Manage HR Magazine | Monday, January 20, 2025
Some of the leading causes of sales training failure include a failure to develop sales expertise, a failure to establish business and learning needs, and a failure to analyze individual traits.
FREMONT, CA: According to ES Research, between 85 and 90 percent of sales training has little long-term benefit after 120 days. At the same time, businesses spend billions of dollars on sales training every year. That amounts to billions of dollars wasted on modest sales performance impact and, at most, short-term sales increases. Training can be a disappointment right away when things don't go as planned, or it might be a letdown months later when the results don't appear. Regardless, sales training is frequently mentioned. When it does, it's usually for obvious and expected reasons. However, if salespeople can avoid these pitfalls, they may set themselves up for a successful training campaign, resulting in improved sales performance and long-term revenue development.
Stay ahead of the industry with exclusive feature stories on the top companies, expert insights and the latest news delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe today.
Significant reasons why the sales training could be failing:
Failure to develop sales knowledge: Salespeople know their products and can sell them effectively. Most sales training focuses on developing sales abilities. While sales skills are crucial, they are simply one side of a much larger coin: capacity. The other side of the coin is sales expertise - the salespeople must understand and be able to speak fluently about their products and services, the customer needs them to address, the marketplace as a whole, their organization, the competition, and more. However, most sales training overlooks sales knowledge and focuses only on sales techniques.
Failure to establish a sales process and methodology: Many sales training programs fail to establish a process and methodology for salespeople to move leads through the pipeline systematically. Without a process or approach, training is forgotten, and salespeople reinvent the wheel repeatedly.
Failure to evaluate individuals' attributes: It is not enough to equip the team with selling skills; the manager must also determine whether their team members possess the characteristics required for peak sales success. These characteristics are referred to as drivers and detractors of sales success. These will inform the manager not only who can sell but also who will sell at a premium price.
Inability to solidify and reaffirm training: Most sales training events last two or three days, during which salespeople learn and practice new skills. The issue with event-only training is that the event's effects fade with time. Without reinforcement, as much as participants may have enjoyed the program, it is rare for a salesperson to go home, curl up by the fire with a cup of coffee, and reread their sales training binder three times per week.
With reinforcement, salespeople remember new skills and knowledge and how inspired and motivated they were, reducing learning efficacy.
More in News