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The Sales Enablement Plan Every Revenue Leader Needs for the New Year
[Video Recording]
Sales Leaders
100+ Sales Statistics Straight From Sales Teams
Where this data comes from
Every number on this page comes straight from sales reps, managers, and leaders. No recycled roundups, no stats borrowed from stats posts.
Most sales statistics articles pull the same third-party numbers from the same handful of reports, and half of them are hard to trace back to a real source. We wanted to know what sales teams actually think, so we asked them.
This page pulls from Factor 8’s State of Sales research: surveys of thousands of sales reps, managers, and leaders, with separate question tracks for each role. That lets us show where the three levels agree, and where they see the same team completely differently.
We also pulled in findings from two earlier Factor 8 studies on sales team retention and virtual selling. Those stats are labeled so you always know which study they came from.
Who we asked in our latest survey
How to read these numbers
Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number, so a few totals land at 99% or 101%. Some questions let people pick more than one answer, so those don’t add up to 100%. When a stat comes from one role’s survey, we say so: “reps,” “managers,” or “leaders.”
Feel free to borrow any stat on this page. Just credit Factor 8’s State of Sales research and link back here. (How to cite it is at the bottom.)
Jump to a section
- →Key sales statistics at a glance
- →Sales outlook and trends (Stats 1 to 14)
- →Remote and hybrid sales (Stats 15 to 25)
- →Prospecting and cold calling (Stats 26 to 38)
- →Sales skill gaps (Stats 39 to 53)
- →Sales managers and coaching (Stats 54 to 71)
- →Sales training (Stats 72 to 85)
- →Sales retention and careers (Stats 86 to 99)
- →AI in sales (Stats 100 to 125)
- →What it means for your team
- →How to cite these stats
Key sales statistics at a glance
Short on time? These are the 10 numbers that surprised us most.
Sales outlook and trends statistics
The higher you sit in the org chart, the better the market looks. Leaders are optimistic. The reps talking to buyers every day are much less sure.
How sales teams feel about the market
- 56% of sales leaders say the selling market is better than last year, compared with 45% of managers and only 40% of reps.
- 29% of sales reps say the market is worse than last year, nearly double the share of sales leaders (15%).
The top sales trends leaders are seeing
- 54% of sales leaders say sales cycles are taking longer, and 51% say budgets are shrinking.
- 41% of sales leaders say more decision-makers are involved in each deal.
- 41% of sales leaders say buyers do more research on their own and enter the funnel later.
- 38% of sales leaders say buyers are ghosting more often.
- 33% of sales leaders say outreach needs to be more personalized to get a response.
- 31% of sales leaders say deals are getting stuck in internal reviews and approvals.
- 26% of sales leaders say “doing nothing” is a growing reason they lose deals.
- 25% of sales leaders say customers want more proof and fewer demos.
Where leaders are putting their budget
- 54% of sales leaders plan to put more of their budget into marketing and lead generation, their top priority.
- 41% of sales leaders plan to spend more on AI in, and 39% plan to spend more on people development and training.
- 38% of sales leaders plan to invest more in customer retention, and 34% plan to build better sales processes.
- Only 11% of sales leaders plan to spend more on travel, like in-person meetings, SKOs, and offsites.
What this means: Deals are slower, more crowded, and harder to win, and reps feel it first. When leaders and reps read the market this differently, forecasts and quotas drift away from reality.
Try this: Share these trend numbers with your team, then ask reps which ones they see in their own deals. With more decision-makers per deal, coach reps to multithread early instead of betting everything on one champion.
See the full report: The Current State of Sales →
Remote and hybrid sales statistics
Reps are happiest at home and say they sell more there. They also work fewer hours, which raises a fair question about what “productive” really means.
Where sales teams work
- 56% of sales reps work primarily from home, 25% work hybrid, and 18% work mostly in an office.
- 60% of sales managers say their teams work hybrid, 25% work mostly in an office, and only 15% run fully remote teams.
- 56% of sales leaders would prefer their teams work hybrid, 35% would prefer them 100% remote, and only 10% want them fully in the office.
Where reps are happiest and most productive
- 71% of sales reps say they’re happiest working from home, 18% say hybrid, and only 11% say the office.
- 60% of sales reps say they feel most accomplished and sell more at home, 24% say hybrid, and only 16% say the office.
How many hours reps actually work
- 45% of sales reps say they actively work 6 hours or fewer a day.
- 50% of remote sales reps work 6 hours or fewer a day.
Why reps like selling virtually
- 69% of sales reps say the biggest benefit of virtual selling is getting more done in less time or reaching more customers in a day.
- 13% of sales reps say the biggest benefit of virtual selling is better work-life balance.
- 15% of sales reps still prefer selling face-to-face over selling virtually.
- Only 4% of sales reps say virtual selling helps them close more deals.
What this means: Home wins on happiness and how productive reps feel. Fewer hours isn’t automatically a problem, as long as output holds up. The risk is managing to time on the clock instead of results.
Try this: Manage remote reps to outcomes, not hours: conversations held, meetings booked, pipeline created. Then protect their best hours for selling by cutting the internal meetings they already want less of (more on that below).
See the full report: The Current State of Sales →
Prospecting and cold calling statistics
Prospecting is the hardest part of the job. Reps put most of their effort into email, while the phone is what they say actually wins.
Where reps struggle
- 60% of sales reps say prospecting is the part of the sales cycle they struggle with most, four times more than closing (15%).
- 49% of sales leaders say prospecting is the top sales skill gap on their teams.
- 51% of sales managers say prospecting and outbound lead generation is their team’s top training need.
Effort vs. results by channel
- Sales reps put only 34% of their outreach into phone calls, yet 53% say the phone books the most meetings and closes the most deals.
- Email gets 40% of sales reps’ outreach, but only 31% of reps say it’s the channel that books the most meetings and closes the most deals.
- LinkedIn gets 17% of sales reps’ outreach, but only 11% of reps say it’s the channel that books the most meetings and closes the most deals.
What leaders and managers see
- 40% of sales leaders wish their reps would pick up the phone more.
- 38% of sales leaders say call confidence, like fear of the phone and low talk time, is a skill gap on their team.
- 32% of sales leaders say poor outbound call skills are a skill gap on their team.
- 41% of sales leaders most want to improve outbound prospecting effectiveness, from connect to meeting.
- 22% of sales managers say weak messaging is their team’s biggest challenge to hitting goal, and 16% say it’s a lack of outbound calls.
