Over the past five years, I’ve had long conversations with about a hundred sales gurus of various sizes and shapes. Some were merely interesting. Some were truly superlative. (Those are the ones I quote in this blog.) But some have been, well…, either tedious or annoying or both.
I don’t want to name specific names, because frankly I don’t want to give them more publicity. But these boneheads include:
- The guru (who’s really, really famous) that spent an hour explaining “closing skills” that dated from the days when carnival barking was state-of-the-art.
- The guru who kept insisting that there was no way I could adequately represent her brilliant ideas in an article so could I please put her in touch with my editor so that she could write the article herself?
- The guru who spent 25 minutes of an hour-long interview talking to a random colleague who popped into his office.
Clueless. Totally clueless. I can only imagine what it must be like to sit through an entire two-day seminar with some of this breed. And some of the books! Oy! About 25 percent of all “how to sell” books read like they’ve been printed in chloroform rather than ink.
Let’s face it: there are a lot of so-called sales gurus who are simply dreadful. And that’s unfortunate, because companies spend around $7 billion on sales training every year, in the United States alone. I figure that at least half of that money is, for all intents and purposes, flushed down the toilet.
On the other hand, when sales training hits the mark, it’s probably the best training investment a company can make. Some of these people not only have great ideas, but entire systems that can help you incorporate those ideas into your daily work routine.
So here’s my question for you:
In your experience, who are the best — and the worst — sales trainers?
Do share.
As for me, the best sales trainer I’ve ever seen is Tony Robbins. As for the worst, that would have to be (snarf!) Matt Foley.
