With all signs pointing to a hard market around the corner,we're about to enter one of the most significant commonly repeatedmistakes of our industry: ignoring the need for sales training.When the market is soft and producers are scrambling to open doors,qualify accounts and close deals with revenue we do not have, wescream for training help. It usually goes something like this: “Weneeded you yesterday to help us fix our production problem!” In ahardening market, we look in the mirror and feel good about ourincreasing revenue, brag about how good we are and put a few extradollars in our pockets to enhance the lifestyle we feel shorted onduring the brutal times. Throwing our basic discipline andprincipals out the window, it sounds like this: “We don't needsales training. Look at our numbers!”
In the world of sales training, the system of failure which trapsmany companies and agencies seems to have a common and recurringlink. Management is frustrated with the results and the sales teamisn't producing new revenue to meet the sales goals or ownerdemands. The company/agency becomes frustrated and decides to hiresales training assistance. Management conducts a brief search andchooses a linear “step-by-step” sales process training event.Outsiders with no relationship to the sales team come in andintroduce this one-time, supposedly life-changing event that issupposed to be the cure-all for the agency's sales problems.
More than half of the sales team, while open to change, lack thefocus, discipline and skills to retain and change behavior over thelong term. Another quarter of the team wouldn't change theirbehavior if their lives depended on it. They think they have itmastered and have a low comfort threshold. Their egos get in theirway to destroy progress. This leaves only a quarter of your peoplewho will actually learn and change something to improve their dailysales systems.
After it's over and the training company goes home, within threemonths the sales team is back to its old habits. Management, withno reinforcement and truly doing the best with the skills theyhave, attempt to manage change. They mean well, but they have neverhad the training on how to manage a system, and the odds are theywere too busy to sit through and learn what the sales team wasgoing through. Isn't it strange to have so much invested in anevent, only to have management ignore the training and thefollow-up? Why on earth would management expect anything to changewith this poor commitment level?
Over the next few months, a dark cloud of frustration builds overthe team, and you either have the same training company return, oryou hire a different company for another linear three-day trainingevent–and the process starts over. You spend a fortune on trainingand end up with a 75 percent failure rate. We have seen this overand over, with no option for resolve. It's a great revenue streamfor the training company, but it does little for your bottomline.
To make things worse, if the company is large enough, the 50percent of sales employees who had no real intention to change hideamong the other staffers. I spent the first 12 years of my careertrying to make this system work and it simply does not. However,using a defined system with personal accountability, our firm ended2008 with a 30 percent increase to $2.3 million. Why? The two mostimportant elements of sales training and culture development thatare missing from most training programs, agencies and companiesare:

1. Ongoing change management
2. Accountability at all levels.

Ongoing change management
We strongly encourage you to develop a budget that includes ongoingmentoring, executive coaching and change management. This can beaccomplished by senior producers, a full-time sales manager, anagency owner, company supervisor, or outside counsel.

Experience has proven that perhaps only 2 percent of employeeshave the energy, focus, courage and discipline to stay on coursewith new systems. It makes no economic sense to train for the 2percent and ignore the 98 percent that need the most help.
A training program can be tailored to one-on-one coaching for yourmarketing and sales team, as well as executive coaching for thesales manager or principal. The training can be designed to includegroup teleconferences to discuss specific issues and challenges andassist the sales coordinator in reinforcing the new process SPDSystem(C) (Systems, Process and Discipline). This is a consistentprocess that, if followed repeatedly, leads to a proven change inbehaviors and a revenue generation process for the company oragency. If you don't commit resources to managing the process, it'sunrealistic to expect change.
Accountability
Over the past two decades, wehave witnessed literally dozens of insurers and most of the top 100brokers in the U.S. conduct event after event for new and seasonedsales professionals. Only those with ongoing accountability haveseen a significant increase in revenues. Having a boot camp is afun and exciting way to motivate the troops, but those short-termemotions soon pass. The key to positive financial results over anextended period is by holding the owner/manager, sales manager andsales team accountable–not for higher levels of activity or “fullerpipelines,” but for change at each level of the process to assurethe key processes are being followed consistently. Full salespipelines of useless, unqualified prospects cause productionconstipation. Quality measurement is the missing link to change andimprovement in the sales process and therefore the results.
The three things you need to know about hard market opportunitiesare systems, training and discipline.
Systems
Follow a proven and tested sales system. The sales manager,producer, carrier marketing person and underwriter each have a rolethat management should understand. You can't manage a team withouta consistent system that works every time, and a measurementprocess.
Training
Premiums are about to go up, and carriers are poised to heightendemands for preferred contracts and market access and trim theirnon-productive agencies. Agencies and carriers are reducing theircosts at every turn. In planning for a hardening market, reservesome of those funds for training. We have seen significant revenueincreases by those who invested training dollars in their team inall markets, not just when the rates are down and the salesactivity is in the basement.
Discipline
In Era II selling, it's all aboutthe number of x-dates and prospects, working 90 days prior torenewal, and showing up to the buyer as one of many vendor choiceswith a presentation. This confusion forces the buyer to focus onthe lowest price. You don't need sales skills, or even a salesstaff, to compete in that environment.
Today's Era III selling is about building relationships, solvingproblems, providing clients with a competitive advantage, andbuilding long-term results with them as a partner.
You can choose an Era II fix to increase morale and heightenemotion–which also raises overhead and lowers results and has avery short shelf life–or focus on professional long-term sellingstrategies. After two decades of training agencies, we have foundlong-term substantiated change is achieved through systems,training and discipline. Stash away some money and invest in yourfuture–and good selling. Tom Barrett is president of theMidwest and Southeast regions of SIAA, Inc., a national partneringof 3,000 agencies that produces billions in writtenproperty-casualty premiums. He serves on the National Faculty forDynamics of Selling, Dynamics of Sales Management and Dynamics ofCompany Agency Relations. Contact him at [email protected]. Formore information on Dynamics programs, go to www.TheNationalAlliance.com.