Action Selling Customers Adopt Best
Practices in Sales Training
About this research brief
As part of its annual research study of the sales training marketplace,
Aberdeen surveyed 835 end-user organizations in June and July 2010, to
learn about their use of sales training and related selling performance. These
results are included in the findings of the benchmark study, Sales Training:
Deploying Knowledge, Process and Technology to Consistently Hit Quota
(September 2010).
Overall Impact of Sales Training
Among the many performance metrics that can be used to gauge sales success, the five shown in Figure I
speak to a substantive variety of measurements around sales effectiveness, from year-over-year growth
in quota attainment, customer retention and average selling prices, to reducing sales staff turnover and
time-to-sell windows.
Figure 1: Action Selling Customers See Enhanced Year-over-Year Results
A greater percentage of Action Selling customers showed annualized advances in all these areas, when
compared to all other firms.
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Executive Level Support for Sales Training
In the early stages of deploying a successful sales training engagement, many survey respondents report
embracing the organizational capability defined as “top-level executives within our company are active
sponsors of our sales training initiatives.” Action Selling customers lead other companies, 74% to 69%, in
gaining C-level support for sales training.
Figure 2: Bottom-Line Benefits of C-Level Support of Sales Training
Keeping Training Fresh
When it comes to post-training reinforcement of the best practices commonly learned in classroomstyle, instructor-led sales education sessions, 58% of Action Selling customers deploy this knowledge
management capability, compared to 46% of other organizations. These firms have learned that longterm success depends on the best practices of reinforcement.
Figure 3 illustrates a dramatic contrast in year-over-year sales metric performance between companies
that formally support post-training reinforcement, and those that do not.
Figure 3: Post-training Reinforcement Helps Yield Annual Growth
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Assessing Long-Term Success
A key way in which top-performing sales teams hold learners accountable involves the practice of
deploying formal assessments, both pre and post-training. It‟s critical to have a “validated process to
assess sales reps against competency requirements to determine specific skill gaps and the type of
training most appropriate for each seller.” Action Selling customers are strong supporters of this
approach, with a 61% adoption rate, compared with 46% of other firms.
Figure 4: The Value of Assessing Sales Rep Skills
Case Study: Veolia Environmental Services, a user of Action Selling
Consider the case of Veolia Environmental Services, the world‟s largest environmental services
provider, with a sales force of 125 professionals selling to a variety of business verticals and company
sizes. According to Mark Dennis, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, prior to sales training “there
was no unified selling process, and we were particularly vulnerable because most of our reps sold on
price, not value, but we weren‟t the low-cost provider in the market.” He explains that, “We had to
figure out a way to move the message from price to value,” particularly because in such a diverse
business environment, acquiring new revenue was complicated by the need to replace bookings lost to
competitors or customers that went out of business.
Working in lock-step with Action Selling, Dennis used a combination of
instructor-led, phone-based and reinforcement techniques to improve the
capabilities of his selling team. Of particular importance was the “train the
trainer” component: while newer and younger hires could be taught in a
relatively straightforward manner, Dennis says that “anyone who is more
experienced, and has been selling a long time, tends to have a lot of good and bad habits that are hard to
break.”
Because he and his mid-level sales manages were certified by Action Selling, “our veterans are more
inclined to consider new techniques because they know their management has walked the walk,” and
proven themselves successful with the Veolia selling hierarchy.
As a result, Dennis explains, “We look for just a few „ah-ha‟ moments in the field that create positive
results for these experienced reps, and they more quickly come on board with the updated training
content.” For variably-compensated training professionals, he says, “the best teacher is success.”
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Reinforcement of sales training techniques is also vital to Veolia. The company created in-field coaching
guides for “ride-along” selling for managers to grade reps according to the content and best practices
deployed by Action Selling, and Dennis says these coaching sheets are used in the formal review and
evaluation process for the team. These same practices are directly linked to the sales stage definitions
used in the company‟s CRM system, “so it is easy to identify which components of the training process
are or aren‟t being properly executed in the field.”
In terms of bottom-line productivity, he confirms that, “Revenue is typically growing faster for the reps
who have participated in Action Selling, because if you have the right activity and right selling skills,
you‟re bound to succeed.”
Conclusion
Sales training continues to represent an investment that companies continue to retain as a “must have”
rather than a “nice to have,” as the benefits of an educated, focused sales team, even during a
questionably healthy economic cycle, are continuously borne out by Aberdeen‟s research.
Figure 5: Current Performance of Action Selling Customers
While budget cuts have helped enterprises reduce their expenses, only the sales
organization can refresh the gap between the bottom and top lines. Providing them with the processes,
technologies and services to do so effectively remains the wisest strategy of all, and the particular best
practices we‟ve analyzed here –executive sponsorship, CRM call planning, integration, post-training
reinforcement and skills assessments – serve as wise first steps for any professional selling team to
consider. In the case of Action Selling customers, whose performance is also highlighted in Figure 5, they
are investing in best sales practices and realizing better performance results.
For more information on this and other research topics, please visit www.aberdeen.com.
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This document is the result of primary research provided by Aberdee Group. Aberdee Group’s ethodologies
provide for objective, fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication.
Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may
not be reproduced by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
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