Why pay for training if you’re not going to implement it?

You Don’t Make Coffee If Nobody Drinks It

By Allan Mackintosh

I called on a former colleague once to find out what his company policy was toward training for managers. He told me that all managers undergo coaching training and that the model of choice is GROW (growth, reality, options, and will).

“I like this model,” he said. “It gives me a structure for my coaching whereas beforehand it was a bit haphazard.”

I asked him if he didn’t recall that we had been introduced to this coaching model almost seven years ago, and that we actually completed a refresher course three years ago with a another training company. His reply was telling:

“I have a vague recollection, and I believe I have the folders somewhere. But you forget that when I went through these courses I was new to the manager’s role and there was an amazing amount of change about due to restructuring together with changes of personnel and roles. There was no real time to digest the training and certainly no time to implement it! I never got any support anyhow!”

Avoid The Single-Shot Approach Some companies have a training session for a few weeks and say, “they’re trained,” says Dave Anderson. “That’s crazy. It’s not a one-time payment. It’s an installment plan. Doctors and lawyers have to be continually trained; sales is a serious, high-paying profession.” Salespeople should be like football players, he says. “They watch drills, study playbooks, practice all the time… and play very little. They’re not getting better on game day. For salespeople, game day is when they’re in front of the customer.” Philadelphia-based trainer Linda Richardson concurs. “Companies should remember training is not an event. It should be a building block curriculum. One year, a company can do fundamentals, another year, sales presentations, and another year, negotiation. Programs need to be linked and salespeople need continuous reinforcement. When you have that combination, you get results.”

After seven years and three expensive training courses, the GROW model of coaching finally managed to be adopted by this particular manager. And I rate him as one of the better ones I have worked with!

Sales training that’s heavier on theory than practice and contains no sustained follow-up is a waste of time and money. How can lessons be implemented when participants, more often than not, return to their workplace and are immediately thrown back into regular routines and the pressure of quotas and workloads?

Make sure your training providers offer some form of follow-up support. You may pay extra for this, but it truly adds value. It can be face-to-face coaching, telephone coaching or simply an “open door” support line whereby participants can simply telephone or e-mail the provider. Avoid companies that deliver the training, hand over glossy folders and disappear.

Managers, too, are obligated to support salespeople who complete training at the company’s request. Discuss together what you hope they will learn. Once the training is over, a manager should help employees analyze how they fared against the objectives they set.

Most important, pinpoint how each salesperson will implement this learning into their work habits. What support can you provide so that the new skills become sustainable and the salesperson’s capability grows?

Industry spends millions on training (still not enough!) and much of it is wasted because trainers do not provide adequate follow-up support and managers do not make the time to set learning objectives and review these objectives with every intention of effectively implementing the new set of skills.

Allan Mackintosh is a professional management coach living in Scotland and author of The Successful Coaching Manager. Visit his Web site at www.pmcscotland.com, or e-mail him at allan@pmcscotland.com.