How Relevant is Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve for Sales Training Success?

An important advice for your sales trainings to have a lasting impact  is: “Do not look at it as an event, but as a process” This process consist in essence of periodical reinforcements and refreshers of the taught materials after the initial event.  Refreshers and reinforcements are to address our brain’s limitation to retain information.

‘The forgetting curve’

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published the results of experiments he performed on himself, trying to understand how long he could remember a list of 3 letter nonsense words of the structure: Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (e.g. BUP, TOV, RUI etc.). The graph, he plotted from this experiment, is known as Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve’ (see here) . Looking at the curve, mathematicians conclude that forgetting happens exponentially. Here is the formula describing the curve:

R = e^-t/s (R = Retention, e = Euler’s constant, t = time elapsed after initial learning, s = strength of memory)

For the rest of us, this means that forgetting happens not proportionally to time elapsed. After a relatively short time, a big portion of the words is already forgotten and only a small proportion is retained over a longer period. Typically, 20 minutes after initial learning of the list of words, only 60% of them are retained. After one hour, the proportion of retained words drops to about 40%. After one day, the proportion is around 30%. After 31 days, the proportion of retained words has dropped to about 20%. These levels can vary with the strength of the memory of the test person.  

The Good News

Spaced reviews of the list of words slows down the forgetting curve. With a first review one day after the initial learning, it will take 2 days until the retention level has dropped to the same level reached 1 day after the initial learning. A next review after these 2 days will then extend the time to 3 days after the first review for the retention level to drop to same level as after 1 day of the initial learning. After 5 reviews, the acquired knowledge can be expected to be permanent. E-learning platforms claim providing value in providing these spaced reviews. I also taught this in my graduate courses on sales management, when discussing sales training, until I was confronted with the revised Bloom’s taxonomy for Learning Goals.

The Bad News

This made me understand that fighting the forgetting curve does not make sales training more effective.  Bloom’s taxonomy defines 6 cognitive process dimensions. These process dimensions  (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create) can be understood as sophistication levels of the learner; whereas “remember” is the lowest and “create” the highest level (more details here).

Ebbinghaus’ experiment is a scientifically sound but I hope you can agree with me that fighting the forgetting curve stabilizes only the lowest sophistication level of Bloom's taxonomy (remember). 

The British Philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820—1903) is known for his quote: “The great aim of education is not knowledge but actions”. Transposed to Bloom’s taxonomy, this means that education must at least reach level 3, the first active action word in the taxonomy (apply). So, I have set this as the minimum required for learning goals of my graduate courses.   To give you an example: For my graduate course “Structuring an International Sales Force”, I have formulated the learning goal as:

Students can apply the ‘Design for Six Sigma’ process to analyze the voice of the customer, evaluate appropriate channels and levels of relationships to create the best suited ‘Go to Market’ strategy.

Conclusion

I posit that for sales trainings in the field to be successful, learning goals must be as stringent as those for sales education at universities. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a sustainable effect of sales trainings on sellers’ behavior.  The second condition for reaching sustainability merits though its own article. So, please stay tuned.

Warning to CEOs: Resist the Temptation of Believing in Silver Bullets……

…… especially when trying to address performance issues of your sales force.

On February 6, 2013 Sales training industry experts Brian Lambert, Geoffrey James, John Roy and Scott Hudson discussed “The good, bad & ugly of Challenger Sales Model”. The Model is described in the book “The Challenger Sale, Taking Control of the Customer Conversation” by Mathew Dixon and Brent Adamson of the Corporate Executive Board.   The model is gathering significant attention not least from the way the book is marketed.

Brian Lambert mentioned in the introduction to the discussion some serious performance issues that sales forces need fixing. Yet one of the main conclusions of the experts’ discussion was that there is no such thing as a silver bullet to fix these sales performance issues.

Why should you care?

Every year, billions of dollars are spent for sales training. A big portion of these training efforts does not show adequate returns. In many cases, this lack of return is caused by executives having the newest concept for Sales introduced into their organizations with the hope of having found the silver bullet to solve sales force performance issues.

