The importance of a sales training program can hardly be underestimated. Subsequently, a lot is spent on it- more than a billion dollars each year worldwide. Most training programs are, however, still exactly the same as they were 10 years ago, with the same worthless results. Is your sales training up to date? If you recognize any of the following six signs, it’s probably time to consider another approach.

• The sales figures of your new product are disappointing: You have an excellent new product, a serious training program, and yet the sales figures are disappointing? It’s likely that the program was mostly focused on the product, not on the conversation with the customer. A new product or service requires a new sales method. The Association for Talent Development (ATD) has concluded that only 38 percent of salespeople are offered formal training for launches of new products.  Moreover, these programs mostly consist of knowledge transfer. Only 3 percent of these training programs consist of role plays to practice how to apply this new information in a conversation. Using modern video role plays, you will make sure that the employees get enough practice before and in between sales talks.
• The training effect has disappeared: Consider critically what’s left of that one classroom training program that cost your team an entire day last year? It’s likely that the initial success has completely disappeared by now. The fact that sales training programs are not always innovated is also caused by the fact that it does not often have a positive effect at first. According to the ES Research Group, most training programs realize a higher productivity, which disappears completely after 90 to 120 days. After that, you should organize a new training initiative. However, there is a more effective solution: continuous training improves sales by 50 percent for each employee, according to ATD. A salesperson has a certain repertoire of conversational patterns (i.e. conversation openings, pitching and negotiating). Through training, they will learn a new repertoire, but after a few months, there’s a high risk of relapsing into old patterns. This is why a training program, with intervals, needs to be continuous.
• Salespeople do not understand the (potential) customer: You will notice this sign in your sales results directly. It’s not easy to measure however, because your sales staff may think they understand the needs of their prospect completely, while this is not the case at all. More than 70 percent of buyers think understanding of their business is the most important quality of a salesperson, while just 27 percent really experience this understanding (Forrester). Sales strategist Josiane Feigon even concludes that it’s only half of this percentage. A salesperson who doesn’t ask the right questions or apply the right techniques to understand the position the other party is in and what they need, has not been offered the right training program.
• Managers do not coach the trained skill: Salespeople are often offered training unknown to the manager, or worse, which the manager does not support. In this case, applying it will be difficult. A sales training program can be structured beautifully, but if managers do not coach their employees in the working environment, the effect will never be optimal. Such coaching can even quadruple the ROI of training expenses (Ventana research). If there’s a lack of guidance in your organization, it’s important to find out why. Do the managers deem it unimportant, does it not contribute to their KPIs, or are they simply unaware?
• Salespeople quit training too soon: A sales person’s motivation is a good yardstick for the quality of the training. You may not understand how difficult it is to make them complete an entire program, but if they do not see the effect or connection to their work, it doesn’t get any easier. Online video role plays offer a controlled flow of applicable exercises that the salesperson receives as a push notification. In addition, they can do these exercises whenever it is necessary, for example, just before a presentation or an important conversation.
• Training costs more than it generates: If your sales training program costs more than it generates, why would you continue with it? Organizations like IBM and Microsoft were able to save by implementing videos in their training. Online video role play can make a large part of conventional sales training more efficient. Moreover, the effect on KPIs can be measured directly through objective measurement of different skills.

What signs do you recognize?

Marijn de Geus is co-founder and CEO of TrainTool, offering Smart Video Role Plays to develop soft skills