Inside Sales Tips Blog

Sales Training: A Smart Investment for B2B Sales Teams?

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

I’m currently reading “The Perfect Salesforce” by Derek Gatehouse. This book brings up a great question for any inside sales professional: does sales training work?

Consider this excerpt:

Sales Training is an ongoing distraction for a great many companies. Does it work or not…

The answer is training will raise performance to a new and lasting level if and only if all three of the following criteria are met:

1. The natural talents required for the tasks must be present. In the absence of talent, even the best training will not raise performance significantly.
2. The training curriculum must be well substantiated, and must be adoptable by all personalities and selling styles. In other words, it must be presented as a series of practices that trainees can “mix and match” at will, rather than a rigid, step-by-step selling process. Sales training should be akin to offering tradespeople many different top-notch tools to perform various stages of their job; different tradespeople will opt to use different tools that they each feel comfortable with. This instead of giving tradespeople on step-by-step repair process—with only one set of tools—that is to be used on every job.
3. The training methodology must respect what we now understand about permanently altering habitual behavior. Sales training is behavior training, as we are asking trainees to suddenly change the way they behave in certain situations—situations that many have approached a certain way for a very long time. Just like a new exercise regime or eating plan, the formula for permanently adopting new selling behaviors must include certain reinforcement practices.

Thoughts?

Good post.

Of course this is only a small part of what’s required for an effective strategic approach to sales training, but these are among the most important points.

Putting talent up there as #1 is right on target.  No need for me to further elaborate.

Point #2 is strong.  I’d only add “learning styles” as well.  That’s a point a lot of sales trainers miss, and it diminishes their effectiveness.

I would also add that measurement is a critical component that’s part of #3.  Neither an exercise regime, nor eating plan, nor behavioral changes associated with selling will be sustainable without an appropriate measurement mechanism.

If you liked that book you might also be interested in some of our sales training white papers:
http://www.huthwaite.com.au/white-papers.html