What reps are experiencing
- 40% of sales professionals say prospecting research and calls are their biggest virtual selling challenge.
- 45% of sales professionals say getting prospects to engage is the hardest part of a prospecting call.
What this means: Reps hide in the inbox. Email feels productive, but the phone is what reps themselves say wins. Leaders see it too, and call confidence shows up as a real skill gap, not just a motivation problem.
Try this: Audit your cadence against the table above. If email outweighs phone, rebalance. Block daily call time, and build call confidence with short, regular role-plays on openers and the first 30 seconds.
See the full report: Sales Team Challenges and Skill Gaps →
Sales skill gap statistics
Leaders rarely blame talent or tools. Their top challenges are execution and process, and the skill gaps they see are fundamentals.
What’s stopping teams from hitting goal
- Inconsistent adoption and execution is sales leaders’ #1 challenge to hitting goal (24%), followed by the lack of a consistent sales process (21%).
- 12% of sales leaders say finding sales talent is their #1 challenge to hitting goal, and another 12% blame the economy.
Rep skill gaps, according to leaders
- 49% of sales leaders say time management and prioritization is a skill gap on their team, tied with prospecting as the most-cited gap.
- 43% of sales leaders say their reps struggle to uncover bigger opportunities in discovery, and 41% say reps can’t build and present value.
- 30% of sales leaders say their reps’ deals are stalling out.
Manager skill gaps, according to leaders
- 46% of sales leaders say their managers haven’t learned to stop being reps and lead the team.
- 44% of sales leaders say their managers don’t coach reps effectively, and 40% say managers struggle to drive accountability.
- 37% of sales leaders say their managers struggle with time management and delegation.
What leaders wish reps did more of
- 51% of sales leaders wish their reps would really listen and connect with the customer.
- 41% of sales leaders wish their reps would work on their sales skills, and 41% wish they’d follow through on what they say they’ll do.
- 32% of sales leaders wish their reps would follow the playbook, and 32% wish they’d update the CRM consistently.
- 11% of sales leaders wish their reps would “actually work 8 hours a day.”
The metrics leaders most want to move
- 41% of sales leaders most want to improve account expansion, like upsell and cross-sell.
- 35% of sales leaders most want to improve final close conversion, and 33% want shorter sales cycles.
- 27% of sales leaders most want new reps to ramp to quota faster.
What this means: The biggest gaps aren’t exotic. Time management, discovery, value, and follow-through are fundamentals, and on the manager side the gap is the jump from top rep to real leader.
Try this: Don’t try to fix everything at once. Pick one rep skill and one manager skill per quarter, train it, and have managers coach to it every week until it sticks.
See the full report: Sales Team Challenges and Skill Gaps →
Sales manager and coaching statistics
Sales managers are stretched thin. They’re burned out by admin and meetings, and the thing everyone wants more of, coaching, is what gets squeezed.
Manager burnout
- 62% of sales managers are experiencing burnout.
- CRM updates drain the most energy from sales managers’ days (23%), followed by internal meetings (18%) and forecasting (17%).
- Too many meetings is sales managers’ biggest daily frustration (28%), followed by admin overload (26%).
- 13% of sales managers say not having enough time to coach is their biggest daily frustration.
How much managers actually coach
- 40% of sales managers coach their reps fewer than 3 hours a week.
- 27% of sales managers say more coaching time is what they need most to fix their team’s biggest challenge, and 26% say better rep training.
What managers want from leadership and enablement
- 51% of sales managers want a clear sales process and methodology from leadership or enablement.
- 49% of sales managers want ongoing skills training for their team, and 44% want coaching frameworks for themselves.
- 42% of sales managers want shared accountability for their reps.
- 34% of sales managers want clear definitions of “what good looks like,” like playbooks and call scoring forms.
- 27% of sales managers want training for their own move into sales management.
What leaders want from managers
- 52% of sales leaders want their managers to coach reps more often, and 52% want them to hold reps more accountable.
- 41% of sales leaders want their managers to drive consistent execution of the sales process.
What reps want from their managers
- 0% of sales reps want more 1:1 time with their manager.
- 27% of sales reps say the #1 thing they want is a manager who fights for them, with better territories, tools, and training.
- 16% of sales reps wish their manager gave them better call and skills coaching.
- 65% of sales reps rate their manager “better than most” or better, 16% call them “totally average,” and 19% rate them a 1 or 2 out of 5.
- Sales managers say the elevated status and responsibility is what they love most about the job (19%), followed by coaching their people (16%).
What this means: Reps don’t want more 1:1s, they want better ones. Leaders want more coaching, managers want more time and a framework to do it, and reps want a manager who has their back. Everyone is asking for the same thing from different seats.
Try this: coach by rep category, not on autopilot. In Factor 8’s Call Coaching 201 course, managers sort reps into categories and set coaching frequency by need:
A few more rules from the course: aim for 50% of a manager’s time spent coaching, book 45-minute sessions so there’s a 15-minute buffer between them, and keep at least an hour of “floor time” with the team daily. Great call coaching means a live or recorded call is present, the conversation is two-way, there are 3 people or fewer, and every rep walks out with personal feedback.
See the full report: Sales Training, Coaching, and Development →
Sales training statistics
Reps want more training, but most of what they get isn’t working. Reps don’t rate it, leaders don’t trust their own plans, and too much of it doesn’t stick.
How reps rate their sales training
- Only 4% of sales reps say their company’s sales training is best-in-class.
- 22% of sales reps say their company’s sales training helped them get started and keep growing, and 13% say it only prepared them for their first 3 months.
- 46% of sales reps say their company’s sales training wasn’t good, including 13% who rated it “about as effective as an ejector seat in a helicopter.”
- 16% of sales reps got no sales training at all.
How confident leaders are in their training plan
- Only 16% of sales leaders are very confident in their rep and manager training plan.
- 84% of sales leaders aren’t fully confident in their training plan, and 14% answered “What training plan?”
- 8% of sales leaders would “rather hire my teenager to train the team.”
What frustrates leaders about training and enablement
- Low tool adoption is sales leaders’ biggest frustration with training and enablement (48%), followed by low buy-in for training (35%).
- 21% of sales leaders say “nothing sticks” when it comes to sales training, and 21% say it’s hard to prove ROI.
- 21% of sales leaders say their sales training doesn’t feel customized to their team.
- 10% of sales leaders say they have no idea what their enablement team does.
What reps want more (and less) of
- 79% of sales reps want more training and coaching.
- Asked to pick the one thing they want more of day to day, 29% of sales reps chose sales training, tied with better tools, while only 7% want less training.
- 49% of sales reps want fewer internal meetings, and 25% want fewer internal emails.
What this means: Reps aren’t asking to be left alone. They want training that actually helps them sell, and fewer meetings that don’t. Leaders know their plans have gaps, and “nothing sticks” is what happens when training is a one-time event.
Try this: Treat training as a habit, not an event. Tie every session to a skill reps use this week, have managers reinforce it in coaching, and measure the behavior, not just completion.
See the full report: Sales Training, Coaching, and Development →
Sales retention and career statistics
Salespeople love sales. Whether they stay at your company comes down to growth, burnout, and leadership, and rarely pay.
Do salespeople still love sales?
- 75% of sales reps are proud to tell people they work in sales, 25% say “not really,” and 0% would rather say they clean portable toilets. (It was an option.)
- 75% of sales reps want to build their career in sales, 25% aren’t sure, and not one said no.
- 61% of sales managers want to stay in sales leadership long-term, 39% aren’t sure, and not one said no.
Will they stay at your company?
- Only 55% of sales reps want to build their career at their current company, 40% aren’t sure, and 6% say “no way.”
- 78% of sales managers want to stay and grow at their current company, 19% aren’t sure, and 3% say “hard pass.”
Why reps would leave
- 43% of sales reps say a lack of training or a clear growth path is the top reason they’d leave their current role.
- 25% of sales reps say burnout would make them leave their current role, and 16% say bad leadership.
- Only 8% of sales reps say low pay would make them leave their current role.
Why managers would leave
- 40% of sales managers say a lack of training or career growth is the top reason they’d leave, nearly double low pay (22%).
- 21% of sales managers say bad leadership would make them leave their current role.
What leaders get wrong about retention
- Sales reps and managers both rank training and skill development as the #1 thing that keeps them at a company.
- Sales reps rank compensation #5 on their list of reasons to stay, while sales leaders rank it #1.
- 39% of sales reps who left their last job cited poor culture or bad leadership, but only 14% of sales leaders think that’s a top reason people quit.
- In an earlier Factor 8 study, 48% of sales reps say a lack of training, coaching, and career growth would be the #1 reason they’d leave their current company.
What this means: For reps, growth beats pay. The same goes for managers. Either way, the 40% of reps who “aren’t sure” about staying are the ones a clear development path can keep.
Try this: Map a visible career path for every role, then show reps the skills that get them to the next level. Ask your “not sure” reps directly what would make them stay. Most leaders guess wrong.
See the full report: Sales Team Retention →
AI in sales statistics
AI is already part of the daily sales job at every level. Reps lean on it most to write, and almost never to practice or build their skills.
How many salespeople use AI at work
- 49% of sales reps use their company’s AI tools every day, along with 46% of sales leaders and 44% of sales managers.
- 22% of sales reps use their own AI tools because their company hasn’t provided any, and 21% of sales leaders do too.
- Only 4% of sales reps don’t use AI at all, and 0% said they don’t want to.
The AI tools sales teams use most
- ChatGPT is the most-used AI tool in sales at every level: 80% of reps, 79% of managers, and 69% of leaders who use AI use it.
- 38% of sales reps who use AI use Microsoft Copilot, and 35% use Gemini.
- 21% of sales leaders say their teams use Gong, twice the share of sales reps (10%), and 19% say their teams use Claude.
- 25% of sales managers who use AI use Agent.ai, 25% use Allego, and 19% use Ambition.
What salespeople use AI for
- 55% of sales reps use AI most for writing scripts and emails, and 13% use it most to summarize calls.
- Just 5% of sales reps use AI most for prospecting, 2% for role-playing, and 2% for coaching.
- Sales managers use AI most to write scripts for their reps (25%) and their own emails and messages (19%).
- 63% of sales leaders say their team uses AI to write messaging, and 62% use it to summarize sales calls and take notes.
- 51% of sales leaders say their team uses AI to support prospecting.
- Only 19% of sales leaders say their team uses AI to improve rep coaching, and 11% use it to coach managers.
What leaders want AI to do
- 60% of sales leaders want AI to help their reps find leads, and 57% want help with prospect research.
- 56% of sales leaders want AI to improve their reps’ email and social outreach, and 52% want help qualifying leads.
- 51% of sales leaders simply want AI to save their reps time.
- Only 24% of sales leaders want AI to coach their reps.
Concerns about AI in sales
- Inaccuracy is sales leaders’ top concern about AI in sales (43%), far ahead of skill erosion (17%) and compliance (13%).
- Only 8% of sales leaders worry most about AI replacing humans, and 19% have no AI concerns at all.
Will AI replace salespeople?
- Only 18% of sales reps are worried about AI taking their sales job.
- 37% of sales leaders think AI will replace some of their reps: 24% within 3 years and 13% in 5 to 10 years.
- 56% of sales leaders hope AI won’t replace their reps, saying human interaction is better, and 8% say flat out it won’t.
Will AI replace training and coaching?
- 78% of sales reps don’t want AI to replace their sales training.
- 44% of sales managers hope AI replaces sales training and coaching, double the share of reps (22%).
- 35% of sales leaders think AI will replace manager coaching, 44% say it will help but not replace it, and 21% hope it never does.
- 57% of sales leaders say AI may replace parts of sales training, but not rep skills.
What this means: AI is great at drafting. It can’t teach a rep how to open a call, run discovery, or handle an objection. Reps use AI mostly to write and almost never to practice, and leaders’ top worries are inaccuracy and skill erosion. That’s why most leaders (57%) say AI may replace parts of training, but not rep skills. If a rep doesn’t know what good looks like, AI just helps them send more of the wrong thing, faster.
Try this: Use AI to speed up the work and training to build the skill. Teach reps what a great email, opener, and discovery call sound like, so they can judge, edit, and customize what AI writes instead of sending it as-is. Then use AI for the practice reps rarely do today, like role-play, and keep managers coaching.
See the full report: All State of Sales research →
What these sales statistics mean for your team
Across 125 stats, the same six stories keep showing up.
- Prospecting is the hardest part of the job, and reps are underusing the channel that works. 60% of reps struggle most with prospecting, and 53% say the phone wins the most deals, yet it gets only 34% of their outreach. Rebalance the cadence and build call confidence.
- Leaders and reps see different markets. Leaders are optimistic, reps are worried, and leaders misread why people leave. Ask your reps directly, then compare their answers to your assumptions.
