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I am very pleased to be here with you today to discuss the issue of sales training. This is an interesting non-product area that is extremely important to our Company.
The Yell Group primarily publishes Internet, paper and voice directories in the UK and in the US. The Group has a total turnover in excess of GBP 1 billion, with 46% of revenues generated in the US and 54% in the UK.
I am responsible for Yell.com, which is primarily UK based. At its origins in 1996, Yell.com used the approach of having a dedicated sales force. Very quickly, I realised that this would not work for the following reason. I was running into the same problems as those faced by so-called IYPs. That is, my cost base was far too high: an Internet advertisement will probably generate around GBP 300 in revenue whereas the average cost of keeping a sales person on the road is about GBP 80 000 to 90 000 per year. Therefore, if sales person makes two sales per day, this does not make much sense. Very quickly we thus reverted back to the main sales force.
I will be covering the issue of training as well as the role of the manager as part of the total package. I will then cover our online training system and, finally, I will show you an online and offline brochure and make some conclusions.
Every sales person that we employ, whether they be in telesales or in the field, goes through...
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