Sales Training, Why it Matters?

How effective is sales training?

Let me first admit that I am a staunch believer in sales training.?Sales training can be incredibly effective and just like the way you can differentiate your company from the competition, by the quality of your product and your service levels, you can and should differentiate by the way you sell.?However, let’s first challenge our “first principle”; does sales training work??Let’s first consider some data.?

-?????????The Association for Talent Development states that “up to 80% of new skills are lost within 1 week of training if the skills are not used”.?

-?????????Up to 85% of sales training fails to deliver a positive ROI, according to the Chally Group

-?????????In a Xerox study, 87% of new skills are lost within a month of training.?

Even if these numbers seem a bit high to you, these are revealing statistics.?Surely it’s not due to a lack of quality of many of the sales training programs available.?I have personally studied Solution Selling, Miller Heiman, Customer-Centric Selling, Insight Selling and Sandler to name a few.?All of these programs offer what I would consider quality content with a robust supporting toolset.?I don’t believe that you can contribute the lack of ROI to the individuals who deliver the training either.?My experience is that they are almost universally dedicated and very competent in delivering the training.??So how can we explain the overall lack of effectiveness of sales training??

Ask yourself this question.?What is the goal for sales training??I would argue that a common answer would range from “to improve the team selling performance” to “to develop a team of expert sellers”.?This is a noble goal and in most cases the right one.?But from the statistics above, it’s not sales training that does this (at least not in isolation).?

In a paper released in 1993 by K. Anders Ericsson called, The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance stated that “expert-level performance is primarily the result of expert-level practice”.??Based on this paper the term “deliberate practice” was born.?Anders identifies 4 key components that are necessary for “deliberate practice”.?

1.??????Motivation – the person must be motivated (internally or externally) to work to improve performance

2.??????Current Knowledge – design the practice to reflect existing skill or knowledge and build upon that

3.??????Feedback – the practice should involve immediate and informative feedback on the results of that session

4.??????Repeatability – you must perform the same or similar tasks over and over again

Anders consistently argues that no level of expertise can develop in any discipline without deliberate practice.?No amount of natural skill or training will develop expertise on its own.?Could it be that most sales training doesn’t (and often can’t) implement the concept of “deliberate practice” and as a result simply can’t be effective in changing core behaviors that are targeted at the goal of improving performance??

Sales training is something that all organizations should be investing in on a regular basis.?It’s critical to the success of your team’s immediate performance as well as their career development.?However, what should we do as sales leaders knowing that sales training alone isn’t effective in driving performance and changing behaviors??I would suggest that companies consider the following prior to investing in training;

1.??????Deliberate practice – Have a plan in place to implement a process of deliberate practice.?In a sales environment, it could involve practicing meeting preparation, discovery calls, objection handling and closing the sale.?This must be structured and repeated soon after the sales training and as frequently as possible.?

2.??????Tailor the training – Ensure that the training is tailored for your team and takes into account the existing skill levels as well as your sales cycle, client buying cycle and your unique selling value.

3.??????Reinforcement – Practice is critical, but make sure you get your team into the game as quickly is possible.?Focus on building one set of skills, practicing those and deploying those as soon as the individual is ready.?

4.??????Coaching – Ensure that there is ongoing coaching from sales leadership both on the sales training and on the skills that are most relevant to the individual.?Spend time in the field with the sales team and give them immediate feedback so that they can refocus their approach on the areas of deliberate practice.?

Sales training does indeed have value and can be the driver for improving sales performance and in changing core selling behavior.?However, unless it is tailored to the team, has regular reinforcement, is supported through coaching and is regularly practiced you are likely to not see that intended change to the team’s sales performance.?

Sandler - Silver Brick Management Solutions helps clients in their quest to become a world-class selling organization.?If you would like to learn more, you can reach Neal Benedict at [email protected] or at 281-771-2876.??