Why do we need to be reminded of this?

The way the book, “The Challenger Sale”, is marketed,  fosters this illusion of being a silver bullet to improve sales performance.  Just have a look at the jacket of the book. There, Neil Rackham, the author of SPIN Selling, praises “The Challenger Sale” as: “The most important advance in selling for many years”.

Neil Rackham developed his SPIN Selling model on the basis of an extensive research.  When it was first presented, it drew a lot of criticism from the then established sales trainers because it put into question many of their believes and teachings. In hind side, we know that, for many contexts, these teachings have proven to be inadequate.

The Challenger Sales Model is also based on research though not as extensive as the one undertaken by Rackham. The Challenger Sales Model also is often put in questions by today’s sales experts. The discussion by industry experts, mentioned above, is just one of many examples. Can you see the power of putting Neil Rackham’s quote on the jacket? For those knowing the industry, it is a clear message: If you criticize the Challenger Sales Model, you risk being seen like those trainers critiquing SPIN Selling in an attempt to protect their turfs.

The article published in the Harvard Business Review on the Challenger Sales Model is another element of how the book is marketed. In this article, Dixon et al.  announce nothing less than the death of Solution Selling. For the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume they meant Solution Selling as a generic term.  “Solution Selling” is also a registered trademark of a widely used commercial sales methodology. You can imagine that the owners of this methodology were not exactly happy about this article. From my perspective, the research done for “The Challenger Sale” actually confirms a very basic concept of “Solution Selling”, namely to focus on prospects who are not yet looking for a solution. That is essentially what a challenger does.

Last week, I found yet another example s of the marketing strategy for the book.  This example is on audience targeting.  In the British Airways magazine “Business Life”, I found this article discussing the book.  This last example triggered the idea for the title of this blog post.

Why is an airline magazine well suited to diffuse the message about “The Challenger Sale”?

Many executives are frequent flyers. They often do some background reading while traveling by plane.  Articles, like the one in the British Airways magazine, draw easily their attention. Most executives are rather displeased with the performance of their sales forces and this for good reasons when you look issues presented by Brian Lambert.  During the experts' discussions, one of the panelists mentioned that most executives have not risen to their position through the sales ranks which makes them though particularly vulnerable to believe in messages transmitted in such articles.

At first glance, and especially if one has not had much exposure to the sales function, articles such as the one in the British Airways magazines appear rather plausible.  Inspired by the article, executives might next buy the book or immediately have somebody looking into how this apparently new great model about sales could be introduced to their company’s sales force.  As mentioned above, there is a high likelihood that such an initiative will end up in another disappointing experience of a sales training initiative not producing the expected results. Here is why.

The definition of Sales might look simple

In an earlier post, I already made an attempt to present a simple definition. Thanks to a discussion with my friend David Ednie, I found a more refined and comprehensive version:

Sales means having interactions

•             with the right person

•             about the right subject

•             at the right moment

•             in the right way

to reach mutually beneficial decisions for the seller and the buyer.

Mastering Sales is less trivial

To understand who the right person and what the right subject is, one needs methodologies. To know when it is the right moment to interact, one needs a process. Skills are needed to know the right way how to interact. Already this little list demonstrates that there are many facets to be mastered by a well performing sales force.  There is simply not one book that can cover all these aspects.

Recommendations

First, remember that books are primarily written for authors. Especially in the sales training industry, which is largely lacking a body of scientific knowledge, books are written to establish ones authority about the subject. Content presenting an apparent comprehensive model or system based on own research seems to be best suited to establish credibility. Yet content alone does not sell the book. You need clever marketing. The way “The Challenger Sale “is marketed is an excellent show case how to boost sales for a book effectively.  Whether this goes to the detriment of credibility, is a different subject.

Second, we need executives being more involved in initiatives to improve the performance of sales forces. Yet we should stop creating allusions that one book contains the silver bullet how to do it. Doing so, we set them up for failure.