- Managers are the bottleneck, and they’re burned out. 62% of managers are burned out, meetings and admin top their frustrations, and leaders still want them coaching more. Cut the noise, give them a framework, and protect coaching time on the calendar.
- Reps want more training, but most of what they get isn’t working. Only 4% of reps call theirs best-in-class, and only 16% of leaders are very confident in their plan. Make training continuous, specific, and reinforced by managers.
- Growth keeps reps, and pay is rarely the reason they go. A lack of training or growth is the top reason both reps and managers would leave. Show every rep where they can go next and what skills get them there.
- AI speeds up the work, but it doesn’t build the skill. 55% of reps use AI most to write scripts and emails, only 2% use it most to role-play, and leaders’ top concerns are inaccuracy and skill erosion. Pair AI with training so reps know what good looks like.
Seeing your team in these numbers? We can help. Contact us today.
How to cite these sales statistics
Please use them! Attribute findings to Factor 8’s State of Sales research and link to this page or the specific report.
Example: According to Factor 8’s State of Sales research, 60% of sales reps say prospecting is the part of the sales cycle they struggle with most.
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Factor 8 Named a Leader in G2’s Summer 2026 Reports
Factor 8 today announced it has been recognized as a Leader in both the Sales Training and Sales Consulting categories in G2’s Fall 2026 Reports.
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace, and its rankings are based on authentic reviews from verified users.
“Being named a G2 Leader again is something we’re incredibly proud of, especially because it’s driven by the people who actually work with us. Our clients are the reason we do what we do, and their feedback tells us our training isn’t just checking a box. It’s helping sales reps and leaders build confidence, change behavior, and get better results. Huge thank you to our clients for continuing to trust us, and to our team for bringing the energy, expertise, and heart that make this kind of recognition possible.” – Lauren Bailey, Founder & CEO, Factor 8
Factor 8 earned Leader status in G2’s Fall 2026 Reports based on positive reviews from verified users and high customer satisfaction ratings compared to similar providers in the Sales Training and Sales Consulting categories.
“Earning a Leader position in a G2 Report is highly competitive and rooted in verified customer reviews,” said Godard Abel, co-founder and CEO, G2. “Congratulations to Factor 8 for achieving this distinction. Buyers can be confident this ranking reflects the authentic experiences of real users.”
About Factor 8
Factor 8 is an award-winning sales rep and management training company focused 100% on helping sales teams sell in a virtual world. They want people to love sales – and stay! They are a team of expert sales leaders who quit the daily grind so they could spend their time developing people. Together, they’ve solved the big problem: sales teams are not gaining the skills they need to quickly feel confident and successful in their roles. That means they ramp slowly and leave quickly. Factor 8 combines real-world sales experience with practical, skill-focused training that helps teams ramp faster, perform better, and stay longer.
Looking to partner with a leading sales training company?
Contact us today to learn more about our sales training programs
for sales reps and sales managers.
Ultimate Guide to Building Your Sales Team Development Plan and Budget
Building your sales team development plan and sales training budget for the next year can be daunting. That’s why I’ve compiled tips from my 20+ years in the industry to help make this as painless as possible!
Table of Contents:
The Current State of Sales Training
Every year Training Magazine releases its Training Industry report. I read it cover to cover and then pull out some important nuggets of information.
Here are a few that stood out to me:
- Training payroll up nearly 7% to $64.7B. Teams are staffing back up, but 41% still name lack of resources and personnel as their biggest training challenge. Expect enablement to keep covering more with fewer hands.
- External vendor spend up 29% to $16B. Outsourcing keeps climbing, and solution providers report customers demanding training that produces business outcomes. If you outsource, make vendors prove outcomes and speed to value.
- “Other” training spend down again to $22.1B (from $25B). Less travel and facilities for the second straight year. Design for efficient virtual and hybrid delivery.
- Per-learner spend rebounded to $874 (vs. $774 in 2024). Budgets loosened a bit, but small companies are spending the most per learner ($1,091 vs. $468 at large corporations). Prioritize the few initiatives that move the number.
- Average training hours dropped to 40 (vs. 47). Seat time keeps shrinking. Think shorter modules, more practice, real reinforcement.
- Average budgets by size: Large $11.7M (down from $13.3M). Midsize $1.6M, roughly flat. Small $333K (down from $374K). Large companies tightened; tailor the ask accordingly.
In today’s sales world, training isn’t just important – it’s critical. We’re short on reps but not on quota, low on training and resources, and everyone’s working from home without role models to learn from. And let’s face it, customers expect more while the flood of (terrible) outreach makes it harder to stand out.
A buddy of mine who used to be the head of sales at Outreach said it used to take 5-7 touches to get a prospect talking, and now, it’s more than double. The noise is real, selling is harder, and ramp times are stretching while tenures are shrinking. So, stop skimping on sales training. It’s tough out there, and our teams need every advantage.
Why Sales Team Development is Critical
Another reason not to skip out on sales training is these staggering numbers…
- 98% of reps would stay indefinitely with a company if they received ongoing development. (Ambition)
- Forbes reported that “Development Opportunities” ranks #1 when Millennials are considering companies.
- #1 company benefit able to RETAIN top talent = training and development (Factor 8 Retention Survey)
- #1 company benefit to LURE AWAY top talent = training and development (Factor 8 Retention Survey)
- Only 50% of reps feel they get the training they need to be successful (Emblaze)
TIP: If your team offers ongoing training and development, make sure your HR/recruiting team incorporates that into your job postings!
Why We Need to Build Skills Faster
Ramp time is everything. The reality today? We’re training a lot of fresh-out-of-college sellers (or non-college grads), and the timeline isn’t working in our favor. It’s taking them 6 months just to hit quota, and by month 14, most are already heading for the door. Think about that, over half of our reps don’t make it past 14 months. That’s a huge investment in time and money that we’re throwing away.
So, how do we change this? We need to get reps to quota faster, plain and simple. When they hit quota sooner, they stick around longer. I’ve built new hire programs throughout my career, and I can tell you, sales training works:
- At IBM, improving our new hire program cut churn by more than 50%
- At SAP, our inside sales reps were ramping up faster than the field reps, contributing to a 90% retention rate
- At Waste Management, it used to take 6 months for reps to make their first sale, we got them their first sale in a week.
Training is the game-changer. When reps feel that early success, they stay. It’s as simple as that.
Seasoned sales leaders know what it was like when we first started out. We didn’t have hand-holding; we figured it out as we went. We manually dialed phones, pressed the record button ourselves, and learned by trial and error. That mindset makes it easy to underestimate how much help today’s reps need. But the truth is, investing in development fixes so many of the issues we see with our teams: from new hires trying to find their footing, to field reps adjusting to virtual, to the small groups left standing after layoffs.
