Training and development is largely regarded as one of a firm’s most important tools to improve productivity, elevate sales results and strengthen employee engagement. However, training can be expensive and challenging to implement successfully. Many firms spend anywhere from 3-6% of a sales professional’s annual compensation on training. But the hard question is this…does it produce the impact in behavior or results necessary to justify the cost?

We have been training sales and management professionals in the financial services industry for many years – dozens of companies encompassing hundreds of engagements. In that time we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. And what we’ve learned applies across the spectrum of company size, product and distribution structure. The answer to that hard question is yes…if.

These six guidelines will move training from a worthwhile event to the catalyst in achieving a desired outcome:

  1. Training works best when tied to a larger objective. Let’s face it, everybody, and millennials notably, want to be involved in a cause larger than themselves. To paraphrase a favorite quote…” a vision without a task is a dream, a task without a vision becomes drudgery, a vision with a task is the hope of the world.” Your well articulated objective becomes the vision and the skills and process being trained become one or more of the tasks.A little high minded perhaps, but what we know is that if you are asking individuals to accept the challenge of changing a process, skill or behavior it better be for something worthwhile. In a substantial majority of cases that means something bigger than simply “personal and professional growth”. Even “more income” falls flat if the connection between training and income is not crystal clear and documented.
  1. Management must accept that asking for change in others will require change within themselves. Perhaps the most often untold consequence of trying to make others better is that it means the managers skill, process or discipline will also need to be better. Sales management needs to be “on board” (whatever that actually means) with the training and they must address the changes in skill or routine necessary to support both the larger objective and the training itself. We believe the number one challenge in making training successful is management engagement not simply participant engagement. Without management’s active support, the initiative will fall flat.Bring your management team into the discussions early on so that they have a voice in the development. They will be largely responsible for coaching to the behaviors and / or processes you seek. To that end, spend time working through the coaching disciplines and time requirements necessary. In too many organizations development initiatives are something that “they” (the participants) are doing not something “we” (the firm) is undertaking.
  1. Institutionalize the training wherever and whenever possible. One of the most gratifying observations we have as a training and development firm is watching what we originally taught or recommended become “how we do it here” whether by adopting a common vernacular, adjusting templates within a CRM, standardizing procedures, establishing metrics that align to the desired outcomes from the training, in short finding a way to take the learning “in house”.We believe that the difference between a good idea and a best practice is a process and a tool (or a report or metric). You know the storyline…a training effort offers a ton of good ideas and the hope that everyone will go forth and implement some number of those ideas. The more support those ideas have in the process, measurement and tools used by the firm…the higher the adoption rate of those ideas and consequently the higher the impact of those ideas.
  1. Make change a “thing” for a period of time…then give them a break! Two competing thoughts…change may be constant but people’s appetites for it is not…versus…meaningful change takes longer than we think. Our best advice is to have a starting point and end point for a “season of change”. Make the desired new behavior(s) a focus for perhaps three to fours months. That means recognizing early adopters and initial successes, including discussion of the changes in emails and conference calls, focusing coaching on the desired behavior(s). Then turn the spotlight off for a period of time.There is a body of research that suggests that internalizing and gaining command of even one new skill or process for an individual may take somewhere between four to six weeks. So in the “season of change” it is possible to methodically address three to four “changes” in skill or process. If a firm (or individual) had two such focus periods in a year, they could examine as many as six to eight disciplines within any defined group – with far greater focus and intent.
  1. Supporting an initiative doesn’t necessarily require more work, but it does require rethinking and repurposing existing work. Weekly and monthly team calls, one-on-one conversations with direct reports, ride-a-longs, divisional meetings, national sales meetings…there is simply no way to add even one more thing to the list! But training is a catalyst not an outcome. Without sustaining the effort there is virtually no chance of broad based success.The answer lies in refining or repurposing certain conversations at least part of the time. Perhaps 30 minutes dedicated to group coaching on a monthly conference call or scheduling one individual call each month strictly for development. We typically don’t advise conducting training programs during a sales meeting. However, it is an ideal venue to support your initial investment by creating a breakout session to dive deeper into a specific topic covered during the initial training. Or have members of your team present an idea they have implemented and the results of their effort. Sharing strategies and success stories with peers ranks high on the value chart at sales meetings!
  1. Context matters…your training partners must know what their audience does for a living…not just their opportunities but their challenges as well. The financial services industry, and certainly the wholesaling industry, has always been something of a club. You either know what these people do for a living or you don’t. Heck most of us from within the industry are still trying to explain what we do to our families! “Training” resources are abundant, but those that truly “know” the roles being addressed are not.Too often we ask participants to re-configure what they are learning to fit their specific circumstances, and that slows or derails their ability to implement the learning. Partners must know your priorities, your vernacular, your challenges and those of the industry you serve. Whether external partners or internal resources are employed, intimate understanding of the positions being addressed immediately elevates credibility, which also elevates both engagement and perceived relevance, and the level of application post program. Couple those advantages with practical and actionable ideas and you have an effective game plan for maximizing the impact of your efforts.

Although this article will be of most benefit for senior leadership, sales management and learning and development professionals, there is no reason that any individual could not tailor these suggestions to their own development efforts.