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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

  • Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
  • Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
  • Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

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Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

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Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

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Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

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Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

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Predictive Evaluation

Designing Sales Enablement for Product Knowledge and Soft Skills

Sales teams across Australia are under more scrutiny on revenue outcomes than at any point in the past decade. Customers in Sydney and Melbourne expect consultative sellers who understand complex B2B offerings, while regional account managers in Perth or Brisbane often cover vast territories with limited face-to-face time. A modern enablement program needs to develop both technical fluency and the human skills that turn a conversation into a contract.

Yet most internal academies still treat product training and soft skill development as separate workstreams, run by different owners on disjointed timelines. The result is a salesforce that can recite features but cannot run a discovery call, or one that can build rapport but cannot defend the price. Aligning the two streams around shared commercial outcomes is the most reliable way to lift win rates and shorten ramp-up.

Anchoring enablement to revenue and customer outcomes

Australian sales leaders are increasingly asked to show how learning connects to pipeline creation, deal velocity and account retention. Set three to five measurable objectives before designing any module, such as lifting the average deal size in the SME segment by eight percent or reducing time-to-first-quote in the enterprise channel by two weeks. Each objective should map to a single capability area that blends product depth with conversational ability, rather than isolating one from the other.

Link the objectives to the way your organisation already plans the year. Most ASX-listed companies break performance reviews against H1 and H2 targets, so align enablement milestones to the same cadence. When HR, sales operations and L&D agree on the targets up front, the program earns a seat at the quarterly business review rather than competing for attention with marketing campaigns or product launches.

Comparing how product knowledge and soft skills are typically learned

Dimension Product knowledge training Soft skills development
Primary goal Accurate recall of features, specifications and competitive positioning Adaptive behaviour in conversations, negotiations and meetings
Best delivery format Microlearning, job aids, short videos Scenario practice, role plays, coaching circles
Time to proficiency Weeks of spaced reinforcement Months of deliberate practice and feedback
Measurement focus Quiz scores, certification, time to competency Observed behaviour change, peer and manager review
Common failure mode Content overload without field application Role plays that never translate to live customer calls

This side-by-side view helps stakeholders see that the two streams share an outcome, even when the delivery looks different. The right program brings them together through shared scenarios where a seller must recall a product detail and apply it inside a difficult conversation.

Building product knowledge modules that travel from the boardroom to the bush

Sales teams in Australia rarely work from a single headquarters. Account managers in mining services may fly out to Pilbara sites, while agricultural reps drive across the Wheatbelt. Modules need to be available offline, searchable in the moment and written in plain English that respects technical literacy without assuming it.

Keep each product lesson under twelve minutes, anchored to a real customer question rather than a feature list. Pair every lesson with a one-page field reference that can be pulled up on a phone between meetings in Parramatta or Adelaide. The goal is recall under pressure, not memorisation in a quiet classroom.

Weaving soft skills into the same learning flow

Soft skills sit awkwardly when they arrive as a separate workshop in a different month. Embed the practices inside the product modules so that every lesson ends with a conversation prompt. A product update on pricing tiers becomes an opportunity to practise holding ground against procurement, rather than a slide deck to be acknowledged and forgotten.

Storytelling, objection handling and negotiation deserve their own coaching cadence, but they should always reference a current product theme. In a country where trust is built over long relationships, especially in family-owned agribusinesses and mid-tier professional services, sellers need scripted confidence that still sounds like their own voice.

Choosing formats that suit Australian working rhythms

Coffee meetings before 9am, long lunches with key clients and Friday arvo wind-downs shape when and how learning happens. Live virtual sessions work well for the eastern seaboard, while on-demand microlearning suits fly-in weekenders and remote mining camps. Peer-led practice circles in regional hubs such as Newcastle, Geelong or Cairns help sellers translate online lessons into local customer language.

Blend three formats in any quarter: a short live workshop to set the theme, a self-paced digital pathway for reinforcement, and a coach-led practice session to convert learning into habit. Repeating this rhythm prevents the all-too-common drift between kickoff enthusiasm and the second half of the year.

Driving adoption with gamification without turning learning into a game

Gamified elements such as leaderboards, badges and team challenges can lift completion rates when they reinforce the right behaviours. The mistake is building a points economy that rewards clicking rather than mastering. Tie every mechanic to a competency that maps back to your sales stages and to customer commitments under the Australian Consumer Law.

The science behind well-designed mechanics is worth studying before you build, and the role of gamification in increasing training adoption offers practical patterns that translate directly to enablement. Use it sparingly inside a program that already has a credible learning spine.

Measuring adoption, behaviour change and business impact

Most enablement dashboards stop at completion rates, which tell you almost nothing about revenue. Add a second layer of measurement that tracks observed behaviour, using manager scorecards and recorded call reviews against a shared rubric. Predictive Evaluation helps forecast which behaviours will hold and which will fade after the launch buzz dies down.

The third layer is commercial. Connect training exposure to opportunity creation, deal close rate and customer retention inside your CRM. If the numbers do not move, the program design needs to change rather than the marketing around it. There is no shortcut around honest measurement, and the returns on leadership programs that ignore soft skill outcomes are notoriously hard to defend.

Sustaining the program through cycles of product change

Product roadmaps in Australia rarely sit still, whether you sell into financial services in Sydney, agtech across the Murray-Darling, or industrial supplies through OEM channels. Refresh the most date-sensitive modules every quarter and review the full library twice a year against the latest competitive landscape. Soft skills content, by contrast, holds its value for much longer and only needs coaching reinforcement.

Rotate owners between product marketing, L&D and sales enablement so the program does not become anyone's side project. When enablement is shared, it survives reorgs, budget cycles and the temptation to focus only on whichever product launch is loudest in the quarter. Many of the most common pitfalls, such as handing ownership to a single overstretched L&D partner, are well documented in guides on why leadership programs fail and how to fix them.

The next step is to map your current enablement assets against the comparison table above and identify the two largest gaps between product fluency and conversational skill. Book a one-hour session with your L&D lead and your top three sales performers to score those gaps, then prioritise the modules that close both at once.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.

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