group Ltd

6 What next? If you have a specific learning requirement - be it to do with sales training or another aspect of learning - then please contact our consultancy team who will be more than happy to discuss your specific need. Phone: info@knowledgepool.com About KnowledgePool KnowledgePool is Europe s leading provider of managed learning services and Report an independent expert on best Extract practice in the training supplier marketplace. We specialise in improving the performance of learning for dozens of global corporations, managing hundreds of thousands of training activities and thousands of suppliers on their behalf, building up unrivalled market intelligence in the process. About the Learning Discoveries Club Designed specifically for learning and development professionals, the Learning Discoveries Club provides an independent and research-driven view on an increasingly fragmented training market. Our series of Discoveries Reports focus on specific subject matter areas, and are the must-read guide for learning & development professionals, highlighting what works, where it works best and how to do it yourself. The club also runs Innovation Days, Webinars and Breakfast Briefings which provide the perfect opportunity to network with like-minded professionals and hear about innovative new learning programmes. For more information or to become a member go to or learningdiscoveries@knowledgepool.com To view the full 36 page version of this report, please register to become a member of the Learning Discoveries Club. 6