Why Sales Training Doesn't Work

WHY SALES TRAINING DOESN’T WORK
…and what you can do about it.
PRESENTED BY:
John Kipp
Principal Consultant
March 21, 2015
KippKippKippKippMARKETING– White Paper Series

KippMARKETING White Paper Series 2
Why Sales Training Doesn’t
Work and what you can do about it
by KippMARKETING with thanks to Bob Flynn
“To facilitate the success of an
organization, training must become
everyone’s responsibility.”
Robert O. Brinkerhoff Ed.D., Internationally recognized expert in
evaluation and training effectiveness
Making Sales Training Pay
The “ABC” selling system (Always Be Closing)
heralded by Alec Baldwyn’s character, Blake, in
the movie Glengarry Glen Ross was a “take no
prisoners, pump, and sign” approach that might
have been a successful sales strategy when the
movie opened in 1992, but is now considered
one of the great, all-time parodied sales
speeches on the Web. In fact, one of the best
parodies is performed by Baldwyn himself on
SNL chewing out Santa's workshop elves to
"Always Be Cobbling." And yet, I still get calls
today from salespeople using this tired and
offensive tactic.
The reason why sales training is largely
ineffective today is because it is based on
principles that fit the way sales used to be
conducted. The days of glad-handing, back-
slapping and spending afternoons in bars trying
to close a customer are long gone, thanks
largely to the acts of Enron and Worldcom.
The Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (C-SOX in
Canada) came out as a result of these corporate
scandals that shook investor confidence. SOX
and C-SOX not only increased the scrutiny of
corporate governance on both sides of the
border but, from a sales standpoint, it shifted
the responsibility for purchasing away from
operating line managers to the corporate
purchasing department. Now, purchasing
decisions at large public companies are made
by professional purchasers whose training and
expertise are designed to drive you to your rock
bottom price, whether or not it’s
compensatory. Don’t believe me?
A few years ago, my mentor Bob Flynn was
conducting a strategic account management
workshop in Chicago. Bob learned that there
was a buyer’s negotiation workshop being held
in the same facility. Curious, Bob checked it out
at the next break. Coincidentally, his class was
also on break, so he strolled into the workshop
classroom. Right behind the speaker's lectern,
high up on the wall was a huge banner. Here's
what it said:
The Buyer’s Credo
Narrow it down to one issue: PRICE, and then
hammer away. Pay no attention to their sales
pitch, value add claims, relationship building
techniques, four color brochures, product &
service comparisons, etc., etc., “UNLESS”…
they apply to one or more of your issues, then
assign a relative value.
Selling changed a long time ago and stakeholders
at all levels must collaborate to systematically

