Sales training alone never fixes your sales team

My pleasure.

Well, you know, it was a bit of a coincidence. I was not planning to, to be honest with you. I have thirty plus years of business to business sales experience in different leadership position, different sales position in different countries, by the way. I've lived and worked in five different countries. So about fifteen years at Ericsson, you know, the telecommunication company. So it's a complex business-to-business sales, but I was also head of sales and marketing for Scania, you know, the truck and bus company focusing on the mining industry at headquarter Sweden. So I I I had a lot of sales, and then I was say seven years I worked for a small boutique sales development consulting firm. So I was a consultant, but I was an employed consultant and I learned a lot. I work with different industries and so on. But then family reasons and so on we moved to Canada from Sweden. So I I was actually just planning on on looking for a job here. but when I was about to leave Scania, they asked me if I can do some consulting for them, represent them here in Canada and so on. So I said, why not? So I set up a company before I even landed here. But I thought that that would be temporary. but then I got more and more assignments from them and I also Latin. I mean I speak Spanish and Portuguese fluently as well, so I got some assignments in in Latin America as well, besides Canada. And and I, okay, I'll just continue with this until you know. But then the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden the projects were frozen, and and then I was sitting with no income for four months, and I was like, okay, this is not working for me. So then I r d decided that I I need to divide diversify a little bit. I mean I love sharing my experience in sales and I like the consulting role. I did that before although I was an employee but I thought that I can do this myself. But and starting doing that, I realized that there's a catch twenty-two when it comes to being a solopreneur. when I'm when I'm on an assignment, I'm not selling, right? And when I'm not selling, I I don't get more customers. And I'm not when I'm on an assignment, I'm I'm not invoicing. So it's a kind of catch-22, which makes it very difficult. So I decided very early that I should partner up with partners. So I am currently working with three different sales trading organizations. That would that I'm certified with. So that I would represent them and do their train sales training, sales negotiations, coaching, whatever it is, I'll do it for them, for their customers while I'm working with my own customers. Okay, I still have my own customers and I have still my own material. My so I I'm not focusing only on sales trading. I'm I'm I'm looking at holistic sales, and maybe we can come into that. But that's kind of the background. How I ended up and I decided I'll just continue to grow this company instead of looking for a job. So basically that's the background.

Well, ho you know, holistic means like a a total picture, yeah, right? So most companies they would focus on how do we get better at sales. Well, we'll send the people to training and then you know they will go become better. But that's only one small link in how to create sales effectiveness. you have to look at the whole company. First of all, you have to look at how do their their customers buy and and how How is their buying process? How complex is it? Because how complex the buying process is that will determine how long your sales cycle will be. So, and what drives the length of a buying cycle? It's basically the customers' perception of risk and effort when they're gonna buy something and implement it. Right? So they they're very transactional type of sales, and that is one type of sales approach. And also organization and how you sell and how you measure them and everything. And then you have more complex consultative type of sales where you have to build trust over time and probably build the trust with many stakeholders in the company. That's a completely different structure. so I think that holistic means that you have to look at the strategy, you know, based on how what the c who are they trying to sell to and what are they trying to sell. And From a customer perspective, what does that mean? How do you have to analyze it? How what do you have to do to buy it? Right. And how long does it take? And so that will determine the strategy. Go to market. But it will also determine the organizational setup. Is it lone wolf salespeople going out there knocking doors? Is it cross-functional sales team with different competences? So the organization will be part of it, how the setup is, but it will also be the structure itself, so the sales process, how that is designed. and not only that the tools that they're using and it will determine also the performance management how do you measure them and how do you remunerate them how do you you know is it commission or is it the bonus more seldom how how do you measure what KPIs do you have all of these things and then it's also about the culture what kind of sales culture do you have? So there is a many things that you have to look at. And then of course it's about the individual skills and competences. What skills and competences do they need? What kind of coaching setup do they need from their managers, from the sales leaders? And that I think is one area that most companies are failing. They just send the people to training and then they think that it will solve itself. And then I have another one which I think is the one of the most important ones when it comes to individual perspective, and that is the mindset. I have seen people that know everything theoretically and they're very good, but they don't have the right bulletproof mindset. Right? So it's it's a lot of social psychology in sales because it's all about communication with being between people, right?

