8 Reasons Your Sales Training Is Not Working

One of the most difficult challenges faced by sales managers is creating a sales training system that significantly improves sales results.

Not only do you have to decide what content to teach – you have to deliver that content in a way that motivates your salespeople to succeed if you want a good return on your investment. Otherwise, you will be left wondering why your sales team is not successful. On top of that, you will have wasted your own time as well as the time of your salespeople.

Do not let that happen.

Instead, keep reading, and you will learn why certain approaches to sales training are not effective as well as strategies you can use to create successful training for your sales team.

8 Reasons Why Training for Your Sales Team Is Not Effective

1. The training has not been tailored appropriately.

To help your salespeople improve their skills, you must first uncover what challenges are hindering them from achieving top sales results.

For example, if you notice that several of your salespeople are failing to close sales because they do not know how to overcome objections, you should offer training on overcoming objections and closing sales. By doing so, you can give your salespeople exactly what they need to improve.

On the other hand, if you offer general sales training, there is a good chance that your salespeople’s results will not improve as much. While they might produce slightly better results, you will not have trained them to their full potential and will miss out on sales and revenue as a result.

2. The training offers too much information at once.

If you offer too much advice at once on too many different sales techniques, your salespeople will likely forget what they have learned shortly after due to information overload.

It is often a better idea to pick a specific technique you want to help them improve and center the training session on teaching only that technique.

Make sure you give your salespeople plenty of actionable advice they can implement. You should also go into detail about each important point so they can understand exactly how your advice will fit into their day-to-day sales process.

3. You are not delivering the training in an engaging way.

If your salespeople are often on the verge of falling asleep during your sales training sessions, there is a good chance that they will not value or retain what you are teaching.

That is why you must deliver your training in a way that motivates your team. Instead of simply creating a PowerPoint presentation and giving a lecture, try a mixture of more engaging methods like:

• Having an open discussion/Q&A session about sales
• Inviting sales experts to speak to your team in an informal setting
• Holding sales role-playing sessions

You can still offer presentations, e-Learnings, videos and other assets to teach your team sales techniques and product knowledge. Just make sure that you are also using more interactive methods as well.

4. Your salespeople do not value the training.

Now, you may be wondering:

What should I do if my training is engaging and my salespeople still do not seem interested in it?

Often, this problem can be solved by simply selling your team on the value of the training. For example, before you offer training, you can make sure everyone knows how it will help them improve their sales results in a way that will allow them to make more money (for themselves and the company).

When your salespeople understand why the training is important and how it can benefit them, they will be much more receptive to it.

5. You are not holding your salespeople accountable for their results.

Even the best sales training will not produce impressive results if salespeople are not held accountable for their actions after the training is finished.

Let your salespeople know that you will compare their sales results from before and after the training. You should be looking for improved revenue – that is a good indicator that your sales training has been worthwhile and successful.

If you are going to hold salespeople accountable, keep in mind that you must also hold yourself accountable and make sure your training methods are helpful for your salespeople. If you choose the wrong method, you may not see significant results, regardless of how much effort your salespeople put in to perform better at work.

6. You are motivating but not providing methods.

When it comes to improving sales results, motivation can only go so far. That is why you must spend time uncovering the specific challenges that your salespeople are facing and creating training methods that help them overcome those challenges.

For example, if you notice that many of your salespeople find it difficult to start conversations with customers in a way that makes a great first impression, you should use your training sessions to provide conversation starter ideas that have been proven to work. That way, you can provide them with a method to overcome the main problem that is hindering them from selling.

Do not get me wrong – motivating your team and speaking passionately about sales techniques is a good thing. However, it cannot be the only thing you offer to your team if you want your sales training to be a success.

7. You have no sales training follow-up plan.

Tell your salespeople exactly what you want them to achieve as a result of the training and provide them with a plan of action that will help them make it happen. That way, everyone knows what your expectations are and can work toward meeting them.

Make sure you regularly check in with your team to determine how far they have progressed. If someone is struggling, he/she may need additional training and coaching.

8. Your salespeople are not Driven.

Drive is the #1 non-teachable trait of high-performing salespeople. So, if you have tried everything to improve your sales training and still cannot seem to get results, you may have hired salespeople who are not Driven and, therefore, do not have the potential to achieve top sales results.

If that is the case, use your sales hiring mistakes as an opportunity to learn and make better hiring decisions in the future.

One way you can improve your hiring process and build a stronger sales team is to use a sales assessment like The DriveTest™. This sales assessment determines whether or not a salesperson is Driven so you can use it to take the guesswork out of hiring new salespeople.

With the information in this post, you should be able to create effective training for your sales team and deliver it in a way that results in more sales and increased revenue. Make sure you also improve your sales training over time as you discover new, effective sales tactics to teach your team.