You Educate Children. You Train Pets.

You educate your children. You train your pets.

However, we do the opposite with sales professionals. We train them without educating them.

Like a pet programmed to blindly comply with our commands. We don’t seek their opinion. We just want them to do what we ask.

So it is for many sellers. Just follow the process and make your calls.

However, with the increasing specialization and mechanization of sales, sellers are often reduced to being role players, with little incentive to invest in themselves and their development.

We train sellers to become part of a team and understand common methods and processes. That’s important.

But, sellers also need education to fulfill their potential.

We can’t miss this opportunity to educate our sellers about the human sales skills that elevate their ability to connect, engage and inspire other humans.

Therefore, we urgently need to teach sellers the critical thinking skills and business acumen that enable them to display independent judgment, demonstrate initiative and take calculated risks to better serve their buyer. And win their business.

Ironically, it’s often the sales leaders who seem to prize predictable conformity above all that resist the move to educate. Instead of fearing sellers who color outside the lines, they should be developing them.

We’ve all seen the research. B2B quota attainment continues to drop. Close rates are falling. Overall B2B sales performance is slipping.

Something has to change.

If it’s your responsibility to enable your sellers to perform at their highest level, I’m sure you have a sales training plan.

The question is: where's your sales education plan?

- Andy Paul