Most firms recognize the importance of providing training for their technical staff. It may be provided by outside sources or done in-house using mentoring programs. Technical training is readily available for installing, or repairing products or systems, as well as, working with software. The cost can vary from thousands of dollars to no charge from suppliers. Business owners and operators typically don’t even consider the ROI as they know it’s a necessity, not an option. The inability to resolve technical issues in a timely manner is expensive and directly impacts customer satisfaction.

Generic sales training courses are not in short supply.  In the case of Service Sales training, it’s usually limited to larger corporations. They typically have the resources and infrastructure required. With that said I still find many large firms Service Sales training generic and dated. Calculating the ROI on training of any kind is not easy. When it comes to sales it’s often a simple measurement of results.

I provide service sales training to wide ranging audiences at their location. The typical cost per attendee isn’t very expensive.  For example, let’s say its $500 per attendee. If the client is struggling with purchasing the training I try to put it into a simple ROI justification they can relate to.

• What is the cost of one lost service agreement sale because;
  • It was presented to the wrong person?
  • Your staff member couldn’t handle simple objections on price or coverage, etc?
  • The services you presented weren’t supported by a well crafted value proposition?
  • The price objection wasn’t correctly answered, or worse a discount was offered?

No doubt every firm has lost a service agreement(s) because of lack of the skills required for selling service. Most have lost many, or under price their services. For most companies it only takes the sale of one additional service agreement to pay for the firm’s whole staff to be trained. I don’t make guarantees, but that additional sale is usually accomplished by my clients the first week or two post training. If you extrapolate that across the months and years to come the ROI is off the charts. Let’s not forget those extra sales and profit are renewable!