3 Reasons Why Sales Training Fails...and What To Do About It!

1. Sales Training is Too Activity-Focused
It’s true – you really can lead a horse to water…but you can’t make them drink. Successful selling is part activity and part psychology. You cannot win without learning skills in both categories. But sales training is almost always singularly activity-focused, teaching better product knowledge or prospecting skills, but completely neglecting what lies beneath the surface of what truly motivates an increase in sales activity.
2. Sales Training is Not Personalized
One size does not fit all. The sales techniques that work in your industry may not translate to another field. Traditional sales training rarely adapts a cookie-cutter curriculum to the core competencies that are crucial to your business. These groups of skills can vary by industry, affecting prospect targeting, prospect marketing, and even how the deal should be closed.
The art of selling has been honed for centuries and many times the sales training you’re paying for was initially created years ago. You may find it is not keeping pace with the latest consumer trends. That failure to keep up with the market will ultimately inhibit the success of the training. Unfortunately, many sales leaders discover this after the training is already complete.
But standard sales training models are not personalized in another way; it doesn’t take into account the individual internal belief patterns that serve as the motivators behind the activities of a sales executive. Our state of mind and personal values strongly affects our code of conduct and work ethic.
Yet traditional sales training completely avoids these important behavioral factors and instead focuses on external activity alone.
Developing skills is important. But the sales training won’t stick if you don’t work on the underlying belief systems that drive the implementation of these skills.
3. Sales Training Doesn’t Ask the Right Questions
Many people end up in sales by accident. Asking your sales team what led them to sales in the first place, might help you uncover some interesting correlations between their external behavior and internal motivations.
The truth is that many of your sales executives probably have spent their entire career with an underlying belief that any success they have is attributable to luck. Imagine the energy it takes to make a cold call when you ultimately don’t believe in your own success!
If a salesperson’s own personal belief structure tells them that they lack the skills to succeed, then every win will be accredited to luck or great timing, and every loss will confirm their negative state of mind.
The majority of sales leaders never take the time to explore the underlying assumptions going on in the psyche of their individual sales reps. Traditional sales training rarely touches on the internal system of beliefs (and stories they say to themselves) that make up the personality of a sales rep.
Many companies are buying sales training and their bottom-line results don’t change. Standard sales training focuses on developing skills. That’s because sales training isn’t asking the right questions to uncover and change underlying factors such as state-of-mind, work ethic, values, self-image, and even their purpose within the company.

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1. Sales Training is Too Activity-Focused

It’s true – you really can lead a horse to water…but you can’t make them drink. Successful selling is part activity and part psychology. You cannot win without learning skills in both categories. But sales training is almost always singularly activity-focused, teaching better product knowledge or prospecting skills, but completely neglecting what lies beneath the surface of what truly motivates an increase in sales activity.

2. Sales Training is Not Personalized

One size does not fit all. The sales techniques that work in your industry may not translate to another field. Traditional sales training rarely adapts a cookie-cutter curriculum to the core competencies that are crucial to your business. These groups of skills can vary by industry, affecting prospect targeting, prospect marketing, and even how the deal should be closed.

The art of selling has been honed for centuries and many times the sales training you’re paying for was initially created years ago. You may find it is not keeping pace with the latest consumer trends. That failure to keep up with the market will ultimately inhibit the success of the training. Unfortunately, many sales leaders discover this after the training is already complete.

But standard sales training models are not personalized in another way; it doesn’t take into account the individual internal belief patterns that serve as the motivators behind the activities of a sales executive. Our state of mind and personal values strongly affects our code of conduct and work ethic.

Yet traditional sales training completely avoids these important behavioral factors and instead focuses on external activity alone.

Developing skills is important. But the sales training won’t stick if you don’t work on the underlying belief systems that drive the implementation of these skills.

3. Sales Training Doesn’t Ask the Right Questions

Many people end up in sales by accident. Asking your sales team what led them to sales in the first place, might help you uncover some interesting correlations between their external behavior and internal motivations.

The truth is that many of your sales executives probably have spent their entire career with an underlying belief that any success they have is attributable to luck. Imagine the energy it takes to make a cold call when you ultimately don’t believe in your own success!

If a salesperson’s own personal belief structure tells them that they lack the skills to succeed, then every win will be accredited to luck or great timing, and every loss will confirm their negative state of mind.

The majority of sales leaders never take the time to explore the underlying assumptions going on in the psyche of their individual sales reps. Traditional sales training rarely touches on the internal system of beliefs (and stories they say to themselves) that make up the personality of a sales rep.

Many companies are buying sales training and their bottom-line results don’t change. Standard sales training focuses on developing skills. That’s because sales training isn’t asking the right questions to uncover and change underlying factors such as state-of-mind, work ethic, values, self-image, and even their purpose within the company.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices