A sales manager told me a sad story last month. "We lost two people in one month to another industry. They left because the company that recruited them offered a one-week sales training program in Chicago."

A 23-year-old rookie who was driving me to a presentation told me she had interviewed with several companies and chose to work for the company that had a "more formal training program."

Your training program may double as a recruitment tool and triple as a retention strategy. A wise man once said, "If your people see the company as a place to grow and not just a place to work, they will stay with you 12 to 18 months longer."

According to Dartnell's 29th Sales Force Compensation Survey 1996-1997, "The average spending across all companies to train newly hired sales reps is $7,937.... Experienced sales reps in our current survey are given, on average, 33.9 hours of training at a cost of $4,034 year per rep."

Putting your training program on paper or in calendar form shows recruits and current staff the opportunities they will have for growth. Saying to a new recruit, "You'll be attending three seminars, taking part in a certification program, and going through nearly 25 hours of video training" can help you sell the job to a person who has more than one offer.

"We are shaping the world faster than we can shape ourselves and we are applying to the present the habits of the past."--Winston Churchill

Sir Winston seems to be talking directly to today's salespeople. Despite the changing landscape of sales, there is evidence that the "Ma and Pa Mindset" continues to prevail.

Below are several situations I've encountered. After each "item," I'll attempt to influence your thinking as you sell training.

Item: Recently, the president of major group told me, "We really don't want to invest money in training a person for the first 90 days until we see if they are going to make it."

This is analogous to the businessperson who tells us that he must wait until business improves before he can afford to advertise. What would you tell him? There are two good reasons to invest in training from Day One of a person's career: They will either succeed sooner or fail faster with training than without it. That's right, I said fail faster. If you train them and they don't catch on, you can save 60 days or more of frustration and thousands of dollars in lost sales.

Item: One of our telephone sales representatives heard this comment not long ago from a sales manager: "I'm not taking them off the streets to send them to a sales training seminar. They haven't made budget in six months!"

There are two tremendous logic lapses in that thinking--but that's how insidious the Ma and Pa Mindset can be. Obviously, if they haven't made budget in six months they need some new direction. And second, training may or may not take place on the street, but it is work and it is vital. Training is a planned program, designed to impart specific knowledge, skills and attitudes to increase desired behavior in measurable ways. Training is working ON your business instead of IN your business for a time in order to make you more effective.

Item: Another manager told me, "We're having a sales contest and the winner gets to come to your seminar."

Imagine being "led" by a person with "reasoning" like that. You're sitting in the sales meeting thinking, "Let me see, if I sell more than anyone here, I get to go to sales training. Why isn't that the consolation prize?" It's the mindset of a Ma and Pa businessperson to think of training as a reward instead of a requirement. The winner of a sales contest should get a limousine ride to the Hilton and a weekend in the "Hot Tub Suite." The "losers," on the other hand, should get a Saturday morning sales training session. Want to see people really compete?

Item: The vice president of sales for an unbelievably large and powerful company said, "I can't see going to corporate and suggesting they invest $400 to train a new person. That's a lot of money."

So is $92 million in profits that year. Of course, these are people we're talking about, not portfolios. The cost of "human capital" can be calculated by multiplying payroll times the prime rate. That's the "money costs" of paying the people who work for you. By getting an extra 10 or 15 percent productivity out of the same worker, you can leverage your human capital costs across the entire operation. That's something you may be able to sell up, especially if you're selling up to a bean counter.

These isolated "items" ultimately start to form a pattern, and it isn't pretty. Just the other day, I even heard a group vice president say, "We just need some warm bodies." He has taken his Ma and Pa Mindset with him to a new corporate job.

The rules have already changed. The Ma and Pa Mindset is outdated; but sales training is innovative, it's a necessary tool that is shaping companies. Here's hoping that the minds will soon follow.