Good Sales Training is a Guaranteed Return on Investment

Would you be interested in a guaranteed return of $5 for every $1 you spend?

Would you be surprised to know it could happen with sales training?

We get it. Most of us think of sales training as something we should do but don’t because it’s just too big an expense (and maybe one that’s backfired before because we previously chose a crappy one). So, we continue to do nothing, growing more frustrated by the day that our employees don’t do what we want or expect them to do!

Does that sound logical?

(Fun side note: If you’re familiar with the DISC personality survey, about 65% of the population is S or C, personality types that thrive on very clear, detailed instruction and training. So, if you are a typical company, over half your employee base would thrive from more frequent training. Meaning, it's probably NOT a good idea to cut sales training because you think it won’t produce a result!)

For this purpose, we define ‘training’ as a long-term (probably a year), focused program to transfer habits and skills to the employee base. All those weekend or day-long seminars you think are pointless, the ones with no follow up or habit reinforcement? They don’t work. They make you feel good temporarily, but they don’t work. We're 100% with you on that one.

With the right training, here’s where data comes into play:

• Sales training has been found to return $29 in sales for every $1 invested. If you translate that to the bottom line, at a 50% gross profit, that’s a pretty darn good return!
  
  If a typical investment in one salesperson’s training is $25,000/year, and that person boosted their sales by $725,000, that’s a contribution of $362,500, over a 10X return!
  
  
• Management and leadership training that is focused on creating a positive and accountable culture has been found to increase team productivity by 20%. Good management and leadership training probably will cost around $50,000/year. But what does that really translate into?
  
  Just use the same example above and assume that gross margin is 50% and labor is half that, 25% of all sales. If sales each year are $10,000,000, labor is $2,500,000. So, for every $1 in direct labor, $4 in sales occurs. If we were to boost that to every $1 in direct labor produces $4.80 in sales, then you end up with the following scenario: $12,000,000 in sales minus $3,000,0000 in direct material cost minus $2,500,000 in labor = 46% COGS instead of 50% prior to training – and a $500,000 straight up flow thru bottom line profit. 10X return. Again.

Starting to see the pattern here?

If you invest in both just to ensure it works (increasing the sales w/the same labor and reducing my cost of manufacture through effective management and leadership), that $75,000 investment to get the $2,000,000 in incremental sales above = $500,000 in bottom line profit, a $6.67 return for every $1 spent.

Now, how can good sales training fail? The only way to ensure you do not achieve financial results like this is to not try, to cut sales training again next year because it’s just “too expensive” or “probably won’t work” in your industry or business.

Trust us when we say it will. Take this seriously and achieve the results. We certainly did. This works in any organization.

Happy to answer any questions you have and/or get you connected with our team to start the process for you.