Neal Benedict

No one likes meetings and salespeople are notoriously averse to them. And, why not. Time spent in sales meetings takes away valuable selling time. However, having a regular sales management meeting can and should be one of the most valued activities for both your sales team and sales management.

With so many online sales training providers available, it can be challenging to know which one is the best fit for you.

There is no shortage of companies and their associated experts providing advice on the who, what, when, where, and why of prospecting. In case you missed it, you are reading one of those “experts” right now. The challenge if you are a sales professional is there is little consensus as to the best methods amongst those writing on the topic.

If you haven’t been following the news on the annual performance reviews and the debates that have followed, it has been quite lively. Many well-known companies have made the decision over the past few years to shutter their annual review process. Companies like GE, Adobe and Accenture have all said: “there is a better way.” However, the intention here isn’t to discuss the pros and cons of annual performance reviews but to more specifically focus on the need for salespeople to have any type of non-numbers based assessment.

Let me first admit that I am a staunch believer in sales training. Sales training can be incredibly effective and just like the way you can differentiate your company from the competition, by the quality of your product and your service levels, you can and should differentiate by the way you sell. However, let’s first challenge our “first principle”; does sales training work?

No one likes meetings and most like sales meetings even less. However, having a regular sales management meeting can and should be one of the most valued activities for both your sales team and sales management.

There is no shortage of articles that one can find with statistics of how many salespeople meet their quota. One study by the Aberdeen Group said that only 50% meet or exceed quota.

When your sales team moves an opportunity to the “no decision” column you can make a reasonable assumption that this is far from the first or the last time. Research from reputable sales research companies such as the Sales Benchmark Index show that as high as 60% of sales opportunities end in no decision.

As individuals, our tendency is to remain in a state of comfort. Comfort is defined as “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.” Most of us constantly strive to reach a state of comfort. Not because we are lazy or because we lack discipline, but in some cases because we work so hard comfort seems like our one true need.