WHY TRAIN SALES PEOPLE?

1. In 3-5 years, half of what the person knows about selling is obsolete. 
  Sales technology is advancing at a radical pace.
2. Experience alone will not be enough to keep up with the changing market. 
  What would you do if the doctor said, "I haven't read a book or been to a 
  seminar in medicine since I graduated from medical school 20 years ago."
  Sales technology is helping professionals keep their skill state of the art.
3. Why do the very best of every profession spend so much time in training?
4. Top sales producers spend approximately two weeks per year in training.
5. "The success of current business strategies and the development of innovations
   frequently hinge on the skills of the sales force. Customer Service strategies are
   impossible unless the sales force is well-trained in this arena."
  - ASTD, Annual Research Report.
6. A new salesperson's enthusiasm will carry them for the first 90 days, then
  selling skills must be in place or a dramatic drop (or total failure) in productivity
  will occur. Without skill reinforcement, in 12 to 18 months another drop
  (approximately 20%) will occur.
7.80% of first year sales people develop fears of selling and fail because
 they lack the basic skills of selling.
8. Past experience and formal education have no correlation to success in selling.
9. Make your sales calls count. "Companies with less than ten salespeople
 report an average sales call cost of $336.00."- McGraw-Hill Research
10. "Sales people completing a selling skills intensive training program show
 increases in productivity ranging from 35% to 1665%. Yet, an estimated 70% of
 companies provide no selling skills development at all."- ASTD, Annual Research Report.
11. Companies often lump product knowledge, motivational "rah rah" sessions
 and technical skills development under the heading of "sales training."
 Yet none of these actually help the person sell skillfully.
12. We see training as insurance on our biggest asset - human resources.
   Find me a company without that insurance, that has stopped training its salespeople,
   and I'll target that market and that company and have its business by year's end. David Barcusee of Bergen-Brunswig.- Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, January 1990.
13."95% of the training that's done on the job is done so poorly that the job suffers measurably.
    And both the trainer and the trainee agree that it's the trainee's fault, but it isn't."-
     Training Magazine June 1993
14. "Great salespeople have an edge because they are able to let go of obsolete ideas..."
    - Donald Trump - Personal Selling Power, September, 1993
15. After one year on the job, it costs approximately £60,000 to replace a Sales Professional.
16. After the first 90 days, the enthusiasm of a new job wears off and reality sets in.
   Without skill development, 80% of "new to sales" people will wash out of selling
    within the year.
17. How important is contact management? Industrial Distribution's study
   found that neglect and/or an attitude of indifference are the causes
   for 82% of customers to go over to the competition.

SALES MANAGEMENT
1. Sales managers are primarily responsible for obtaining results through
 the efforts of their salespeople. Their payoff comes through the development of
 others. Yet, sales managers spend less than 15 minutes per month per salesperson
 in actual skill development.
2. "...Selection and training of field sales managers has become one of the
 most acute problems facing top management."
- Harvard Business Review.
3. "50% of Sales Managers surveyed have never read a job description of what
 they were supposed to do."- American Management Association
4. "78% of Sales Managers were dissatisfied with their training or had never
 received any specific training to equip them for their roles as Sales Managers." American Management Association
5. "Only 1 out of 44 companies surveyed had any kind of company sponsored
 sales managers training program."
- American Management Association
6. Using the right interviewing and hiring techniques can reduce the number
 of inappropriate people being hired by as much as 40%.
7. "Top managers today make more decisions in one month that their
 grandparents made in a lifetime."
- Kenneth Blanchard - Training Magazine June 1993

     INVESTMENT:

1. "Based on research of small, medium and large companies, the medium amount
 spent on sales training amounted to less £300.00. per sales person on training
2.. "Over the past 50 years, investments in job related training have
 consistently outperformed investments in machine capitol. Quite simply, a
 trained workforce produces more productivity gains than capital investments do."
 - Training and Development Journal, January 1990.
3. "By the year 2000, 75% of all workers currently employed will need
  retraining. Technological and societal changes are reshaping jobs in every
  industry. -Training and Development Journal, January 1990.
4."75% of the people who will be working in the year 2000 are already in the
  workforce. The only way they will have access to training is if companies like yours supply it.
Training and Development Journal, January 1990.
5. "The surplus labour supply of a few years ago has dwindled to almost nothing.
  Companies won't be able to buy talent, instead they will need to create it with training."
Training and Development Journal, January 1990.