We are increasingly seeing a trend where companies provide their SEs product training at the *exclusion* of SE sales skills training. Sadly, it is likely that these companies will not achieve gains in revenue over the next several quarters.

SE product training enables sales but does not drive revenue.

Suppose your SEs have been selling Cars for 30 years. Now you introduce Jets. Time for the typical training by a fire hose — Bury the SEs in specs, bells and whistles, speeds and feeds. Off the SEs go into the wild blue yonder. Then comes the classic let down — Jet sales slow because SEs don’t know how to persuade people to choose Jet solutions, and, Car sales slow because, well, SEs are trying to persuade people to choose Jet solutions. The result: You lose revenue.

Ever ask yourself how much incremental revenue product training can generate? The answer is — Zero. Again, product training is necessary to enable sales, but it cannot impact sales performance metrics.

We have many examples of SE sales skills training measurably reducing the cost of sales and growing incremental revenue (independent of product training). These are compelling results driven by SEs — Deals growing 200+%. Time to solution decisions shrinking 50+%. Technical win rates growing 100+%.

SE technical competency must be accompanied by SE sales competency. Enabling sales and driving sales requires two different skills sets and therefore two different training paths.

Don’t waste your training money on product training alone.

For the financially minded, skills training can be considered an investment in Intellectual Property (IP). The CFO can declare some training as an IP asset (not an expense) which is amortized over many quarters, reducing its impact on income statements. Also consider this recent client quote, “We spent $40k on your program and got $250k back in 6 weeks.” Net net, CFOs can overcome expense or budget issues related to SE sales skills training.