Yeah, well, you know, that that it there is a cemented stereotype about salespeople and that it has a historical reason. you know, in the beginning of last century you didn't have salespeople. It was basically factories that build good stuff and the customers would come, right? But then like in the maybe 30s, 40s P companies realized that the competition was increasing. So now we have to actually inform people that we exist and that you know they should buy our products. So then sales organizations would start. But most of that at back then and all the way up to the 60s, 70s, was basically knocking on knocking on door salespeople. And they were all 100% commission-based. So what does it mean? Right? If I have to knock on knock on a door and I only get paid when I sell something. That creates some kind of unwanted behavior, right? I'll give you one example. You know the Swedish company Electrolux that is selling everything, you know, like fridges and everything like that, like whiteware. They were selling vacuum cleaners in the 60s and they were they had a really renowned sales school. but they they had salespeople knocking on doors, selling vacuum cleaners. And and they realized that, you know, like okay, so it's all about. How many doors I knock? Because they had a saying that if you knock on 100 doors, you will get 10 talks and then one thank you, so one sale. That means that it's 1% hit rate. That means that they have to knock on many doors in order to sell more, because otherwise they don't eat, right? but that creates a kind of unwanted behavior because now this foot-in-the-door principle, you know, like or low bowling, you know what low bowling is, they sell you something. And and for a price, and then afterward that they go, Yeah, yeah, but it for it to work, you also need to buy this filter, and then you need to buy the so people peace so people so b people get buyers' remorse, right? They feel that they are tricked, because the the salespeople were only focusing on themselves, not at the customer. And this had you know, used car salespeople, you know, we have this typical people we think about when we think about salespeople, but that is history, you know, sales has evolved.

From that, it became more okay, we actually need to sell what people need, and we actually need to develop the sales together with the customer. So it has become more customer centric and customer value focused. Now, don't get me wrong, you still have these salespeople that are selling transactionally and and they sell they only meet the customer once, so they don't really care about the customer. They just care about the sales. They have the same sales pitches and just doing it as efficient as possible to as many as possible. That sale exists still, but it's a dying breed. You still see them in the supermarkets trying to get you to change from one mobile provider to another or so on. But I mean, already Amazon has taken over most of the tradit transactional sales. You don't even need the salespeople. You can just go to do the and buy things online, right? And still you still have some of them trying to pursue you to sell, but they don't really care about you because they're it's a like about and telephone salespeople. There's just as many lifts as possible in the telephone and many calls as possible, and that will affect the result. But in sales, you have three major factors. You have productivity, it's important, and you have priority and quality. For transactional sales, it's all about productivity as much as possible. But in more relation based sales, it takes time and you have to sell trust first. And you're there to serve. You you You have to focus on the customer, otherwise you will sell once. And if they feel treat if they feel cheated and they get biased remorse, they will not subby you again. So that's a bad strategy, right? So so that's that's why I think that historically people have this bad perception about salespeople, but that kind of sales is kind of dying. Now it's all about value based, consultative type of kick customer focused sales that is the ones that it's emerging more.

Sure. First of all, it's kind of like going to the doctor, right? If you have a stomach ache, you go to the doctor and you say, I have a pain in my stomach. And the doctor doesn't just take out some pills and say, hey, take two of these each day, right? They have to diagnose before they prescribe. It's the same thing in sales. It's all about the customer, a patient, in in this analogy. So the first thing I would do for my customers, now I'm in consulting. Is they'll say, okay, can you give us some sales training? I said, hold on. I mean, I do sales training on behalf of other companies, partners. That's okay. It's their material, I represent them. I'm certified. But I'm talking about my customers now. The first thing I will do is that I will say that, yeah, but I can't just do it sales training. You know, I probably will miss the target. I don't know. I have to, you know, kind of find out first. I I would like to first of all interview salespeople and interview some sales managers. I need to understand how your customers buy from you. What does it imply to buy from you? How do are they implementing whatever you're selling? I would like to know how your processes are today, how your management is today. How do you incentivize your salespeople today? I want to know all that to get a holistic picture of the company. Because only then I can understand where the mismatch is. Where is it? Is it is it lack of knowledge of the salespeople? Or is it lack of management or their focus on the wrong customers or the wrong the wrong approach with their customers? or is it something else? They're the organizational setup. I was working with a company which was trying to sell, like they call it solution sales. But they were the different organization, products, service, you know, other areas fine. They were working in silos and they didn't talk to each other. They were basically complete competing internally. But if you sell to a customer that needs all of these things, you can't you can't work in silos. You need to work in cross-functional sales teams, right? And and you need to together build the business and and you need to convince the customer on a product perspective, on a service perspective, implementation perspective, on on the financial, economical t terms and condition perspective. So you then you need to kind of look at the customer together in cross-functional sales team and sell proactively together. So in that case, they were selling in the completely wrong way. They were selling pushing the product features. I'm saying that's not what your customer is buying. Your customers is buying. The result of your products. But not only your products, the products in combination of the service and so on. So that's what you have to sell. You have to sell the value of the result of the product, not just the products and services.

