Effectiveness of Value-Selling Training Programs

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: Distinction, Buckinghamshire New University, language: English, abstract: Many companies in Business-to-Business (B2B) environment consider value-based selling (VBS) to be a selling approach that can move the conversation with their customers from price to value. Thus, firms today invest in training their sales force to improve how the value of their product or service is quantifiable and communicated to customers effectively. While the implementation of Value-Selling Training Programs (VSTP) is regarded as an important step in educating sales people, little is known about the effectiveness of the programs in regard to measurable financial results for the company and the effects generated for the various parts of the organization. However, the effectiveness of VBS has not yet been measured (e.g. financial outcomes) extensively and the effectiveness of such programs must be questioned if there is no Return on Investment (ROI) for the organization. Based on semi-structured one-on-one interviews with key decision makers of these companies, financial outcomes were identified, e.g. increase in margins or ROI (%) of such programs and portrayed the various effects of these VSTP i.e. behavioural, awareness and marketing-related benefits, which were caused by the training. The most outstanding finding was that company managers, who focused on measuring the outcome of the training initiative received positive results whereas the majority of interviewed company decision makers did not track the success (effectiveness) in detail or were only able to describe non-tangible results - some provided a "gut-feeling" of their outcomes. To further advance knowledge about the effectiveness of VSTP, future research avenues were identified to ensure ROI of such initiatives and areas of improvement such as suitable evaluation tools and practical methods to measure the outcome and increase financial returns of the investment.