Bottom line: sales skill-building isn’t just nice to have, it’s the key to retention and performance. Let’s start ramping our reps faster and watch the difference it makes.
Download: Top Virtual Sales Challenges
Top Sales Skills to Train
- Call Goals – Reps need help mapping out each step and knowing exactly what the goal of every call should be to keep deals moving.
- Running Online Sales Meetings – Virtual meetings are here to stay, so reps need to know how to run them in a way that’s engaging and keeps prospects hooked.
- Demos That Don’t Suck – Let’s be real, most demos are a snoozefest. Reps need a game plan for delivering demos that grab attention and close deals.
- Planning for Prospecting – Most reps dread prospecting, but training them to prep smarter helps them work faster and get more done in less time.
- What Customers Care About – Reps need to know what makes buyers tick and tailor their approach to what matters most to their audience.
- Stopping Deals Going Dark Between Calls – Deals tend to go dark when reps don’t know how to keep the momentum. Reps need strategies to stay top of mind and keep deals alive.
- Having Engaging Conversations – Every conversation should build trust and move the deal forward. Reps need the skills to make that happen.
- Day/Time Management – Most reps spend way too much time not selling. Training them on day management helps them stay out of the weeds and focused on revenue-driving activities.
- Gaining Referrals – Referred customers close faster and stick around longer. Reps should be pros at asking for and leveraging referrals.
- Voicemails – Great voicemails can boost callback rates by 3-5x. Reps need to know how to leave ones that get results.
- Intros – Reps have only seconds to make an impression. A killer intro is non-negotiable.
- Value Props (AKA the Pitch) – Too many reps pitch too soon or miss the mark on value. They need to know how to craft and deliver a value-driven pitch at just the right time.
Why Budget for Sales Manager Training
Only about 30% of companies invest in training for their managers, and it shows: 60% of managers fail out of their role within the first year. Shocking? Maybe not. Here’s why budgeting for manager development is so crucial:
- They own every rep
- They own every customer
- They own every deal
Most companies pour their resources into reps because that’s where they see immediate ROI. But here’s the thing: while you might have 100 reps, only 5-6 managers oversee all those reps, customers, and deals. And these managers are BURNT OUT, nearly 50% according to LinkedIn.
I learned just how tough it is when I ran into an old colleague who’s now a Sales Director. At a wedding, I joked, “Hey, Chris, you must love this virtual work setup, right? No commute!” He sighed and said, “Virtual is great for everyone except sales managers. It’s rough.” And he’s right. I’ve had every job in sales and I now own three companies, sales management was my toughest role yet.
Burnout is real, and we expect our managers to be like Ted Lasso, coaching, motivating, and making magic happen. But here’s the difference: Ted spends hours on the practice field, with a 10:1 practice-to-game ratio. Your managers? They’re lucky if they get a 1:50 ratio, squeezing in 5 hours of daily calls and maybe 1 hour of weekly training. And that’s without factoring in new hires. My friend Dave said it best: “We give them about 3 weeks of systems training, then they practice on customers.” Yikes.
Ted lives on the practice field; your managers are stranded on an island. And they’re coaching teams of entry-level reps who lack business acumen and are terrified of the phone.
Moral of the story: budget for manager training. Give your managers the support, skills, and development they need to thrive. They’re the key to getting your teams to quota.
Building a Better Partnership Between Revenue and Enablement
If you need to partner with enablement or revenue leadership, alignment is key. Early on, I learned that my superpower is the whisperer who can translate between revenue and enablement. That’s why I put together the cheat sheet below. Use it to bridge the gap, get aligned, and make sure you’re speaking the same language to get what you need for your reps and managers.
DOWNLOAD: How to Partner with Busy Sales Leaders
Training Before Tools: The Conversation We Need to Have with Sales Leaders
When talking to sales leaders, emphasize training before tools. Show them the spend, analyze the processes, and start there. Leaders tend to pull one of three levers when tackling problems: people, process, or tech/tools.
- Process is all about consistency—repeating the right things, the same way, over and over.
- Tech/Tools focus on efficiency and speed.
- People are about quality and skills—that’s where we, as enablement leaders, live.
Here’s the issue: leaders are spending double on AI-based tools compared to training. They’d rather buy a shiny new tool than invest in building their team’s skills. Just look at the average number of tools per rep (5-10) and the flood of automated, AI-generated, subpar emails we all get daily. We’re bypassing quality and going straight to consistency and efficiency.
Reps today come with less experience, fewer skills, and more to learn to meet rising customer demands. They don’t have the fundamental selling and communication skills to truly benefit from AI. We need to sit down with our sales leaders and have this conversation: tools are great, but training is essential.
What to Budget for Sales Training and Development
In general, industry standards say you should budget 1-3% of your total annual budget for employee development. But let’s make it easier: budget 2-5% of your employee’s salary for training. And remember, these numbers cover every industry (from forklift drivers to CEOs).
For your sales training budget, we need to be on the higher side—expect sales training cost to be around 3-6% of your reps’ salaries.
Here’s the quick math:
- Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 3% = $2,700 per rep
- Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 4% = $3,600 per rep
- Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 5% = $4,500 per rep
(That’s about $50 for every $1K of salary)
Overall Internal Training Budget
If you’re new to training or enablement budgets, here’s what to ask for based on your company size:
- Large company average training budget: $13.3M
- Medium company average training budget: $1.7M
- Small company average training budget: $400,000
This is your total training budget, not just for external spend. For external training, most companies spend 15-18% of their total budget.
External Sales Training Budget
Here’s a quick look at what companies are spending on external sales training vendors:
- Large companies: $910,00
- Midsize companies: $240,000
- Small companies: $47,000
Top External Spends
- 12% on management training
- 11% on onboarding
- 7% on sales training
Other spending usually covers tools, learning management systems, and instructional design.
DOWNLOAD: How to Partner with Busy Sales Leaders Checklist
What’s Being Outsourced?
- 59% of instruction is outsourced—vendors come in and do the training.
- 41% is delivered in-house with a vendor-provided curriculum.
And this isn’t changing anytime soon. According to Training Mag, 83% of companies expect these numbers to stay steady or increase.
What Skills Are We Training?