manage the learning and behavioural change
processes. Sales training needs to be consistent
and cost-effective to deliver the results needed
to build and sustain a competitive advantage.
So, for training to work in today’s environment
it must meet these five criteria:
1. Strategic sales priorities must be
translated into training solutions. Don’t offer
sales training for transactional type business
when your goal is to build national, strategic
accounts. If you’re stuck with low-volume,
price-sensitive accounts, what training is
required to penetrate the large, national
volume accounts? How do you find and build
rapport with great customers who appreciate
the value drivers you impact and the
commitment you demonstrate to their success?
What and how do we teach our people to
displace the competition and build long-term
trust and credibility with strategic customers?
2. Technologies must be integrated with
performance improvement and sustaining
methods. For example, cloud-based CRM
services such as Salesforce and ZOHO are great,
cost-effective platforms to monitor and
reinforce the quantity and quality of those
interactions after training. However, you likely
don’t want to immediately invest in their
“premier” versions, which their brochures
purport to capture, analyze, and report on a
hundred different customer variables and
trends. Salespeople aren’t clerks and, in my
experience, few are able (regardless of the
consequences) to take proper care and thought
in completing sales reporting requirements. The
result? A whole lot of bad data and a growing
suspicion of the system’s capabilities and value.
In the 1991 printing of Ed Deming’s book Out of
the Crisis, Ed describes the woes of a
transportation department in the USA charged
with vehicle registrations. Chronic mistakes on
the forms (customer names, addresses, and
serial numbers) were costing the state
$1,000,000 a year in corrections. The manager
tells Ed that he has approval to spend $10,000
in software (remember what year this is!)
programmed to highlight and force correction
of errors. He boasts that elimination of costly
corrections will save the state $1,000,000 every
year!
Ed disagrees, of course. His common-sense
reckoning of the situation is that the forms
themselves need to be improved for clarity and
ease FIRST and then the typists need to be
trained to understand what constitutes an error
and their consequences. Once the typists have
reached a point where they have no need for
the software, that’s the time to buy it!
The initial objective of your CRM investment is
to capture critical, accurate, and timely baseline
customer data. At first, that might only be 10
data boxes, but that’s where you need to start
to ensure good data is recorded. For it to work,
not only do training and testing need to be
instituted, so do clear positive and negative
consequences for compliance. You’ll find that
once the sales people get used to the
requirement, they actually start liking and
relying on the CRM to keep track of their
customers and follow-ups. Soon, they start
lobbying you for more sophistication. Once you
hit that milestone, start looking at
enhancements to the system.
3. Stakeholders must be involved in all
aspects of training. The managers of trainees
are usually the killers of training. Back on the
job, the trainee often hears, ”I don’t care what
they told you in training, here’s how it’s done.”
This very common occurrence is the inevitable
result of the separation of training
development from the company’s other

operations. Unless you have interdepartmental
and senior level alignment for training, don’t
waste your people’s time or your company’s
money.
4. Post-learning interventions must be
applied to reinforce application of the
training to the job. Translation – don’t pay for
piano lessons if you don’t plan to buy a piano.
That means sales managers and coaches must
spend productive time with their salespeople
behind the windshield and in their customers’
shops, offices, and boardrooms. Think about it,
the old Russian proverb of “Doveryai no
proveryai” (Trust but verify) used by President
Reagan during the negotiation of the 1987 INF
Treaty is absolutely critical in converting an
antecedent (Training) into positive and
sustained behavioural changes to compete in
the new sales reality.
5. The efficiency of the training must be
measured to ensure results and manage costs.
Here’s a scenario you may have experienced.
You invest in a two or three day sales seminar
and your field selling force is sheep-dipped with
all sorts of valuable sales stories, information
and insights. Great! They head back to the
office all fired up like they just came out of a
Tony Robbins seminar, ready to hit the road
and take on the world!
Over the next few weeks, you might even see a
spike in sales. But then, something happens.
By the third or fourth week, you notice that
they’re struggling to remember what being
“pumped up” felt like. And, if you’re lucky,
they’ve retained about 10% of all that
great information they received in that short
period of time. Sales have levelled off and they
are back to their old, comfortable habits.
The training “investment” now seems like a bad
idea when you add up the cost of the seminar,
T&E, plus everyone’s time away from work.
Three Sales Training Myths
1. Training Makes a Difference
Simply providing training, even when the design
and delivery is excellent, does not add value to
the organization. It is only when the training
process is viewed and managed as a larger
more extensive process that involves all
immediate stakeholders that it has a chance of
making a difference.
2. Training’s Purpose is to Learn
Remember Senge’s “learning organization”
mantra of the 1990’s? If learning is the purpose
of training, then this purpose can be met
without enhancing productivity or achieving
any other organizational business goals. Most
executives and training professionals must
believe this myth because the web site
TrainingIndustry.com estimates that in 2013,
$141.7B was spent in North America on
training. A good portion of that one hundred
and forty-two-billion-dollar training industry is
focused on achieving learning objectives, NOT
business objectives. Training needs to be win-
win for both the employee and the company.
3. Training is Training’s Job
Much of what’s wrong with training today
stems from the myth that training is the job of
the training or human resources (HR)
department. In organizations where training
dollars are wasted, the training department or
HR is viewed as the provider of all the
company’s training programs.