Third, in most books written about Sales, you will find some aspects worthwhile to be considered. Only wise and careful integration of such aspects into a current selling system has a chance of bringing the expected improvement of performance.   Integrating does though not mean adding. Usually some edges need be filed off from the new concept and elements from the existing system need to be removed or modified. In case you consider the whole system described in a book as being attractive to deploy in your organization, just be aware that integration of a whole model is more complex, and the chance for causing disruptions in the current selling system, negatively impacting performance, is increasing. 

What is your return on the use of a common language?

Sales training companies are telling us that one major soft benefit from their training is the use of a common language by the sales team. How can we express a hard return from a soft benefit? We have to find measurable outcomes caused by the use of a common language.

A common language helps saving management time

The use of a common language first helps to save time for sales managers. As a manager, have you ever considered how much time you waste due to the fact that you have to listen to, or to read reports of your subordinates structured in their style instead of how you would like to have things presented?

In the case you haven't, here is a list of some time wasters:

• The subordinates use jargon you are not familiar with and you will have to ask extra questions.
• The report does not include what you are looking for and again you will have to make further inquiries to obtain the pertinent information
• Each subordinate uses his/her own logic to structure and present information. In oral reports you might have to wait long until you hear what is of interest to you or written reports are difficult to skim.
• Sales people want to impress managers with what they know, presenting though often irrelevant information and thus wasting the manager's time

Good managers are aware of these time wasters and therefore impose that their subordinates use specific templates for example to report on the status of an opportunity an the plan how to advance it. However in the context of a sales training initiative, the imposed use of existing templates might lead to disastrous results.

Do managers use the common language installed through sales training?

My observations is that this is rather the exception than the norm. Too many sales executives and managers look at sales training as something for their people and ignore that they might have to adjust their management .practice for the training to have a sustainable effect.

Good sales training companies offer though specific modules for managers teaching them how they can reinforce what was taught to their people .and having a positive return from the use of a common language. However when training budgets are tight, the management components of the initiative are the first to be skipped. The possibility for a positive return is thus foregone right at the start. Not having been trained in the newly installed language, manager's will simply keep their old routines.

Another evidence I frequently observe is that especially top executives tend to request briefings in a specific format if they are asked to help with a customer visit in the field. These executives are often not even aware that a sales methodology with specific templates is installed. Those installed templates are usually absolutely suitable to convey contents the executives are looking for, just the structure might differ.

The question then is if executive power or economics win. Admittedly due to the higher compensation, the working hour of an executive is much more expensive than the hour of an individual contributor. But the tipping point, where the extra cost induced by the time individual contributors use reformatting their contents is higher than the cost savings resulting form time gains for the executive, is often reached faster than one wants to believe

Yet one does not have to be so sophisticated in the analysis. Imposing another template than the one installed through sales training, makes the investment made into the training obsolete. Individual contributors will have little incentive to adhere to something that is visibly not supported and used by top level executives.

Any of the above symptoms of management behavior considerably diminishes the return from the use of a common language. But it can get even worse.

Wasting money trying to introduce an new common language

Alumni are the sales training companies' best friends; especially when they are on management or executive level. They provide them with revenue potential in at least two ways:

1. They can make training in a specific methodology mandatory for all new hires
2. If they change employers, there is a high likelihood that they will have their new teams trained in what they know from the previous assignment even though they might later not reinforce what their people were taught

There is a high probability that both theses initiatives will have a negative return. In both cases a high percentage of people will go through off the shelf training that is designed and taught for people being exposed for the first time to let's say a complex B2B sales type of methodology training. In reality, today most B2B sales people have been trained in at least one of the more popular methodologies. These people do not need to be taught the fundamentals again. All they need to know is how it is done with the new employer or how the new boss wants to have it done.

Money is therefore wasted because such trainings are not only much longer than they need to be. They might even not have the desired effect at all of establishing a common language. In the past, I was asked to train sales forces in a methodology as if it was the first time ever they were exposed to this type of training. It usually did not take long before people started to make comments such as “I had a similar training with my former employer where what you call 'Y' was called 'X'”. What jargon do you think such people are going continue to use? Probably the one they learned first.