Since the shift to remote work, communication skills have been the big focus (no shocker there). Other areas getting attention include:
- Business skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Gamification
- Course design
- DEI initiatives
DOWNLOAD: Sales Training Vendor Partner Checklist
Top Challenges for Training and Enablement Leaders
- Lack of resources
- Low learning engagement (cue gamification!)
Sales Training Budgeting Tips
- Make It an Annual Line Item. You’ve got a budget for recruiting and tools, so why not training? Your managers need this to keep their teams engaged.
- No Budget? Get Creative. Re-route spiff funds or tap into your tools budget. I know sales leaders who took a rep headcount and turned it into a coach/trainer role, making every rep better—and they saw higher ROI.
- Budget MORE. If any of the following apply to you, plan to budget 1.5-3x:
- Major GTM, strategy, or channel change (e.g., going virtual)
- Big competition, industry, or product change
- No training in over a year
- Teams have gone hybrid or remote
- Increased or new goals
- Hire a Development Resource. If you’re a startup wondering when to hire a trainer, aim for when you have 25-50 employees.
- Remember, Good Training Takes Time. It can take someone at the manager or director level 6-18 months to build a solid onboarding program (consider outsourcing for sales, systems, etc.).
How to Get Approval for Your Sales Training Budget
If you want to secure budget for sales training, the key is to show ROI or projected ROI. Here are some powerful stats to back you up:
- 2x Profit per Employee – Companies that prioritize training see double the profit per employee compared to those that don’t (HR Magazine).
- 2x Income per Employee – Companies that offer thorough training earn double the income per employee compared to those that skimp on training (ATD).
- 50% Faster Time to Quota – Good training can slash onboarding time to quota by 50% (Training Magazine).
- 63% Improvement in Manager Performance – Teams with managers who receive development see an average of 63% performance improvement (CSO Insights).
- 353% Sales Training ROI – Sales training delivers an impressive 353% ROI (Highspot, NH University).
Use these stats to build your case, and don’t forget to show how investing in training impacts the bottom line, whether that’s shortening ramp time, boosting rep performance, or improving retention.
Maximizing Your Sales Training ROI
If you’re investing in sales training, make sure you’re squeezing every drop of ROI out of it. Here’s how:
- Go Beyond New Hire Training – A lot of places crush it with new hire training but stop there, which means reps are out there struggling and figuring it out solo. Space it out! Even if you have limited training time, don’t pack it all upfront.
- Train Managers First – This is huge. Why? Because better-trained managers mean better interactions with reps. Remember, reps join companies but leave bosses. When managers understand what good training looks like, they engage more, coach better, and partner with you to drive development.
- Get Custom – Find the sweet spot between speed and personalization. Off-the-shelf training is fast, but built-from-scratch takes too long. Go for custom solutions that let you tailor without sacrificing speed.
- Slow Your Roll – You can’t pour everything into their heads at once. Just-in-time training is key. Trim down your new hire program, so reps don’t feel overwhelmed. Bring them back for more at months 1, 2, and beyond. This keeps them confident and builds skills over time.
- Use Interaction, Not Video – Videos alone won’t break habits or change behavior. True training needs interaction and real practice. Read more on why video training isn’t real training here.
What Does Good Inside Sales Training Look Like?
Most companies are training internally for only 4-5 hours a month, and that number has dipped from 5 to closer to 4 over the past year.
- NOT Just Company/Product Training – Product and systems training isn’t enough. Focus on tactical skills that help reps build their careers.
- Professional Trainer or Curriculum – Don’t keep it all in-house. Bringing in a pro adds credibility and expertise.
- Training AND Coaching – Know the difference and make sure both reps and managers are part of it. Training is learning new skills; coaching is applying and reinforcing them.
- Learners Love Certifications – Give them something to show off and add to their LinkedIn. It makes them proud and keeps them engaged.
- Go Beyond the Classroom – Spice it up with huddles, meetings, and contests. Make it fun!
- Involve Your Leaders – Manager buy-in is crucial for making training stick. When leaders are part of new hire training, onboarding, and coaching, reps take it more seriously.
- Make It Easy for Leaders to Coach – Fast and simple is key. That’s why we built The Sales Bar at Factor 8. Managers who spend their weekends creating training content don’t have the bandwidth. They’re already juggling too much, and half of them are burnt out.
- LinkedIn Learning (Alone) Doesn’t Count – Watching videos isn’t training; it’s edutainment. People forget 50% of what they hear by the end of the day and 90% by the end of the week. True training requires practice, application, and reinforcement to make skills stick.
Smart Spends vs. Money Wasters
Before you drop money on sales training, make sure it’s going to the right places:
Where to Spend Your Money:
- Customization – If you’re using an external training company, check how much they customize. Have them show you what’s tailored and how.
- Measure Baselines First – Always know your starting point to prove ROI. This protects your budget. If managers aren’t giving you data, go straight to Ops.
- Ongoing Reinforcement vs. Events – One-time events create a short buzz, but everyone reverts back afterward. Invest in long-term partnerships to keep training from becoming just a “flavor of the month.”
- Manager Training – Managers are key to keeping rep skills alive, but they need to be trained on how to do that effectively.
- On-Demand Tools – Make it easy for managers with tools like coaching guides and activities.
- Live Interactive Sessions – eLearning can be boring when it’s just talking heads. Make it engaging with real interactions, live call reviews, and fun elements to keep energy high.
Where Not to Waste Your Money:
- Not Involving Managers – Manager buy-in is essential to make sure they reinforce what reps learn.
- Managers Owning All Training – Most managers aren’t great trainers (I know because I was one!). It’s not their core skill, so don’t leave training entirely to them.
- Talking Head Video e-Learning – Videos alone don’t change behavior. You can’t just tell someone what to do and expect it to stick.
- One-Stop eLearning Libraries – More content doesn’t mean better content. Massive libraries may seem like a bargain, but they often lack impact.
- SKO Training – SKOs are great (I’m here for the speaking gigs!), but they’re mostly edutainment. They inspire and motivate, but real training? Minimal. Use SKOs for hype, not skill-building.
- Training Before Changing Expectations – If you haven’t adjusted expectations, comp plans, rewards, or systems that might block behavior change, you’re throwing money away.
