1. New Technology is Everyday Technology
2. The Flipchart and Whiteboard: Time For an Upgrade
3. Most Sales Courses Finish on a 'Now Go and Do It' Note
4. You Often Pay for Two Lots of Expenses

1. New Technology is Everyday Technology

Although the basic business challenges remain the same, mobile phones, email and the internet have radically changed how we communicate - and these tools have now become commonplace. Furthermore, these methods can now be extended and used to improve how our sales people sell.

2. The Flipchart and Whiteboard: Time For an Upgrade

We all know that business is more competitive than ever, yet many organisations still send their sales people to ‘off the shelf' training courses - the delivery of which hasn't changed much in 25 years. With many of these courses ‘classroom' based and using a whiteboard or flipchart, you wouldn't think that the commonplace business tools of today - mobiles, email, laptops, broadband internet, video conference - ever existed. Why?

3. Most Sales Courses Finish on a ‘Now Go and Do It' Note
It's quite easy to run a sales training course: nominate a day or two, get the people on the list to turn up, give the course and when it's all over send them back to the office to make some sales. But how often does anybody check what the trainee did or didn't learn, or how many of the new skills are being used?

4. You Often Pay for Two Lots of Expenses
Having bought training services in the past ourselves, we'd always assumed we paid for the course and its delivery. Wrong. Some basic research shows that despite the claims, very few in fact are truly tailored. With the vast majority of training providers using the same material each time, many will repeat the same course across several organisations while pretending to 'bespoke' a programme especially. At the same time, the charges often factor in any or all of the following: hire for room, video, film, and other resources plus the trainer's travel and/or overnight stay. This is in addition to out of pocket expenses your company will need to reimburse every member of staff who attends: ie their travel, hotel and subsistence, as well as the time spent away from selling.

Our insight into these facts triggered that "Aha" moment which was the spur to look at sales training in a new way.