How can managers improve the return from the use of a common language?

Being honest with themselves, when wondering if they might show some of the dysfunctional behaviors mentioned above, is a precondition to improve the return from the use of a common language. If they have the necessary self awareness, the following list of recommendations will bring the desired improvement:

1. Listen how your people speak and observe how they communicate to you in writing. Chances are you might find signs of the existence of a common vocabulary and standard templates.
2. If you find frequent use of a common vocabulary and templates, adapt yourself to it and reinforce usage.
3. If the vocabulary and/or templates are widely known but are not sufficiently used, lead by example using them and offer specific refresher training if needed.
4. If you find different vocabularies and templates, decide on the one you like best and install it by focusing on “how are things done here” and not by a standard off the shelf training offered by the company that owns your preferred jargon and templates.
5. Adapt training for new hires depending on how much exposure they had to the fundamentals you want them to adhere to before joining your company.

Do You Need a Sales-Consultant, -Coach or -Trainer ?

Is this differentiation necessary when you are looking for help with your initiative to increase sales productivity?

The fact that all three terms are listed on many LinkedIn profiles (mine included) can mean two things. Either, it suggests that the terms are taken as interchangeable and listing them all gives a higher chance to be found depending of the preferred term used by those seeking help. Or, these are three different roles.

I believe these are different roles needed for different phases in your initiative. I have listed them on my profile to indicate that I can assume all three roles.

Consultants

have a deep knowledge of their field. They have tools to diagnose the root causes of sales productivity problems. Based on the diagnosis, they can then design a therapy plan how to eliminate the detected inhibitors for higher sales productivity. They have a methodology how to do this. The therapy plans are based on modules that can be mixed and matched, extended or contracted depending on the diagnosis. Only few sales consultants stop their service offering at this level. Most of them will then also help with the execution of the therapy plan. They will then take on the roles of trainers and coaches.

Consultants are best engaged early in the initiative or when derailed initiatives need to be brought back on course.

Consultants can even help you deciding whether an initiative is needed or not. In this case, both parties must understand that the diagnosis is a free standing separately billable item and that the engagement might end after the diagnosis phase.

It might also be advisable to consider the development of the therapy plan as a separately payable free standing engagement. The customer then has a higher guarantee that the consultant is not just trying to peddle his/her teaching and coaching services and will recommend third parties if this improves the execution of the plan.

The term consultant is also used for people giving you advise how to implement a prepackaged, methodology , process or piece of software to improve sales productivity. Their diagnostics are geared to confirm the fit between their solution and a problem. Getting help from this type of consultants in early phases of an initiative bears the risk, that they might see every problem as a “nail”, because the only tool they have is a “hammer” (their particular offering).

Trainers

have internalized a body of knowledge (best practices) how to improve sales efficiency and/or effectiveness. They transfer their knowledge to their trainees through lecturing, case studies, tests and practical exercises. They do this in classrooms, interactive web based sessions or a blended combination which might also include self paced learning modules. They have their own intellectual property (body of knowledge) or are certified to use the material proprietary to a third party.

Organizations not wanting to use consultants to carry out a diagnosis to help shape their initiative and engaging trainers only and maybe consultants advising on the use of a particular solution, rely on a self diagnosis of the problems. They must accept that the cause for potential failure of the initiative is not always the training. It is as likely that the failure is caused by a superfluously carried out diagnosis or by jumping prematurely to conclusions.

Coaches

have an intimate knowledge what best practice behavior, leading to higher efficiency and/or effectiveness looks like. They observe those to be coached in real life situations or role plays or they review outputs (e.g. plans) and identify gaps between what they observe and best practice. They then advise the person to be coached what behavior changes are needed to get closer to best practice. Coaching is usually an iterative process. The coach will observe how well the advise is internalized and has improved behavior and will recommend further changes if gaps are still significant. This loop will be repeated until gaps have disappeared or have at least reached a tolerable level.

For a coach to be effective, there must be an agreement between the customer and the coach, what best practices had previously been taught and need reinforcement.