READ: 60+ Sales Metrics to Track: Role-by-Role Guide to Activity & Performance
Virtual Sales Training Checklist
If you’re investing in virtual training specifically, make sure it checks these boxes for maximum effectiveness:
- Interactive – Get Hands Dirty Every 5 Slides
Don’t let your training turn into a snooze-fest. Make sure there’s interaction at least every 5 slides. Whether it’s a poll, a Q&A, or a quick discussion, keep it engaging. Videos alone don’t cut it—videos are not training! - Micro – Nothing Over 20 Minutes
Break it down into bite-sized pieces. Reps lose focus with long, drawn-out sessions. Keep each module under 20 minutes to ensure attention stays sharp and retention stays high. - Mid-Level Bloom’s Testing – Scenario-Based Interactions
Test more than just knowledge. Use interactions that challenge reps to apply what they’re learning. Scenario-based questions are perfect for this—they show how well reps can use their skills in real-world situations. - Multi-Modal – Engage All the Senses
Use a variety of formats to keep reps interested and involved. Incorporate call samples for listening, scripts and templates for reading, and hands-on practice for doing. This multi-modal approach ensures reps learn through different channels and retain more. - Fun & Casual – Make it Entertaining
Training doesn’t need to be serious 24/7. Add some humor, informality, and competition to the mix. Gamification, leaderboards, or friendly contests make training more enjoyable and motivate reps to stay engaged. - Involve Managers – Provide Toolkits and Tailored Paths
Your managers need to be part of the training process. Equip them with toolkits and separate training paths to help them reinforce what reps are learning. Include live sessions that focus on coaching and skill reinforcement. And don’t forget success measurements—tracking progress helps keep everyone accountable and shows the impact of the training.
Crafting a sales team development plan and a sales training budget is no small task, but with the right approach, it can unlock your team’s potential and set them up for success in the year ahead. Ready to take the next step? Let us help you create a winning plan and budget! Schedule a call with us today to get started!
Is sales training included in your budget?
Contact us today to learn about our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).
10 Most Popular Sales Training Courses for Reps and Managers
What sales skills are teams actually training right now?
We looked at the courses Factor 8 clients accessed most inside The Sales Bar to find out.
The Sales Bar isn’t your typical video course library.
It’s not a one-and-done training. It’s not a “watch this video and good luck out there” kind of program.
It’s an interactive, on-demand sales training experience built to drive real behavior change, with tools and resources that help reps and managers apply what they’re learning right away.
In fact, last month alone, Factor 8 clients collectively accessed more than 60,000 resources inside The Sales Bar.
That includes:
- Real sales call recordings that show what “good” sounds like
- Interactive videos and hands-on practice activities
- Manager coaching cheat sheets to reinforce rep skills
- Team activities and templates for meetings
- Quick-hit takeaway guides reps can save and revisit
These aren’t just nice-to-have materials. They’re the tools that turn “I learned it” into “I’m doing it.”
So which sales training courses are teams using most?
The 10 Most-Accessed Sales Training Courses in The Sales Bar
1. SWIIFT℠ Introductions That Work
Role: SDR/BDR, AE, AM, ISR, CSM
Description:
Grab their attention in the first 10 seconds with introductions that work for inside sales using the SWIIFT℠ (“So, What’s In It For Them?”) methodology. Using customer value, levers, and the right type of questions, you can double your selling time.
Expected Outcomes:
- Apply the SWIIFT℠ method to sales call introductions
- Keep prospects engaged beyond the first 10 seconds
- Reduce brush-offs and call disconnects
- Book more meetings and grow pipeline faster
2. Your Role as a Sales Leader
Role: Team Leader, Manager
Description:
This course will help you shed your rep-level activities and mindset and set personal goals for the kind of leader you want to be in your organization. You’ll raise the bar on your management role model, learn more about the best-in-class sales manager and director role, and how to spot a leader who is struggling. If it’s time to let go of old rep-level duties and paradigms, this course will provide a vision and an action list to get there.
Expected Outcomes:
- Understand the fundamentals of sales leadership
- Shift from rep-level mindset to leadership focus
- Define the kind of leader you want to become
- Raise the percentage of team members hitting quota
3. Own Your Day
Role: Team Leader, Manager
Description:
Being a front-line sales manager is one of the most difficult jobs in sales! If you’ve ever found yourself running in circles while putting out the hottest fires only to find yourself working later and later each day, this course is for you! We’ll focus on the difference between “important” vs. “urgent” and make time to execute your manager cadence.
Expected Outcomes:
- Prioritize urgent vs. important tasks with confidence
- Protect time to focus on coaching and team development
- Build and maintain a consistent manager cadence
- Reduce stress and daily firefighting
4. Getting Deals Moving
Role: SDR/BDR, AE, AM, ISR, CSM
Description:
Every single sales call can and should be closed – for a customer commitment! When we get customers saying ‘yes’ to next steps, action items, or even just the next meeting, it speeds the sales cycle and increases customer mindshare. This course will get you in the habit of asking for the close – whatever level it is!
Expected Outcomes:
- Build the habit of gaining customer commitments on every call
- Keep deals progressing with consistent next steps
- Reduce stalled deals by securing agreement early and often
- Shorten the sales cycle with more customer engagement
5. Overcoming the Brush-Off
Role: SDR/BDR, AE, AM, ISR, CSM
Description:
“Not Interested.” We’ve all heard it. Where do we go from here? NOT the same place as we do to handle an objection. Brush-offs happen when they aren’t expecting our call and don’t know enough to object. We’ll teach you how to pivot and get customers talking to salvage the opportunity and keep the lead alive – without getting defensive and ensuring they never take your call.
Expected Outcomes:
- Recognize the difference between a brush-off and an objection
- Apply proven strategies to pivot conversations after a brush-off
- Salvage opportunities instead of losing them at hello
- Protect your pipeline from early drop-offs
6. Essential Manager Meetings
Role: Team Leader, Manager
Description:
Everyone loves a sales meeting, right? RIGHT? You’ll build a sales management process/cadence that moves you from reactive to proactive. We’ll cover the most important interactions, how often to have them, what needs to be prepared, and who should attend. You’ll leave with a monthly calendar that keeps everything on track.
Expected Outcomes:
- Build a proactive cadence of essential manager meetings
- Organize a monthly calendar to stay on track with team priorities
- Reduce constant rep interruptions by creating structured touchpoints
- Strengthen team results through consistent communication
7. Developing Your Team
Role: Team Leader, Manager
Description:
As a manager, it’s our obligation to help our reps grow! This course dives into our role before and after formal training, low-cost/no-cost ways to develop ourselves, words and actions that inspire, and the Factor 8 tools that make it fast and easy for us. You’ll leave with an action plan for the month and a vision of “best-in-class”.
