Ninety Five Percent ..

Ninety-five percent of £millions spent on sales training is wasted says top management consultant July 10, 2002. Don Hammalian, a sales effectiveness expert with Proudfoot Consulting and author of the world's top-selling sales training programme, has issued a startling wake-up call to top company executives by stating that 95 percent of the hundreds of millions of pounds* spent by companies annually on sales-boosting training schemes is wasted. Hammalian should know. His 'Professional Selling Skills' programme originally developed for Xerox Corporation, has achieved global recognition, having been translated into 14 languages and used by four out of five of Fortune 500 companies. Defending his controversial statement, Hammalian said: "Almost all sales training fails because it still takes place away from the real environment and because of inadequate follow-through for reinforcement of the lessons and techniques learned. These are some of the key reasons why training does not deliver the results expected. Only a small minority of schemes produce positive results but, even here, the increment of improvement is usually quite small, often temporary, or worse still, invisible under the cold scrutiny of cost:benefit analysis." "We have found that most sales operations within companies operate at less than sixty percent of their true 'hidden' capability, so it's no surprise that managers seek solutions by spending significant sums on training. But they should resist implementing quick-fix, piecemeal initiatives and instead step back and review the entire revenue- generating process." Most companies underestimate the need for this 'holistic' analysis according to Proudfoot Consulting. However, by taking this approach, they can achieve a significant and sustainable uplift in sales performance results - by as much as forty percent. However, to get there, the company says managers first need to be willing to challenge the status quo. It can only be done by examining and improving each aspect of the sales process; strategy, planning, employee reward, forecasting, final execution and so on. Couple this with proactive target setting, accurate, timely reporting and strong management, and any business should see bottom-line boosting results. ...more Proudfoot Consulting specialises in productivity improvement across all aspects of a company's operations. The consultancy has built a strong reputation in sales effectiveness since Hammalian arrived in 1984, building on his original Xerox experience to develop 'Relationship Selling Skills' - a programme proprietary to Proudfoot Consulting. For further information, please contact: Ruth Lanham, European marketing manager, Proudfoot Consulting, Tel. +44 (0)20 7832 3600, email: rlanham@proudfootconsulting.com Andy Turner, Six Sigma PR, Tel. +44 (0)77 1188 7234, email: turnera@blueyonder.co.uk About Proudfoot Consulting: Proudfoot Consulting is a specialist firm of consultants that implements change to achieve measurable and sustainable performance improvements at no net annualised cost to its clients. The firm was established in Chicago in 1946 by Alexander Proudfoot and is now part of the Management Consulting Group Plc, a group of consulting firms operating globally. For more information, visit www.proudfootconsulting.com * The Institute of Personnel and Development's Training and Development 2002 Survey Report indicates that companies spend, on average, £360 per employee on training and development. The Institute of Professional Sales estimates there are currently around one million people employed in sales in the UK. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/07/10/20020710BIT00100/wkr0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/07/10/20020710BIT00100/wkr0002.pdf