Too many sellers have gone through training on questioning models and buyer types without being provided any insight into what customers want the seller to provide. Research has shown surprising data about what customers value from sales calls.

Fifty years of empirical data and over 25 independent studies verify:• Sales training models are almost all identical and almost never produce measurable results….only the acronyms are different• Sales managers are seldom trained to on how to be sales managers and how to be effective sales coaches.• Too often companies spend too much money without solving their key sales performance problem. What is this problem? Even if sales training could change sales behaviors, there aren’t enough REAL opportunities in the sales funnel to make a measurable difference. Less than 10% of sales managers ever receive any training on how to be a sales manager. Without sales managers properly reinforcing training, the new training quickly fades.The final failure point: very little sales training ever focuses on teaching sellers how to adequately uncover and influence what the customer needs to fix, accomplish or avoid. As a result, the likelihood of measurable improvement drops to zero. Funnel Clarity is a professional services, consulting, and training firm that focuses on:• Turning sales people into enthusiastic efficient prospectors• Improving every seller’s ability to help customers better understand themselves• Converting sales managers into effective force multipliersImproving sales performance requires three things: trained sales managers, adequate qualified opportunities at the top of the sales funnel, and sellers who can develop/guide sales strategy by uncovering and influencing what the customer wants to achieve. EVERYTHING ELSE is a nice-to-have.After more than 50 years of failure, is it worth considering that the focus has been on the wrong problem?

Currently serving as Chairman of Business Performance Partners (BP2). BP2 focuses on sales strategy, sales performance, go-to-market strategy and capital formation for companies primarily under $1B in sales.