Jonathan Farrington’s Blog

One of the first exercises I carry out before commencing a new assignment, is a rigorous audit and profiling session to identify the current strengths and limitations of the team - sales, management, or whatever.

You know the thing that I find, more often than not? It is the considerable length of time since the individuals received any formal training, coaching or counselling - is it any wonder that around 80% of all front-line sales professionals are not working at optimum performance levels? 

During the seventies, eighties and nineties, it was common for large corporations such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Compaq etc to put their new sales recruits through a twelve to eighteen-month training programme. Today, salespeople consider themselves extremely fortunate if they receive an initial two weeks of induction training or product familiarisation workshops.

So what has changed? Have companies discovered that training is not necessary? On the contrary, training appears to be even more important today than it was thirty years ago and it is becoming more critical all the time.

Lower Training Budgets But Higher Expectations:

The dichotomy facing Sales Directors is how they reconcile the fact that most corporations today provide less upfront training for their sales staff than in years past, yet attach increasing importance to staff development?

This should not come as a surprise, because current stock market thinking provides a powerful disincentive for firms to invest in their people on an ongoing basis. An organisation’s investment in their human capital, in the form of training and other forms of education, is not separable from general expenditure. It therefore appears as a cost on the corporate balance sheet.

Tough Choices:

Unfortunately, as a consequence, many Sales Directors have concluded that their only realistic option is to cut back on training and instead look to recruit sales professionals who, in theory anyway, already possess the necessary skills needed to do the job. They then send them out to win business armed with what they know. However, most of those same Sales Directors are discovering just how difficult it is to find skilled salespeople, who have all of the essential skills and personal traits. And anyway it is not possible to equate experience or seniority with success.

In skills development, there are many similarities to sport i.e. does an athletic champion stop training as soon as they win their first medal? In music, does a concert pianist stop rehearsing as soon as they have given their first recital? In art, does the artist stop improving after they have enjoyed the first exhibition of their work? The answer in all cases is obvious and we should apply the same common sense principals to the ongoing development of our sales teams.

The reality is that selling in today’s climate is both an art and a science. Selling is a profession that demands a far wider range of skills than ever before, skills that require continual fine-tuning and constant practice.

In Summary - Ongoing Reinforcement and Development Is Essential:

The operative word here is “ongoing”. Even if salespeople have undergone progressive sales training, there’s no guarantee that they will be successful. It is common knowledge that skills grow rusty over time and salespeople are prone to pick-up bad habits along the way or to simply skip steps and take shortcuts that can lead to long-term trouble. Perhaps even more important these days, is the fact that markets, competition, technologies, and customer preferences are all in a constant and accelerating state of change. This fact requires that sales people are able and willing to rethink their sales strategy and approach frequently and receive a regular top-up of skills and motivational coaching.

Today’s News: When I first set out on the road with the primary objective of establishing the JF brand, I was advised that writing articles was definitely something I should consider doing - that was long before the same visionary advisor suggested that I should write a Blog Here we are, almost two hundred articles later and I always remember one particular article community CEO, who helped me enormously during those early days (and still offers advice and support freely) His name is David Bain, the site was (and still is) buildyourownbusiness.biz It’s very much a niche site and successful because of it.

However, since our first meeting way back in May 2006, like many of us, David has been forging ahead with a number of successful initiatives and has quickly established himself as one of the leading internet marketing experts in the world with his company Purple Internet Marketing 

His “Thirteen Pillars Of Internet Marketing” tour was a sell-out in virtually every major city in the UK last year and now he has produced something even better - if that were possible.

It’s a twenty- six week internet marketing programme and it launches next week: My elves have been all the way through it last week and they could not praise it enough, here are some of the comments I got back from them:

Hi JF, here is a first analysis

“Extremely comprehensive”
“Very well constructed”
“So easy to follow”
“Excellent value for money”
“Covers everything you are ever likely to need to know - and so much more!”
“Even get a free t-shirt!!”
“Bonus cd’s included - and there’s an interview with you :-)” 

I will share my personal findings over the next couple of weeks, but if you or your company do not realise the importance of getting your internet strategy right, then you are missing out! You can register your pre-launch interest here

Tomorrow: Most of us who regularly write articles (although it is confession time; I have been very much distracted lately and as a consequence, haven’t written much) - agree that some of our work passes the “Mmm, yep, I like that and I am proud of it, test” whilst not unaturally, we are less proud of some other pieces, because we are perfectionists (Isn’t it strange that some of the work we produce and are not satisfied with gets read the most?)

I digress; tomorrow my guest is Jill Konrath, my “Crazy Buddy” currently on vacation and climbing things in Utah - she has yet to write something I didn’t enjoy and tomorrow’s post is superb - trust me.

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