Who implements learnings from Sales Training programs?

In the final stages of a recent sales training program for a large manufacturer of forklifts, the Business Head did a very interesting series of dialogues with each of the frontline sales people. He asked each - what are you going to implement - the research orientation, the sales tactics, the negotiation techniques, the closing skills, try and meet the senior leadership of the client, etc. Pat came the answers - I will do this, do that.........

Next question - complete googly to most of the team - how will you measure the outcome of the activity?

It was clearly not enough to measure "results" (target achievement), nor is it enough to measure "sales activities" (no of calls made, clients contacted, etc). Both are important and need to be connected with each other.

What happened next was one of the most specific discussions we have had at the end of a training program. Each sales person was given info on his "average sales value" - the average Rs value at which he was selling each unit of forklift in his territory. eg last quarter you sold 7 forklifts at an average of Rs 100 (for eg), next quarter target to take this figure to Rs 107.

That's the idea. You want to measure the effectiveness of Sales training. Measure pre and post training sales productivity. Average sales Value per sale is an example.

.......................contributed by Johnson, Business Head of a large forklift manufacturer