Inside Sales Tips Blog

7 Reasons Why Most Sales Training Stinks

By: Steve Richard, Co-Founder and Head Sales Trainer

1. Most sales training encourages you to make live sales prospecting calls, but most sales trainers aren’t willing to stick their necks out there and make calls in front of the class.  Why?  See #6.
2. Most sales training is death by Power Point.  Why do most sales trainers go page-by-page reading every word of every slide then post it online?  It insults our intelligence.
3. Most sales training incorporates too many features of the product or service being sold.  Most reps I see are really good at describing features but lack the sales skills to tie them back to the customer.
4. Most sales training involves a lot of listening – listening to the person in front of the room drone on and on.  How interactive is your sales training?
5. Most sales training is based on a methodology and ‘sales equation’ whatever that means.  It assumes you are an idiot and can only follow one path.  The best sales training presents a lot of options and encourages you to find your own way from those options.  You have a brain in your head.
6. Most sales training lacks practical application of skills.  And role-playing is not practical application.  – If the sales trainer can’t pick up the phone and call into a client or customer, why should you listen to them?
7. Most sales trainers haven’t made sales prospecting calls for years and years.  How can you teach someone something when you can’t do it yourself?

I agree with the points you listed - ahhg! It can make a person crazy looking for experts who can help move you forward only to get slammed with “death by power point.”

Since you mentioned cold calling, here is a thought for your consideration - the vast majority of sales trainers seem to miss the fact that selling and cold calling require two entirely different skill sets.

Here are a just a couple of differences:
- a cold call is not at all expected. A sales call is expected.

- a cold call lasts about 90 seconds whereas you can count on an in-person sales call to last at least 20 minutes.