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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

How Predictive Evaluation Forecasts Sales Training Effectiveness

Sales training often begins with a compelling promise: improve product knowledge, sharpen selling skills, and increase revenue. Yet the business impact may remain unclear when evaluation starts only after delivery. By then, leaders may know whether participants enjoyed the program, but not whether the learning will be adopted or influence customer and financial outcomes.

Predictive Evaluation changes that timing. It examines the conditions that influence training success before a sales enablement initiative is fully launched. Organizations can use evidence from the business environment, learner population, sales process, manager behavior, and delivery approach to forecast likely adoption, performance improvement, and return on investment.

This forward-looking method does not replace post-training measurement. Instead, it helps learning teams make better design decisions, identify risk early, and establish a practical measurement strategy tied to sales performance.

Connecting Learning Goals With Sales Results

A useful forecast begins by translating broad learning goals into observable business outcomes. “Improve consultative selling” is a valuable direction, but it must connect to behaviors such as stronger discovery questions, more accurate qualification, better opportunity progression, or increased cross-selling.

The evaluation model should then link those behaviors to leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators may include CRM activity quality, manager observations, coaching completion, proposal conversion, and movement through pipeline stages. Lagging indicators can include win rate, average deal size, sales cycle length, retention, and revenue attainment.

This creates a chain of evidence rather than assuming that course completion produces commercial value. It also clarifies which results the training can influence and which depend on pricing, territory design, product demand, compensation, or market conditions.

Forecasting Adoption Before Delivery

A sales program can be technically excellent and still fail if representatives do not use the new methods in customer conversations. Predictive Evaluation examines adoption risks before launch, including competing priorities, manager reinforcement, incentive alignment, perceived relevance, time availability, and the ease of applying new skills in the field.

Resistance is especially important in established sales teams. Representatives may believe that current methods work, or managers may unintentionally reward short-term activity instead of the desired behavior. Practical guidance on overcoming workplace resistance can help learning leaders treat adoption as a business change issue rather than a communications problem.

Forecast findings can shape the intervention. A program may need manager coaching, field assignments, peer practice, updated sales tools, or executive sponsorship before formal instruction begins. These adjustments improve the probability that learning will transfer into daily selling activity.

Identifying Performance Gaps Early

Predictive evaluation also helps separate a true capability gap from a process, technology, or market gap. If representatives understand a sales methodology but cannot access current customer data, additional training may have limited effect. If managers rarely coach pipeline quality, even a strong course may produce inconsistent application.

Diagnostic evidence can come from sales results, customer feedback, call reviews, CRM records, interviews, assessments, and manager observations. When these sources point to the same weak behavior, the learning need becomes more credible. When they conflict, the organization can investigate before investing in a large-scale intervention.

Using early gap identification allows learning teams to address small issues before they spread across regions, products, or sales roles. It also supports differentiated learning paths for new hires, experienced account executives, frontline managers, and specialist teams.

Estimating Effectiveness Across Key Measures

A forecast should cover several dimensions of success rather than a single satisfaction score. The following framework shows how sales organizations can connect predictive questions to measurable outcomes.

Evaluation Dimension Forecasting Question Useful Evidence Possible Sales Indicator
Readiness Are learners and managers prepared to use the new approach? Interviews, surveys, manager input Participation and coaching activity
Adoption Will representatives apply the skills consistently? Practice data, field observations, CRM behavior Use of discovery or qualification behaviors
Capability Can learners perform the target behavior to standard? Assessments, simulations, call reviews Improved call or opportunity quality
Business impact Could the behavior influence commercial performance? Baseline results, operational data, comparison groups Win rate, cycle time, deal size
Financial return Is the expected value greater than program cost? Cost model, benefit assumptions, outcome data Revenue gain, margin improvement, ROI

These measures should be defined before delivery, with an agreed baseline and realistic time horizon. Some behaviors may change within weeks, while revenue outcomes can take a quarter or longer. Forecasting makes those timing differences visible and prevents premature judgments about program performance.

Designing The Intervention Around Evidence

The forecast should directly influence the learning experience. If salespeople struggle to apply skills in complex accounts, realistic scenarios and coached practice may be more valuable than additional presentations. If managers are the primary transfer barrier, the design should include manager enablement, observation guides, and structured reinforcement.

Effective training design and delivery methods can turn evaluation findings into a blended solution that combines instruction, learning bursts, job aids, coaching, and field application. The objective is to support the entire performance environment, not simply deliver a memorable workshop.

Design decisions should also account for role differences. A regional sales manager may need coaching and inspection skills, while a representative needs conversation practice and product positioning. Predictive evidence helps determine the right mix, sequence, and level of customization.

Building A Forecasting Discipline

Organizations gain the most value when Predictive Evaluation becomes part of the sales training lifecycle rather than a one-time review. Learning, sales operations, finance, and frontline leadership should agree on the performance problem, assumptions, measures, and responsibilities before the program launches.

A practical forecasting discipline includes:

  • Establish a business baseline using reliable sales and operational data.
  • Define the specific behaviors the program is expected to change.
  • Identify adoption risks involving managers, systems, incentives, and workload.
  • Estimate potential benefits using conservative assumptions and a clear time frame.
  • Schedule follow-up checks that compare forecast conditions with actual behavior and results.

This approach gives stakeholders a shared explanation for why a program should work and what could prevent it from working. It also supports course correction when adoption is weaker than expected or when external conditions affect sales outcomes.

When leaders can see the connection between learning activity, behavior change, and commercial performance, training becomes easier to fund, manage, and improve. Begin by selecting an upcoming sales initiative, mapping its expected behavior changes, and using Predictive Evaluation to test its likely effectiveness before significant resources are committed.

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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