Every year, companies invest heavily in sales training programs to improve sales capability. But a few months later, revenue numbers barely move.
So, where does the gap come from?
The real challenge may not come from what happens during the sales training, but rather what happens after it’s over.
1. New skills struggle without the right workplace environment
Consider a scenario where a salesperson learns to understand customer priorities before reaching to price. The professional practices the approach and leads to better negotiation.
But back at work, managers ask the sales team to close the deals quickly and reach monthly revenue target. In a situation, where customer finds the price too high, the salesperson may offer a discount instead of understanding customer’s actual concern.
Sales training program can fall short when the workplace reinforces old ways of working.
2. A single training session can’t reshape years of habits
Sales training can impart new skills and techniques in a few hours, but changing years of habits takes much longer. A salesperson may learn a new way of handling difficult customer conversations.
However, when he faces pressure in a real customer conversation, he may slip back to his usual ways of dealing with the situation rather than applying what he learned recently.
Therefore, peer learning, role-plays, and quick refreshing sessions can keep new skills active and help sales team to move from knowing to applying. Training should not just be confined to classroom but become an ongoing part of sales process.
3. Training completion doesn’t guarantee meaningful impact
Success of sales training program is still measured by full attendance, strong feedback and good test scores. Though these metrics may look good on paper, they don’t reflect whether salespeople have started putting their learnings into practice.
The real impact of training comes after the sales workshop.
Organizations should track the improvement in sales indicators, whether there is a shorter sales cycle, improved conversion rate and healthier pipeline.
In the end, training generates the most value when sales team consistently put into real world practice.
4. Challenges may go beyond training
When sales start declining, the immediate reaction is to train the sales team.
But what if sales training is not the missing link? Pricing challenges, poor leads, and weak differentiation strategy can hold revenue back.
For example, a sales person may be doing a great job at engaging the customers, but if the product is missing a key feature, customers tend to walk away and the issue may not be the team’s skills here. The focus should move from conducting more sales workshops to fixing what is actually holding back the outcome.
Quick Read – The Role of Ongoing Sales Training in Shortening Long B2B Sales Cycles
5. A manager’s support makes all the difference
Imagine a salesperson learning objection handling during sales training. However, if managers continue to use the old way during pipeline review, the new skill may gradually fall out of use.
Instead, managers should keep the learning going by observing consumer conversations, listening to sales calls and sharing timely feedback. Rather than asking “How did the customer respond?”, he should ask “What concern did the customer raise and what can we do differently in our next conversation with them?”.
Ultimately managers act as a link between learning and application of it in day-to-day work.
6. Sales training should focus on the actual job
Sales training fails to make an impact if it focuses more on theoretical concepts rather than real world challenges.
For instance, instead of simply teaching negotiation techniques, the training should concentrate on real customer scenario where a prospect immediately asks for 20% discount. It should help the salesperson understand why the customer is asking for a discount in the first place, what are the competitors offering in the market, assess any budget constraints before coming to a conclusion.
The goal should move from rote learning to practical application. Sales Training is more likely to make a long-lasting impact when it connects directly to everyday work.
7. Revenue depicts the impact over time
Let’s suppose that a sales company conducts training for its employees in January to improve lead qualification. Even though the sales team adopts new behavior immediately, revenue results may take five to six months to show improvement. This may cause organizations to assume that sales training turned out to be ineffective without considering that results may take time to translate into revenue.
Instead, revenue follows a sequence of events:
Training → Behaviour Change → Sales Execution → Pipeline Quality → Conversion → Revenue
In other words, revenue comes at the end of sales journey and is not the first sign of impact.
What can companies do differently to bridge the gap?
Before investing their money in sales training, below five questions can help organizations make the right decision.
- What business challenge is limiting revenue growth?
- What behaviors are limiting performance?
- What barriers make it difficult for salespeople to adopt desired behaviors in workplace?
- How will managers help salespeople adopt these behaviors?
- How to measure the impact of sales training?
In the end, more sales workshops may not guarantee better sales, identifying the real problem may be.