Well, the most common comparison about what? About sales of or about what sales need? yeah, the most well, I will tell you a few. So one of them is that salespeople need to be extrovert and they need to be charming and you know, like that that's you know, that's a real sales type. That's true for the transactional old school salespeople that are working with short sales cycle and trying to sell them.

You know, they have to catch the attention, be nice and charming and so on. That's not necessarily true. According to research, when it comes to business to business sales, a little bit longer sales cycles, a little bit more complex buying process, it's not the most extrovert people that are the best ones, typically. It's not the most introvert either. Obviously, you need to build trust, create rapport, and create trust with the person that you're talking about. But it's what it's people that are considered ambivorts. So they are social when they need to. They did do dedicate time to build trust, build rapport, and so on, and adapt to the personalities of the people that they are buying from selling to. But it's also people that can be analytical, really analyze the customer situation, they put the customer shoes on and think if I was the customer, what would be important for me? what doubts would I have? What risks would I perceive? And so on. So these are usually the best salespeople. I mean, I I cannot I mean, this is like an average, what we have seen from research, that the best people in business-to-business sales, they are a combination of both. Not that's a big conception. They think that people are the extroverts are the the the social, you know, like high social skills are the ones that are best. Not necessarily. Some of these people, they are only focusing on themselves because they like to be in the spotlight, right? I'm an extrovert and I know my the risks of being extrovert. The risk of being an extrovert is that you talk too much, you focus too much, you need to be in the spotlight yourself instead of putting the customer in the spotlight. So there are of course risks with that. So not that's one of the misconceptions. The other thing is from a company perspective that we'll just send the people to sales training and then it will be okay. That's not the fact. You need to the I I work a little bit with the change management because you're changing people's behavior. So you need to think of it from a change management perspective. Yes, the training is important, but it should not be like a New Year's firework they get excited and inspired and then they go home and they try what they learned in the training and it didn't really work out as they thought because they're beginners then they go back to how they did it before and then everything is lost. Right. So I I think about I I usually look at ad ad car. It's like a you have to create awareness. Why are the people going to change behavior or learn something more? they have to have the desire to do it. It's not just because my boss sent me to training. That's why I'm sitting here. No, they need to what's in it for me, what's in it for the company. And then they need to get the theory, of course, the knowledge, and that's the training itself. But the most important, the more difficult part is to trans translate or transfer this knowledge which is in your brain to abilities. And the only way to do that, that's the most difficult step. How do I know implement it? I mean I can be a world champion in golf theoretically. I can learn all the golf rules. I can look at Tiger Woods, how exactly how he's standing and how he's turning his wrist. But unless I go down to the golf court and fail and you know left, right, miss the ball, and then correct and polish myself and then kind of reflect what did I do wrong? You know, maybe if I stand like this and and then I correct and then I get the flow and I do that 5,000 times. Unless I do that, I will never be a good golfer. It's the same in sales. So taking it from theory to abilities, that's the most difficult journey. And for that you need coaching. You need to embed the new skills in the way not only coaching, but also how you measure people you know, you need to visualize, you know, and and highlight good behaviors, and there's a long journey there to to bring up the sales organization to be good. Some of these very social salespeople, they don't like to work in long sales processes because they get bored, they need instant gratification, so they are more suited for these transactional sales, right? So Who you hire is important. You cannot look at the resume and say, they have s you know, in the last job they had a they were selling, they were exceeding the quota every time. And but they were working in a short sales cycle, so now you put them in long sales cycles. They will most probably not be successful there. Because it's a different type of salespeople that have more patience, that is more customer focused, that get gratification when the customers thank you rather than the bonus they get in the in the end of the month. See what I mean? So that's the most biggest conception that it's a very easy fix but selling the training and that you hire just social people.

