Why do many salespeople remain faithful believers in obsolete selling strategies? We are talking about intelligent, successful salespeople. People whom, if they opened their minds to a totally new concept, could easily double their income without working any harder. That question has puzzled and frustrated us during the 14 years that we have been in the sales training business.
We have trained a great many salespeople who have doubled and even quadrupled their sales. Most of them have recommended our training to a lot of their friends and colleagues. Usually a few of their friends and colleagues enroll in our training courses. But, that’s not we expected.
We expected that, when our graduates went back to their companies and had dramatic increases in production, most of the other salespeople would demand to learn High Probability Selling. We expected that their managers would want to replicate that kind of performance by training their entire sales force. But, that doesn’t happen very often. Most often, the other salespeople, and their sales managers will not believe that the tremendous increases in our graduate’s sales productivity is due to learning a new sales process. Rather, they believe that the sudden success is due to luck, or a previously hidden talent, or to an increase in motivation.
We couldn’t figure out why they just don’t get the reality of it. David B. Wolfe, a new paradigm marketing strategist from Reston, VA, addresses this phenomenon in a recent essay. It seems to be a question of which of their needs is more important to them. The following is an excerpt from David’s essay.
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How often do you find yourself pressing a point that you know to the core of your being is right, only to be frustrated because some people just “can’t get it”?
Imagine you are walking down the street 450 years ago when a friend runs up to you and says it has been discovered that, “The earth is not flat! It’s round, like a ball. Not only that, it turns around the sun!” You tell your friend to go home and sleep it off because you know that from the highest hill or mountaintop the panoramic view shows no sign of the earth being round like a ball, and you know from first-hand observation that every day the sun shines it rises in the east and sets in the west in its daily journey around the earth.
Would you believe that some people schooled in societies like our own still believe the earth is flat? To see for yourself, type in “Flat Earth society” at Google. Those who believe the earth is flat do so because they need to believe so. After all, belief follows need.
We believe what we need to believe to have guidance in our pursuit of a sense of personal validity, safety and comfort. Once such a set of beliefs is in place, challenges to them are usually met with fight or flight responses. We argue in defense of our beliefs or flee from notions that contradict them. We are prone to denying ideas that contradict our beliefs any landing rights in our minds.
Much like Copernicus’s repositioning of the earth from the center of the universe around which celestial bodies revolve, most people of that day could not “get it.” As Albert Einstein said, “A problem cannot be solved in the same consciousness that produced it.”
©Jacques Werth, High Probability® Selling - All rights reserved.
Jacques Werth, author of “High Probability Selling,” is an internationally respected Sales Trainer and Sales Consultant. HPS graduates are excelling as Top Producers in over 70 industries. Visit http://www.highprobsell.com to read more articles, preview the book, and learn more about High Probability Selling.
There is little doubt that eLearning has not achieved the success it promised some ten years ago, even though the primary benefits in terms of cost and flexibility remains extremely attractive. Some of the mistakes that have been made are:
1. A Lack of an Holistic Approach
Elearning was viewed as being a replacement for traditional training methods. To be successful, elearning should adopt an integrated approach to human resource development. This means integrating Performance Assessment with Training Needs Analysis, with Personal Development Plans, with Continuous Professional Development records, with elearning blended with other training resources, learning methods, and corporate learning programmes.
2. A Failing to Understand the Elearning Medium
Much of the reason for making Mistake 1 is the problem of thinking about elearning as a substitute for face-to-face training just delivered cheaper and faster whenever employees want it. While computers bring strengths and opportunities to the learning experience, it must be remembered that they also remove some of the critical components of face-to-face learning, such as audio-visual; peer discussion; and the social environment.
3. A Belief that the Audio-Visual component can be replaced by Elearning
Many companies designing elearning programmes have engaged expensive programmers and invested in heavy duty programmes and equipment in order to enhance the elearning experience. Students end up being entertained but come away learning little.
4. Blowing the Budget on a Technology Solution
The problem with mistake number 3 is that it is expensive. Spending 1 million on an elearning system is not unusual. Neither is finding out that the initial spend is only part of the expense. There are updates and maintenance to consider. Heavy duty programmes require heavy duty equipment and software to download. As a face-to-face trainers, we can alter training notes, handouts and session content very quickly and inexpensively. Try doing that with audio-video content.
5. Failing to Link Elearning with Business Needs
Traditional training should flow from the organisation’s business strategy. Elearning is no exception. Whilst elearning may be a new delivery method, it does not change the fundamentals of business strategy, manpower and HRD planning, individual performance reviews and training needs analysis; nor learning programme design, progress monitoring, programme evaluation and learning verification.
Like other learning methods, an elearning programme must flow from, and be driven, by the organisation’s business development objectives, and therefore elearning should also be monitored and measured.
6. Unrealistic Expectations
How many projects have failed for want of a realistic assessment of time, resources and expectations? Many would point to Total Quality Management (TQM) as a pretty good example. When a project involves a new discipline and particularly when that discipline involves new technology it is very common for management to overestimate short-term expectations and underestimate the time and cost needed before benefits can realistically be achieved. If this is doubted, then ask any project manager. As a result, initial enthusiasm is soon replaced by despair. Like TQM or any ‘flavour of the month’, elearning has many substantial benefits but it is not a magic wand, and it is not a substitute for sound management.
7. A Lack of Management Involvement
Elearning is no different to any other form of training. It might work in the classroom or on-line but the measure of its transference to the workplace is totally reliant upon the involvement of the line manager. The special problem with elearning is the number of technophobe managers who can hide behind ‘I’m not an ‘IT’ expert’ excuse for not getting involved in the learning goals of their staff.
The Answer?
Having woken up to the fact that elearning on its own is not the answer, we now are presented with a similar sounding - Blended learning. Blended learning however, whilst sounding similar is completely different, and it works. It is a way of getting the best from a number of worlds. It addresses not only the preferences of different learners but also seeks to maximise off-site time to improving skills, leaving knowledge acquisition to a more economical method of delivery.
Blended learning incorporates face-to-face delivery with online study; skills workshops; assignments; assessments, and workplace coaching.
You do not need to spend millions on trying to replace traditional learning methods with an elearning platform. Treat elearning as just an addition delivery channel which gives you more flexibility. Research shows that students can only absorb 15/20 minutes of elearning at a time anyway which is why a well designed blended learning programme will usually deliver study tasks in small bites. It provides the option to more effectively use the training budget whilst keeping a tight control on who is studying what; when; to what level; whether the manager is involved or not; and ultimately how the learning is being applied.
Far from being dead, elearning has emerged as an important element in the successful blended learning approach to people development.
Business & Training Solutions Ltd holds the franchise for the http://www.HRDworldwide.com online learning system which they use as part of their blended programmes. BTS can be contacted on http://www.btsolutions.ie
Frank Salisbury is a highly experience motivational speaker, and inspiring business coach, particularly to the sales profession. Frank is recognised as a leading authority in the field of sales - including sales process design, sales performance, and sales coaching.
He strongly believes that whether we work in the public or private sector; whether our organisation is commercial or non-commercial; that we are all in sales. His favourite quote, which has become his maxim, is from Robert Louis Stevenson - ‘Everything in live is selling’. He has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars where his style has received popular acclaim for a speaker with a passion for life, and achievement.
He is Managing Director of Business & Training Solutions Ltd - a sales consultancy based in Ireland and the UK. He can be contacted at frank@btsolutions.ie. 28 Rye Close, Banbury, Oxfordshire. 0044 (0)1295250247