Situation
Pioneer, a DuPont business and leader in the agriculture industry, had implemented two training programs for their sales force. The 6,000+ trainee group was comprised of both part-time and full-time sales representatives. With several years of investment in the training programs, the company needed a clear understanding of the impact.
Overall, did the training increase sales?
And, specifically, was providing two courses instead of one worth the additional investment?
Approach
Since different products carried different margins and commission rates, Capital Analytics used gross commissions as opposed to gross sales as the key performance indicator (KPI).
Capital Analytics began by proposing the hypothesis: Sales training programs will increase a sales representative’s gross commissions.
In addition, Capital Analytics evaluated the impact of a number of other sales representative factors, including:
- sales manager rating
- start year (tenure)
- product mix
- segment
- prior performance level
- sales territory
Conclusions
Capital Analytics reviewed over four years of data for the two sales programs and determined that sales training did have a positive impact on sales, with untrained consultants earning significantly less commission.
However, the data also revealed that consultants who took both courses (A & B) showed only a minimal improvement in commissions over those who took one course (A).
In addition, Capital Analytics’ measurement program showed that the positive impact of training was significantly higher for those consultants with the lowest prior (pre-training) performance.
Informed by these findings, Pioneer was able to maximize the ROI of its training programs by focusing efforts on a single course for lowest performers.
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