It can be frustrating when sales training seems to wear off. You put a lot of effort into a dynamic training program, and just a few weeks down the road, you aren’t seeing new information applied or new skills adopted. Thankfully, learning science can help pinpoint where the training went wrong.

Training events and fun kick-off conferences are important, but they are insufficient by themselves. They definitely provide a big rush of excitement and motivation in the beginning, but inevitably, old patterns return. Science shows that most learners can’t recall information unless it’s repeated in the days after they learn it.

In fact, Hermann Ebbinghaus, the German psychologist who pioneered the study of memory, found that people usually forget 90 percent of what they learn in class within 30 days. Unfortunately, sales training is often planned around a two- or three-day event without thoughtful follow-up. Just as one day of exercise won’t change your health, one burst of training won’t change selling behaviors.

Another factor working against retention is fluency illusion, the impression that you know more than you do. You convince yourself that the information you learn now will be easily accessible later. You read something several times, maybe do a couple of exercises and feel confident – only to blank out in a key moment. It happens to all of us.

Learning science shows that continual training is an effective way to improve results. According to the Association for Talent Development, continuous training produces 50 percent higher net sales per employee. Yet the Aberdeen Group found that only 44 percent of organizations use post-training reinforcement to provide long-term support for their sales teams.

The good news is that we have a strong foundation to build on. The storage capacity of the human brain is amazingly large at 2.5 petabytes, enough for three million TV shows. However, there are two important limiting factors:

• Working memory limits: Our ability to retain information is limited to about 20 minutes. Long, information-dense formats work against optimal learning methods.
• Retrieval limits: Accessing the exact piece of information you need from long term memory under stressful circumstances requires practice. Overconfidence in our ability to retrieve information in a moment’s notice drives the fluency illusion.

Think about how much information the average seller needs to be able to immediately recall during a sales conversation, such as value props, product info and competitive differentiation. Booster training and reinforcement provide a perfect opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of traditional training programs.

Here are some basic learning science elements to keep in mind when designing sales training reinforcement:

• Keep information and modules short. Training is effective in short bursts that cater to short attention spans. Use two- to five-minute learning modules with solid information that immediately helps salespeople at the time they need it.
• Create interactive activities to increase knowledge retention. Encourage salespeople to think through examples and participate by providing solutions to problems.
• Create lots of memory retrieval opportunities. Knowledge checks, flashcards and quizzes help sellers retrieve information. Quizzes and knowledge checks are especially useful, because they help dispel the fluency illusion and provide useful ways for sellers to practice their memory retrieval.
• Plan random practice. Researchers have found that varied practice, done in a random order – also referred to as interleaved practice – improves long-term skill retention and makes it easier to apply new skills in real-world situations by providing opportunities to deal with chaos and uncertainty.
• Use role plays. The act of explaining information to others, even when your knowledge is imperfect, provides a huge retention boost and helps identify areas that need more work. Role plays can be 20 to 30 percent more effective than simple information reviews.
• Space out refreshers. A popular sequence is to schedule refreshers for the second, seventh and thirtieth days after a learning session. Some software allow you to automatically schedule and assign practices from existing materials and quiz banks.
• Make information accessible, searchable and fast. Integrate information and training into the daily workflow. It will work even better if sales reps can access information in just two or three clicks. If possible, add learning modules and prompts to the CRM.
• Combine content, training and coaching. Provide them in context and when the sales reps need them.

Ultimately, to produce long-term retention and behavior change, what you do after the training event is more important than what you do during the event. If you don’t reinforce training, people will forget most of it. However, if you provide them with a series of retention experiences, their brains will know that the information is important, and they will be far more likely to remember it.

Chanin Ballance is CEO of Veelo.