As I mentioned earlier, training is just an
antecedent; this means it sets the stage for
change to occur—it doesn’t implement
change. Sure, it may inspire slight behavioural
change for a short period of time, but training,
in and of itself, has a very limited effect on
change of any sort.
For sales training to have a lasting effect it
must be constantly repeated, which is very
inefficient and costly. The only prudent way to
give training sustaining behavioural influence
is to pair it with systematic reinforcement. The
people providing the reinforcement must be
the managers, supervisors, and coaches of the
trainees; i.e., the immediate stakeholders.
Failing to reinforce training is the mother of all
training failures. This is where 95% of
companies take a shovel and dig a big black
hole in which to bury their money.
The Management Imperative
So, how does management train their field
sales force to NOT act as vendors anymore?
Firstly, you must take a stand and refuse to be
commoditized and compete exclusively on
price. Secondly, you need to communicate
that imperative throughout the organization
constantly, consistently, and creatively.
Thirdly, your field sales force need to learn
how to proactively understand how your
customers do business, find ways to address
their pressing business issues, and
recommend strategic solutions that improve
the way they do business.
The entire organization needs to step away
from a limited focus in favour of big-picture
business value. To be successful in today's
price-driven environment you have to rethink
the opportunities you pursue, how you create
your plans, what you choose to learn about
your customers, the level of people you are
willing to sell to, and the way you present your
value. You must be acutely aware that buyers
are trained, motivated, and given lucrative
incentives to turn your products, services, and
solutions into commodities. This will only
happen if you permit it.
Stop thinking that you can react to the
customer's buying process in the hope that
they will be different and you will be able to
sell value. You won't. You'll wind up losing
the deal or, if you win it, you'll win at a price
that shreds your margins.
But John, We ARE Different!
Bob Flynn uses an interesting and revealing
exercise in many of his workshops. First, he’ll
ask the participants if their products, services
and company in general are better than the
competition. Most answer with a resounding
“YES!” Next, Bob divides the class into two
groups and asks group #1 to pretend that they
will be meeting with an important new
customer the next day. He then instructs them
to write down exactly what they will tell this
important customer about their organization.
Bob then asks group #2 to pretend that they
are THE major competitor to their
organization and that they will be meeting
with this same customer. He instructs both
groups to list everything they will tell this
customer about their organization.
At the end of the 15-minute exercise, he
compares the two lists. Guess what? The lists
are almost identical. Usually the order of
priority is similar if not exactly the same. Bob
will then ask the blockbuster question: “So…
how are you different?”

1. We’re #1.
2. Our people make the difference.
3. We are financially stable.
4. We have a superior safety record.
5. We are uniquely qualified.
6. We are cutting edge & state of the art.
7. We have technological superiority.
8. We are the market leader.
9. We are customer-focussed.
10. We are values-driven.
These are all neat taglines, but they do
nothing to positively differentiate your
company from others. In fact, they do just the
opposite. They position your company with all
the other companies that have the same
claims. Why?
Because that’s the same thing they’re saying.
And when that happens, the customer
becomes confused and takes charge of the
differentiation process. Know how they do
that? Simple. They go to the southwest corner
of the spreadsheet and say, “Okay, looks like
both companies can do the job so let’s get
these folks in a price war and choose the
lowest bidder.”
Do I Even Need A Sales Force?
Based on my 33 years of sales and sales
management across five companies, I believe
the question you need to ask yourself is: "How
have I changed the sales process in the past
five years?" If you have already undertaken
the changes needed to tackle the new ‘sales
realities’ and your organization is aligned to
that reality, then my view is "yes, you do need
a sales force." If you haven’t made any
changes in your sales process, my answer is
"no” you don't need a traditional sales force.
Why? Because if your business isn't mostly
transactional, it's soon going to be.
Your best strategy in that environment is to
get rid of your expensive sales force, take as
much cost out your operation as possible, and
seek lower-cost sales channels online or
through distributors and dealers.
Final Thoughts
Late in 2014, I joined my new Territory
Manager, Bob, on a three-day road trip to
Northern Alberta to visit new and existing tank
trailer customers. I enjoyed time on the road
with my reps and coached many on how to
undertake good prospecting habits. Part of
that is my “fear-free” method of cold-calling,
appointment-generating, and using the skills
necessary to build trust and credibility with
new and existing customers.
At about 3:45 pm on the second day, we were
on the highway West of Edson when we
spotted a number of stainless steel crude oil
tanker trailers parked in a construction
company’s yard. Eager to make one last call
for the day (who wants to see a salesman after
4:00 pm?), we took the service road and
approached the gate. Bolted to the fence was
a grim sign much like this one:

