Are B2B “Lunch and Learn” Trainings Leaving You Hungry For More ROI?
By Mark Roberts
As I shared in my last post about how B2B Sales is heading into a perfect storm for sales effectiveness and training, we also need to look at each way we train our distributors. One of the most popular training I have seen over the last 35 years is manufacturers providing what we refer to as “lunch and learn training” for their distributor branch locations. The idea of training distributor salespeople to help them have great conversations with their customers is strong however lunch and learn training often leaves both manufactures and distributors hungry for more ROI. In this post we will discuss why lunch and learn trainings no longer serve manufacturers or their distributors and how we must adapt the ways we provide knowledge transfer to our distributors.
For as long as I can remember working for manufacturers we delivered “Lunch and Learn” trainings to our channel partners and distributors. If you are not familiar with the team “lunch and Learn” let me explain. As the name of the training implies the manufacturer salesperson buys lunch (sometimes breakfast) for the distributor branch. While the distributors team eats their free lunch you have about 30-40 minutes to train the distribution salespeople. The goal is to help the distributor salespeople have a better understanding of your product and or services so they would sell more. Each of the distributors we sold often had competing products that solved problems in a similar way, so we tried to get in front of the distributor’s sales team more than our competitors. We tried to buy the hearts of the distribution salespeople with donuts, breakfast burritos, pizza and sometimes catered lunches. At each training the manufacturing salesperson for that region would share product features and benefits and, on some occasions, provide application advice. The regional salesperson for the manufacturer would distribute sell sheets and answer any questions. This was a great model for baby boomers and before 2008, before the Internet and all the training models we have available to us today.
Today, lunch and learn training is adding to the cost of sale and rarely produces the ROI both manufactures, and distributors want and need.
Why?
Let’s start with the distribution sales team receiving the training.
- The training is delivered by a manufacturer salesperson (not someone trained to train adults) and the topics covered are forgotten within hours without reinforcement.
- As a distributor with 100’s of product lines you could have manufacturing salespeople wanting to feed product information into your salespeople every day, multiple times per day.
- Now the branch manager must monitor and manage vendor training (along with everything else they are in charge of).
- The training is often focusing on what is important to the manufacturer not the distributor and their customers (product focus of the month, a SPIFF incentive, a new product to drive manufacturer objectives).
- The manufacturer salesperson is not aware of the sales competencies of those they are about to train at the branch.
- The product(s) in the training may not be relevant to some of the distributor salespeople.
- Lunch and Learns have become a distraction for distributors wanting to guide their salesperson’s focus, time and behaviors that deliver the most value.
- Often distribution outside salespeople are taken away from their customer facing activities to attend manufacturer lunch and learn training.
- For the financial folks reading this …. let’s say each lunch and learn for your distribution branch has 3 inside salespeople, 4 outside salespeople, two customer service team members and the branch manager? (don’t forget the warehouse team who smelled a free lunch and stopped processing orders for an hour) So work with me here…I am estimating an hour of your team’s time is $400 -$750 or maybe even $1000. Based on their compensation. Then we consider the opportunity cost, what they could have been doing not attending this training. Let’s say your daily sales are $20,000 so an hour of time is worth around $2,500. What happens when a customer calls and your team is away from the phones? They call another distributor. If they have a great experience they may never return. Can we agree the cost in compensation and business for your branch is worth $3,500 -$5,000 for an hour of time?( maybe much more)
- What is your ROI from that training? If the lunch and learn produced $350,000 to $500,000 in new revenue by all means keep doing them, …heck do more!
- From my experience Lunch and Learn trainings have become a distraction and are no longer the best method to train distribution sales teams for knowledge transfer.
- If you are a distributor and not realizing an ROI from manufacture lunch and learn training, its time to find another way to train your salespeople.
- One last thought….Think about the message you are sending your staff with taking their lunch hour for training. Our company believes in training but we will not invest any of our time in it but we will take your personal time?
Let’s not forget about the manufacturer and their local salesperson.
- A growing problem in sales today is salespeople are too distracted. This is resulting in less than 20% of the time they are customer facing and actually selling. They need to be having discussions with customers who have problems they can help solve. Lunch and learns take time away from customer field visits with distribution salespeople.
- There are only so many hours in a day. The salespeople I have worked with, coached and trained have shared they see little if any retention and return from distributor lunch and learn trainings.
- The manufacturer regional salespeople spend more time planning the food than their presentations.
- If you prepare properly for a lunch and learn it should take about 2-4 hours, time most field salespeople do not have today.
