This is a conversation that needs to take place. Thanks for getting it started. In my travels, here is what I have seen as possible root causes, by Exhibit example from above:

Exhibit #1- Fatigue. Many organizations have invested heavliy over the years in account management programs and no one took the time to capture success and/or failure. Therefore, why continue to spend money and time on an activity that cannot be tied to either? The easy way out is to just roll up some data into a presentation to get the boss off everyone’s back.

Exhibit #2- No priorities. This company, and so many like it, are reluctant to ask the field to engage in yet another sales improvement program. Why? Knee jerk reactionary programs in the past chasing sales problems not properly diagnosed resulted in a lot of work with no reward.

Exhibit #3- No business case. The reason the senior sales leadership team does not support programs run up the line by middle management is because there is no evidence the program will produce a real return. A proper business case, with hard numbers, is the quickest and easiest way to over come this obstacle.

Here’s the rub: Everyone knows this. Yet, only a few do something about it. Those that do have success. Those that don’t wonder why nothing seems to progress. It is the responsibility of those of us in the sales improvement industry to help these firms over come these issues. But, we share in the blame. All too often we see a sales person, representing a sales improvement product of some kind, slap a poorly constructed proposal together, and place it on the lap of a middle manager of a large company and hope they can piece it together from there. This usually does not work.

Thanks for the comment.

I agree that the issues raised here are not limited to just the examples cited. However, I have also seen a number of implementations that are strategically considered, effectively implemented, and continuously reinforced – and I don’t think it would be fair to paint all with the same ‘tactical – not strategic’ brush.

Donal

You’ve raise important points with respect to improving the return on investments in sales training.

I disagree with one point in your post, however. You said, “Well, if these three examples were generally representative of sales operations (and I don’t believe they are)…” Those examples *are* representative of sales operations. The research done by my firm, and those of (Sales20Network guest bloggers) Barry, Greg, and Joe bears this out.

For me all of this comes down to one thing: the sales ineffectiveness epidemic that afflicts many companies in most industries is the result of sales leaders–and the executives they report to–looking tactically at sales performance improvement (if at all), rather than strategically.