How often do managers put individuals or teams through sales training as a one-off exercise with little or nothing in the way of ongoing coaching and integration? Tick - done. Some do it well, most don’t.
And how much of that training course does the team remember? German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus answers this using his "Forgetting Curve”, suggesting that within the first hour, people forget around 50% of what they’ve learned, by the next day they might have forgotten another 30-40%, and after that they’ll forget even more, with whatever’s left stored in their long-term memories. That doesn’t sound like a great ROI, does it? And since most sales training methodologies require a significant change to habits and hard-wired behaviours, it’s clear that with the small amount of training information retained, the likelihood of change and resulting performance improvement will probably be minimal at best.
But this is only the start. Beyond the memory retention challenges, other key culprits lie behind the often marginal impact of sales training:
- Lack of Reinforcement: Training sessions might provide valuable information, but ongoing coaching, practice, and reinforcement are crucial for long-term and sustainable behaviour change.
- No Managerial Support: If sales managers aren't actively involved in the training process, they might not provide the necessary guidance and reinforcement for their teams to adopt the new skills and approaches.
- Resistance to Change: Sales teams might resist adopting new methods if they perceive them as contradicting their existing practices or if they fear the new techniques will be too hard or less effective.
- Overemphasis on Content Delivery: Training that overly relies on lectures or presentations can be less engaging and interactive.
- Unaddressed Mindset and Attitude Issues: Sales success is influenced by mindset and attitude as much as skills. If training fails to address issues related to motivation, confidence, and resilience, overall performance might not improve.
- Inadequate Buy-In: If the sales team and leadership don't see the value of the training or don't believe in its effectiveness, they probably won’t fully engage with the training.
- Disconnected from the Sales Process: If the training isn't integrated into the broader sales process, it might not align with the overall strategy and fail to deliver the desired impact on performance.
The good news is that sales training can provide immense benefits when undertaken and implemented thoughtfully and is tailored to the specific needs of the sales team and organisation. Training equips salespeople with essential skills, techniques, and knowledge needed to engage customers and prospects effectively, uncover and qualify opportunities, handle objections, maximise deal success, close deals, and build relationships. And above all else, it can lead to significant improvements in sales results. Various studies have shown that organisations who undertake formal sales training programs demonstrate valuable improvements in sales revenue, achievement of quotas, win rates, profit margins, and customer retention figures*.
Sales training does however need to be more than a tick – done exercise. Developing a program including ongoing coaching and reinforcement, integration with sales processes, management support, and the buy-in of salespeople is crucial for the sustained benefits and performance outcomes of a successful training plan.
Sandler (www.sandler.com), a leading global sales training and development organisation, believe that success is more than just training and technique. To be successful, individuals need to put those techniques into play through their daily behaviours and actions that lead to the successful achievement of strategies and tactics. Salespeople might have a great technique, but if they don’t know or haven’t planned the steps needed to turn that technique into outcomes they won’t be effective. And lastly, without the right attitude salespeople could have the best technique in the world but if their head isn’t directing them to put in place the necessary behaviours using those techniques then they’re not going to be successful. Self-limiting beliefs, negative mindset, ‘head trash’, all limit the possibilities and potential success from the techniques learned in sales training.
The days of one-off immersion sales training should be over. Creating exceptional sales performance requires a commitment to continuous learning, a focus on the application of that learning, and an effort to fostering a winning mindset. It's a process that can transform sales teams from ordinary to extraordinary. Ongoing sales training and support should form part of a high-performance sales strategy, with companies seeing it as valuable investment in time and resources.
* Sources:
CSO Insights Sales Best Practices Study (2020):
- According to this study, organisations with a formal sales training process have 15% more salespeople achieving quota compared to those without formal training.
- Sales teams that receive at least three days of training per year achieve 10% higher win rates compared to teams with less training.
Aberdeen Group's Research Report (2017):
- Sales teams that undergo regular sales coaching (part of comprehensive training) achieve 15% higher sales quotas compared to teams without coaching.
Harvard Business Review (2017):
- Organisations that provide effective sales training and development programs have 10% higher customer retention rates and 17% higher profit margins.
Training Industry Report (2021):
- Organisations that allocate a higher percentage of their training budget to sales training tend to have higher win rates and revenue attainment.
Sales Performance International Research (2019):
- Companies that invest in sales training and reinforcement achieved a 9.5% higher year-over-year increase in revenue compared to those that didn't.
LinkedIn State of Sales Report (2020):
- 92% of top-performing salespeople cite training and development as a key factor that helps them perform better.
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