Using trainers who taught best practices as coaches,assures knowledge about the best practices to be reinforced. Knowing how to train best practices does though not mean automatically also knowing how to coach best practices. There is a difference in approach. Trainers used as coaches might also earlier come to the conclusion that gaps are so huge that refresher training or re-training is needed before coaching can be effective.

Conclusion

Distinguishing the three roles and understanding which role is needed when in a sales productivity improvement initiative and what the prerequisites are, gives a higher certainty for a successful outcome.

Within each role, there are though also variants to be considered. Ignoring these variants, might also cause the initiative not delivering the expected results

When you seek help to improve sales productivity, do you make the distinction of roles?

How would you describe these roles?

Do you have experience on this topic you would like to share?

What is Wrong with the Win-Win Negotiation Concept?

On several groups on LinkedIn, a discussion was started with the hypothesis that win-win does not work in sales negotiations. One contribution to the discussion caught my particular attention. Someone answered by quoting Einstein who taught physicists that the result of observations depends on the position of the observer. I think this is the perfect short answer. Here is the long answer why I believe so.

Let me introduce the concept of the Negotiation Matrix. There are two parties (A and B). They both come to the negotiation table having defined their Walk Away Point (WAP); meaning if they were forced to make concession beyond this point, they would walk away from the negotiation table. Just as an aside the win-win concept might already let us forget this walk away option.

In the Negotiation Matrix, we represent the negotiation options of A on the horizontal axis. All negotiation results to right of the WAP, A considers as a win . Outcomes on the left of the WAP are perceived as a loss by A. The negotiation options of B are represented on the vertical axis. B considers a negotiation outcome as a win if it is above the WAP. Results below the WAP are perceived as a loss by B. The two axis cross at the respective WAP.

This can also be considered the optimal negotiation outcome. At this point, both parties have obtained a maximum of concessions from each other without any party feeling as loser yet. However the win-win concept will accept any negotiation result in quadrant I as a desired outcome ( win-win) of a negotiation. But this is an altruistic concept from the point of view of A and B.

Neurological research carried out with fERM have shown that the human brain has a specific Altruistic area but also a specific Lust area. For judging the suitability of the win-win concept for commercial negotiations, two findings are of crucial importance. First, the Lust center can be triggered by presenting the potential of winning monetary awards. Second, when both the Altruistic center and the Lust center are triggered, the Lust center is stronger and will force the decision in its favor.

This triggering of both centers is exactly what happens in a commercial negotiation. The Altruistic center of both the seller and buyer is triggered because we have been taught to strive for a win-win result in order to maintain an established relationship. For the seller, the Lust center is triggered because of the commission check that can be expected by winning the deal or at least by the desire to get as much cash as possible from the sale. The buyer might have personal monetary incentives in form of a bonus or is at least motivated to outlay as little cash as possible for the purchase. The Lust center being stronger, quadrant I is hardly the desired outcome for neither A nor B. Only for an observer C not involved in the negotiation, this is the optimal quadrant. There is no stimulus to the Lust center.

The seller (lets assume he is A) and the buyer (let say she is B) from their point of view, due to the force of the Lust center might though rather end up in a win-lose (quadrant IV) or a lose-win (quadrant II) situation. What probably both try to avoid is ending up in a lose-lose situation (quadrant III).

Negotiation results ending in quadrant IV or quadrant II are though, contrary to what the win-win concept would stipulate, not necessarily harmful to a relation. It is acceptable that A sees himself in quadrant I and positions B in quadrant IV if simultaneously B sees herself in quadrant I and projects A in quadrant II. For the external observer this still is a win-win situation, because both A and B will manifest a probably even stronger feeling to walk away as winners as they think they have defeated their opponent.

As a seller or buyer, you must thus take care that your vis-à-vis does not perceive him/herself as a loser. From your own perspective you are not obliged to see your vis-à- vis as a winner and thus a win-win outcome for the negotiation. I believe knowing this will make you more at ease in negotiations and is probably more in line with how human brains work.