I turned to Bob and he shrugged his shoulders
and said, “Well, I guess we should move on.”
Move on? Not a chance! I told him to head for
the two-story office building on the other side
of the yard. At the front of the building—
where other cars were parked—there was one
empty space with a parking meter! When Bob
noticed the warning on the meter, he started
to perspire.
As Bob got back into the car, I took my phone
out and with a big smile on my face, I took a
picture of the meter: “They’re never gonna
believe this back at the office!” In the car, Bob
turned to me and said, “I guess these guys
don’t want to talk to salesmen.” I said, “Look,
Bob, how many other salesmen have been
scared off by these signs? This could be an
exclusive for us! Really, all they’re asking for is
a little respect for their time. The good news is
that they have a sense of humour. Fortune
favours the bold Bob, and we’re getting in
there tomorrow!”
The next morning, we called the prospective
customer at 9:05, after their coffee. Thirty
minutes later, Bob and I were sitting in the
President’s office. We had a friendly
conversation for about 45 minutes, followed
by a tour of his facilities. Our visit ended with
the president’s commitment to meet with us
again to discuss equipment needs for new
wells opening up in the area.
What a great story! I teach it as part of
Module One of the Counter 5 Selling System:
Fear-free Prospecting and Appointment
Generation. It absolutely works on the
toughest customers – even those with meters
that read: Salesmen Parking Only!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Kipp is the Principal Consultant
at Kipp MARKETING, a sales training
and coaching firm specializing in
teaching the skills of selling in a hyper-
competitive marketplace.
In his 33 years of sales and executive
sales management experience, Kipp
credits his years of success in sales to
his ability to build trust and credibility
with his customers and that, he states,
“begins with the very first contact.”
Over the years, Kipp has led his sales
teams to significant sales and
operational achievements.
Kipp began his career on the road right after university as a fuel and lubricants Marketing
Representative in 1982 for a major integrated oil company in Ottawa. His sales acumen,
leadership abilities, and love for business development have resulted in some high profile
appointments over his career. In 2015, Kipp retired from the Advance Engineered
Products Group where he served as Vice President, Sales & Marketing. Before that, he
served as Vice President, Marketing/Business Development and as Western Division Vice
President for Trimac Transportation Services. Shortly after leaving Trimac, Kipp worked
for the Contrans (Transportation) Group as Vice President, Marketing and Business
Development.
Kipp credits his inspiration to leave corporate life to pursue sales training and coaching to
his mentor, Bob Flynn. Flynn is the founder and managing partner of PeopleWorks!, an
internationally respected authority on tactical and strategic selling, executive coaching,
personal development, and employee motivation. “Quite simply, Bob is the best sales
trainer I have ever worked with. He has taught me a lot about how people interact with
each other and has exposed me to timeless truths and principles which will continue to
serve me and others throughout our lives. It’s Bob that encouraged me to share what I
learned and those experiences with others who might benefit.” Kipp teaches what he has
personally applied successfully with the countless sales people he has coached and
worked with during his career.

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