Let’s consider a common scenario . . .

Your salespeople aren’t selling enough. They’re hitting their quotas by making the number of sales visits you asked for. They’re even identifying and calling on 20 strong new prospects every month, just like you asked them to do. But for some reason, the needle isn’t moving in either new client acquisition or sales dollar volume.

Who Are You Going to Call?

You call a well-respected sales training company and hope their instruction can turn things around. But as our CEO Evan Hackle points out in his new book Ingaging Leadership, it is important to be sure that you are getting to the root causes of problems, not only attacking the symptoms.

Here are some questions that you should ask, and then discuss with your training development company before training begins:

• Where did we get those sales quotas and targets? If they’re not working, do they make any sense? If your salespeople are hitting your targets but still not selling enough, take a step back. Instead of relying on training to squeeze more dollars from quotas that aren’t producing, this is a good time to ask whether they are the right ones – or even if they make any sense. The next question flows logically from this one . . .

• What are the real reasons sales are not increasing? Maybe sales are slow because it takes too long to deliver your products or because your customers are unhappy with the customer service you provide. But the underlying question is, will your training try to address underlying causes or attack only the symptoms? Again, the next question flows logically from this one . . . 

• Is the training company I’m talking to willing and able to explore underlying big-picture issues, or only trying to bring in a new client? In the long run, identifying and addressing underlying issues benefits everyone – both you and the training company. That is the kind of training partner you should be looking for.