The question asked above is best answered by Barry Trailer, Managing Partner for CSO Insights, a leading sales research organisation, which surveyed over 2800 sales organisations in 2010. Barry found that many companies cut their training budgets in 2009 by as much as 13%, and he concluded:
"At the end of 2008, 86% of the firms we surveyed reported that they were increasing quotas for 2009 but many tried to 'cut their way to success' by reducing budgets and the results show that strategy was a huge mistake. In 2010 85% of the firms we just surveyed have raised their sales rep revenue targets, and these quotas need to be accompanied by increased investments in sales or we may be looking at even worse sales performance numbers next year."
You can read more of the research here. The final conclusion to the "Why Bother?" question is that, the level of investment made in developing professional sales people will have a direct bearing on the kind of results that they will deliver. You get what you pay for and ISMM accredited training is not cheap but it does deliver very impressive returns on investment.