Yeah. Yeah, well that's a good actually I posted a lot of a lot of posts about that on my LinkedIn page, but that's also a big misconception. And I know there's a lot of companies trying to profit from that, you know, we'll just turn your sales into an AI sales engine. And that is true for transactional sales. I told you you don't even need AI, you have Amazon. Like s you can digitalize that kind of transactional sales where you don't need salespeople. And you can so that works. But when it comes to a little bit more consultative type of sales, where it's more risk and effort for the customer when they're buying something, there is an emotional component to that, which AI doesn't have and will never have. The AI is mimicking the rational part of your brain brain. So AI is a fantastic tool to help you save time. They can do prospecting for me, I mean finding out, they can do research for me about my customers. They can like do, I can they can do pestle analysis for me. And they can I can create agents so they help me with my calendar and they can do all that to help me save time and and also have more information when I'm gonna talk to my customer. But they will never take away the part where I'm creating trust, human trust. And if it's a long-term sales, meaning I'm selling several times to the same customer, it's a long-term relationship, AI cannot replace me. I cannot replace the human touch, I cannot replace like stakeholder management, how I can convey the the value of my solution in their world. Because I need to understand first, you know, not only from a practical perspective how my products and services are helping, but also emotionally, how am I making their life and their their work easier because and and less risky? Because you know what? A company buys only from another company from three reasons. Either you help them to create more revenue, you reduce their cost, OPEX and CapEx, or you help them to reduce risk or manage time in a better way. And if I cannot convey that and show them also from a not just rational perspective, but also emotional emotional perspective, I will not sell. So AI, great tool, great for transactional sales, but only a tool for more complex long term. like long term con relationship sales.

First of all, the flip side of being extrovert is that you're not as organized. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up and I'm 57. So I would be like, be clear on your goals. Yeah, set your goals and then break it down into actionable milestones and steps, and just stay with the process and follow it. Because I have been a scatter, I've been all over the place. My life has been that I just happened to end up in this work and And then I ended up in this, and somebody recommended me. And then I'm so be a little bit more structured and organized. That's what I would give to me. and when it comes to somebody wants to be an entrepreneur and build a company, especially in consulting, I would advise that very quickly try to find referral partners. Because you don't have time, especially in the beginning when you're only you, you don't have time to both sell and then implement. It's like It's it's a it's like catch 22 situation. So you need to build partners and referral partners. And the other thing I would advise is that like karma, give, give, give value, and you will get value back. Don't expect people to help you if you don't help first. So be helpful, even if it doesn't give you any money or short-term gains or anything. Be Humble and helpful to others, even when it doesn't result in business, because it will come back to you. People will help you, people will help you to to give you advice and and and so on. I I'm I'm I believe in first of all I believe in God, but I I believe in karma. I believe that if you do good, good will come to you. So I would say that stay humble, don't be arrogant, don't think that you're the best in the world. Mastery is a process of continuous improvement every day. The the moment you think that you have mastered something, then you get bored and you probably will quit. Right? You always learn something new day. I would like to end with or tell you a quote from Socrates 2500 years ago. He said that smart people learn from everything and everyone. Average people learn from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers. And I think it still rings true today. Be open minded, always reflect on what I can do differently after each meeting with a customer and so on. What did I do well? What I could do differently next time that would improve it, you know. Like how how can I learn? You can learn from everything and every one in life, something. So be humble, be open minded, and be self aware. That's my recommendation.

Well they can either reach out to me on LinkedIn or they can reach out we have my webpage astery international dot com. By the way, Astery is a Greek word means star, so it's basically international star. It's mostly because I work globally and I'm half Greek. But they can reach out Asteri in Asteri International in one word, so it's two eyes dot com and they you can go there and this there's info you can put some text in, or you can just email me as well. It's George at Stere International dot com, but LinkedIn is always easy. There's messaging there. They can reach out.

Anytime, thank you very much for having me.