Three out of four companies you know are not in the top quartile. By definition they are underperforming. This ABA Insider concludes our series on helping you to assess whether or not your sales team has the capacity to grow your business to your next level.
One of the keys to becoming a top quartile company is having consistent and growing revenue. Revenue growth depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales channels. While creating and cultivating your online presence is certainly a key part of supporting sales efforts, most of our clients depend on having sales people who are experts at cultivating client relationships.
According to The Sales Board research, there are five factors that most positively impact sales performance. This data set was compiled over 20 years and tabulates the results from over 400,000 salespeople from over 3,500 companies in a broad range of industries.
Best of all, these skills can be taught and do not depend on talents, personality traits or luck. The five critical skills are:
Over the last two ABA Insiders eNewsletters (click to view last week’s edition) we looked at the impact of the sales training on salespersons skill development in the Buyer/Seller Relationship, Sales Call Planning Questioning/Listening and Presentation.
This week, we’ll show how our training program can improve the skill of Gaining Commitment and the impact of improvements in all five skill areas.
So what? Like other business owners or sales managers, you’re probably asking yourself questions like:
- Assuming these are the key sales skills, how much will the training improve their skills?
- How do I know our sales people will actually use these skills on the job?
- How can you connect the sales training to an increase in sales revenue?
The data on over 400,000 salespersons who have taken this training provides solid evidence of the kind of impact our program can have on your sales team’s performance. We chose this training because it fits with our proprietary Developmental System of Services™. Our work with your sales team reinforces the application of skills and knowledge on the job to align with the business results you intend.
Remarkable findings about this skill
The bars on the left measure before and after results of salesperson’s Knowledge of gaining commitment while the two bars on the right measure the Application of that knowledge. Blue bars indicate average assessment scores prior to training. The green bars indicate assessment scores upon completion of training.
Business owners and sales managers admit this is the skill area where they face the greatest challenges. Note how low the Knowledge and Application scores are before training–56% and 36% respectively.
Since this is the core skill a salesperson does, success demands that s/he must do it excellently. After training, Knowledge scores improved by 55% and Application scores improved by 119%. This dramatic leap in the ability to gain commitment to move a potential client forward translates directly into business results—increases in sales!
What happens when all five critical skills are combined?
According to the data, salespersons going through the training we provide can expect to have 43% more knowledge about these skills. More importantly, they gain 85% in application of these critical skills.
For salespersons to apply 79% of the skills they learned indicates that most of the knowledge they’ve gained is paying dividends in their sales activity.
This gain translates directly into increased sales effectiveness–less time spent to make more money–and increases in revenue to meet and exceed your company’s revenue goals. Our unique approach to Developmental Consulting has been crafted to reinforce the application of these skills to move your company to the next level.
TOOLKIT:
Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how Sales Effectiveness Development can get your company into the top 25%!
