Most manufacturers and distributors have spent large sums of money providing traditional sales training. However, most managers feel frustrated when they try to find the benefits of the time and money spent.

One selling skills session per year is about all most companies will support and their salespeople will voluntarily attend. There is never a good time to take sales people off of the street. Seminar and travel costs add further to discourage selling skills training.

Equally important is sales training content. It is often generalized. Salespeople deal with contact specific selling challenges. The lack of connection between classroom generalizations and customer-specific issues flaws the learning and execution process. Consequently, the untapped productivity gains of greater selling effectiveness are often unrealized.

All owners and managers agree that getting more orders/productivity out of the same sales staff needs to be done. The problem is how to do it.

Costly logistic objections to sales training are overcome by Web-based learning. The Internet provides 24-7 access. No travel is required. Addressing the sales person's customer specific needs with immediate assistance on their terms is also much easier via the Web. The facts are fresh and internal motivation is at its highest level, which is ideal for improving methods and earnings.

Business is built one relationship at a time. If we let this fact create the learning model, we have the highest level of relevancy. The result is a direct connection between learning and improving the quality of specific customer relationships. Learning and doing are put into the same breath. The outcome is excitement and a leap over the execution hurdle. This is the path to greater selling productivity.

There is still the matter of the training topic. From my experience as a sales executive, I want them to learn, then carry out customer relationship specific strategies that support the sales plan. Designing and implementing strategies connected to specific customer contacts is critical to winning orders.

This model needs a learning environment. It starts by respecting the semi-private nature of one-on-one business relationships. Recognition that the salesperson has built or added to those relationships is a powerful motivator.

Encouragement makes it feel safer to discuss the specific contact strategies without personal risk. Convenience is mandatory for both employee and management. Responsibility and accountability for execution are very clear. Finally, a variety of perspectives is helpful to deal with the variety of styles among sales people and the relationship situations.

By combining the work of the salesperson's on site sales manager and well-designed Web site services, selling effectiveness/productivity can move forward. Logistic difficulties and costs are avoided. Content will become rifle shot relevant and with that responsibility will be joined by genuine excitement.

Everything else in the selling process can be perfect, but without quality relationships the revenue stream will not last for long or it will not get started at all. The ultimate differentiator in a highly competitive market place is the technical sales professional.