Doug Blair had a couple of good comments to the training approach I put
forward.
"Q1. Why suggest a certification program for a sales organization? In a
more technical arena, I may be more inclined to entertain it. But why in a
sales organization? I saw an attempt at this once, and it may be best
summarized by one of my clients, "What's the difference in a sales-slut
and a certified sales-slut?" While I have a higher regard for marketing
than this, her point was well taken - and she was the customer after all."
Here's my rationale. Dale used the phrase "consultive selling" and the
industry is systems integration, rather than commodity sales of computer
and network hardware. I find that "consultive selling" is technical and
requires a team of folks skilled in project management, IT architecture,
network design, etc. What's really being sold are people's skills and
knowledge of computing and communications. Those skills can be sold a
couple of ways, namely through (a) past successes and (b) having achieved
some level of stature. Hence my recommendation (a) to look at what kind of
roles the selling team requires and (b) consider certifying them. If
nothing else, certification provides a sort of training target.
Q2. Why put such emphasis on measurements?
Not being a professional trainer, I'm out of my element here. And my
attitudes may reflect more the rest of the population. It seems that out
here in industry training is subject to violent swings of the budget
pendulum. A couple simple measures could contribute to reducing the
amplitude and provide answers to management's inevitable question of "What
am I getting for all this money spent on training?" Somebody has to be
able to say whether the expense of training contributes to sales. If it's
not, then the training budget will be cut. I realize that's not a very
learning organization thing to say.
-- Beth Clark eclark@advtech.uswest.com