- Let’s review costs: The food can cost $50-$250. The brochures you had shipped next day to you another $100. Time: planning, drive time, delivery can be 5 hours to over 10 if you needed to fly into the city for the branch. Let’s agree the average hourly cost of a field salesperson for a manufacturer is $50-$75 per hour or $750 to deliver a lunch and learn. We have the travel cost in mileage to consider and that could be $100 if the branch is nearby and air travel could be over $500. You came in the night before and had a hotel stay at $140. Let’s roll with this scenario and agree your cost to deliver the lunch and learn is around: $750 to $1,800.
- Oh, I almost forgot the big cost…the opportunity cost. You have experienced if you go on end customer calls with your distributors, you win the business and your average new customer order from your CRM data is $45,000 in the first 12 months.( some much larger)
- So that one-hour lunch and learn training is really costing your company $45,650 to $46,800. Let me ask you a question…will you see a sales increase from your training at that branch of $400,000 to $500,000? (I kind of thought you wouldn’t, but I was hopeful)
As I shared in my last post turnover at distributors is growing. The market forces are converging on distributors like never before. The new Millennial and Generation Z workers only plan to stay 24-36 months. Manufacturer salespeople often meet new salespeople on each lunch and learn training. Something needs to change. As manufacturers can you afford to have weekly lunch and learns with this kind of turnover? We must challenge what we have been doing for 30-50-100 years and explore new and better ways of training our distributors.
What is some market leading manufactures doing?
They are investing in online micro learning product courses. Small courses designed to help distribution salespeople understand the product, application quickly. They are redirecting the funds they spent per year in lunch and learn training to online learning. Distribution sales teams are seeing this training just in time, just enough, and online learning is perfect for the millennials and Gen z new associates.
This model frees distributor outside salespeople to stay in the market with customer facing activity and they can take the short 10-20 minute product training updates on their cell phones over lunch or in between customer appointments. Manufacturers who are leveraging online learning for their distributors and going on more field visits to end customers.
Manufacturer field sales managers who have been trained in product and application knowledge are now spending more time with distributors doing behaviors that have proven to move the sales needle for distributors and manufactures.
What is market leading distributors doing?
They are investing in LMS systems to train new and current salespeople. These systems provide bite sized courses with just enough, when you need it and it is relevant to the sales role and the customers they serve. These courses are mobile friendly, and if designed properly provide knowledge checks, job aids and application exercises. The knowledge is transferred over time in little drips blended with other training that works with the distributor sales rep’s everyday workflow. Because it is delivered over time and reinforced it is remembered.
The really advanced distributors are recruiting their top performing salespeople to be a part of their training and on-boarding and asking experienced salespeople to record insights they have learned over the years by customer type, product and industry. These innovative distributors are gathering and creating learning libraries of the tribal knowledge their senior sales performers have gained over the years before they retire. These knowledge libraries will equip their LMS system with peer-to-peer knowledge transfer insights that we are seeing has huge returns in retention.
Market leading distributors are also investing in their sales skills training and branch manager training. As I shared in the last post, the new workforce wants and needs frequent coaching and feedback. Leading distributors are converting their branch managers from players to coaches and this results in scalable sales results.
Market leading distributors and manufactures alike is having their sales teams take sales skills assessments and prescribing individualized learning plans based on need.
I hear some manufacturer salespeople expressing concerns: What about relationship building? When I deliver a lunch and learn I am also building relationships.
Two thoughts…
First if you want to build relationships do so on end customer visits helping the distribution salesperson make more commission.
If you want to build relationships with the distributor’s team have an after hours event that is local to the branch and fun. Focus this experience on relationship building and not products, features and benefits. Get to know each person by name and strategically build business relationships. Understand how your distributor makes money and stop pulling their team away from servicing their customers in business hours.( its costing you both sales you could have won)
In conclusion, I want to emphasize I am not suggesting we stop training our distribution and channel partners. What I am suggesting is we design modern sales training programs that are cost efficient, time efficient and leverage the way the new workforce wants and needs to learn, and are adapted to the trend of only staying with an employer for 24-36 months..
If you are a manufacturer, how many lunch and learns did your field team deliver last year?
If you are a distributor, how many manufacturer lunch and learns and meetings did your branch have last year?
How do the new salespeople want to learn?
Aside from free food, what is the benefit of manufacturer lunch and learn training today?
Have you seen a strong ROI from lunch and learns as a distributor? If so please share, there has to be some great success stories,
As a manufacturer, what is the value of 3 more end user visits with your distributors this month?
We need to change how we provide product and sales training and I suggest manufacturers provide online product and sales skills training and equip the branch managers to coach and lead their teams. I suggest manufacturers learn the economics of running a distributor branch and plan relationship building events prior or after working hours.
If you are sold on lunch and learns and do not plan to change, below are some articles to improve your lunch and learn experiences and hopefully improve the ROI.
7 steps to successful lunch and learn
How to create a Learn at Lunch program