Expected Outcomes:
- Reinforce sales training to improve skill retention
- Develop sales reps with individual growth plans
- Increase sales team retention with better support
- Improve internal promotions by building future leaders
8. Call Coaching 101
Role: Team Leader, Manager
Description:
The vast majority of managers are not natural coaches. This course helps us tackle the two most common “Coachastrophes” that cause reps to leave call coaching sessions deflated. We’ll focus on improving the coaching interaction by making it more interactive, more positive, and more rep-focused. Managers will look forward to coaching sessions, and reps will leave feeling confident and excited to dial.
Expected Outcomes:
- Apply proven sales coaching techniques to improve rep performance
- Build interactive, rep-focused coaching sessions
- Increase rep engagement and motivation during coaching
- Improve call quality with positive, balanced feedback
9. Question Like a Pro
Role: BDR/SDR, AE, AM, ISR, CSM
Description:
If what to ask is the science, how to ask is the art, and junior reps or those transitioning to virtual can come off like survey administrators. Even worse? Robots. We go well beyond open and closed questions into techniques to turn scripts into conversations, follow-up questioning, empathetic questioning, strategic questioning, and more.
Expected Outcomes:
- Apply proven sales questioning techniques in real conversations
- Keep discovery calls natural and conversational
- Ask strategic questions that uncover hidden needs
- Increase conversion rates and close more deals
10. Uncovering Sales Opportunities
Role: SDR/BDR, AE, AM, ISR, CSM
Description:
Reps, it’s time to start asking more questions (vs. the “show up and throw up” pitching!) You’ll come out asking at least five standard questions to uncover the need for your solution on every call. Lack of discovery is one of the most common sales sins, and it stops here.
Expected Outcomes:
- Apply sales opportunity discovery techniques in every call
- Uncover new opportunities with better questions
- Avoid premature pitching that kills conversations
- Create more pipeline across accounts
Sales Training That Goes Beyond Watching Videos
The most effective sales training doesn’t stop when the course ends.
The Sales Bar gives reps and managers access to practical tools they can use during calls, coaching sessions, team meetings, and everyday sales conversations, so training actually shows up in the work.
Want to see what that looks like?
Book a quick meeting with our team and we’ll show you how reps, managers, and enablement leaders are using The Sales Bar to save time, build stronger sales skills, and hit goals faster.
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Your Metrics Are Lying To You (+ The Fix That Will Help Your Sales Team Beat Quota Fast) [Webinar]
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Lauren Bailey
Founder
Factor 8 | #GirlsClub | Legacy
Lauren Bailey, known to many as “LB”, is a sales leader, enablement leader, and entrepreneur and founder of 3 successful brands: Factor 8, providing front-line job training for inside sellers and managers, The Sales Bar, a subscription-based virtual sales training platform, and #GirlsClub, a community and development program helping more women earn leadership positions in sales.
Zach Calef
Chief Revenue Officer
Infinity
As Chief Revenue Officer, Zach leads Infinity’s new client acquisition, client success, operational execution, and product delivery. With 30 years of sales leadership and operational experience, including more than 10 years implementing and living the Buyerlytics methodology, Zach brings a unique perspective to driving growth and performance. He combines strategic sales leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and financial expertise to expand Infinity’s market presence, strengthen client partnerships, and deliver measurable results.
How to Make Sales Training Stick: Lessons From Enablement Leaders
We recently gathered a small group of senior enablement and revenue leaders for a private roundtable with one rule: no pitch, no slide marathon, just an honest conversation about what happens after training is delivered.
The group spanned cybersecurity, enterprise SaaS, e-commerce, cloud, and manufacturing software. Some lead enablement for teams of 50, others support thousands of sellers worldwide, and a few are departments of one.
Here’s what struck me most: the challenges were nearly identical across all of them.
Before the session, we surveyed the group. Half named adoption, the first gate any training has to clear, as their single biggest challenge after rollout. When we asked how confident they are that training is creating lasting behavior change, the average answer was 2.4 out of 5. Not one person chose “very confident.”
That set the agenda. Here’s what we learned from each other.
Great sellers don’t automatically make great trainers
One of the first discussions tackled was who actually delivers training. In our broader research this year, only 4% of reps rated their company’s training best-in-class, and the group had a theory about why.
A director of worldwide enablement at a global software company put it plainly: leaders assume expert doers are the best trainers, and they usually aren’t. Being great at selling doesn’t mean you can translate it. In fact, for top sellers it’s often an art rather than a science, which makes it even harder to teach.
The group’s consensus was that you almost always have to teach facilitation. Grab your subject matter experts for their knowledge, then invest in making them facilitators, or pair them with one. One leader shared a model that worked: enablement built the content and the pre-work, coached the managers on what a good session looks like, and let managers deliver with strong support. The key word is support. Handing a manager a deck and saying “have a good one” is how training dies.
READ: Why Your Sales Training Isn’t Driving Revenue (and How to Fix It)
Reinforcement turns adoption into habit
Adoption ensures skills get used. Reinforcement keeps them used. When we asked what’s actually working on both fronts after rollout, three practices stood out.
First, required AI role plays. A VP of global enablement shared that every training at her company now includes AI-powered practice, and reps submit their best attempt to their manager. Here’s the part I loved: reps voluntarily run the role play five or six times before submitting. Practice happens because it’s private, safe, and required. She was clear on that last point, and our own AI partner confirms it: role play tools are consistently the least-used feature unless you make them mandatory.
Second, leaders with a speaking part. A sales effectiveness director shared that she assigns her senior leaders specific slides during workshops. Not to facilitate, but to reinforce. When a leader personally delivers the two or three points that matter most, the team hears “this is real” instead of “this is corporate.”
Third, best practices sourced from the floor. One revenue enablement director built his entire program from what his own top performers were already doing, then aligned it to the stages in Salesforce. His argument: for adoption purposes, sellers have to believe the playbook came from them.
One participant summed up the whole discussion in six words: people don’t do what isn’t inspected. Another added the corollary: salespeople do what’s rewarded. If your comp plan fights your training, the comp plan wins every time.
The manager problem (yes, again)
Every conversation about adoption and reinforcement eventually lands on managers, and this one was no exception. What managers say drives adoption up front, and what managers coach determines whether the change sticks.
Here’s the data that framed it. A well-known training industry study found that the biggest predictor of training success isn’t the content or the facilitator. It’s what the manager says before the training. The second biggest? What the manager says after. Yet in our pre-session survey, only 25% of this group said sales managers get ongoing development at their company.
The group named the root causes fast. The player-coach problem came up first: managers get pulled into deals, and coaching is never the thing on fire. Deal reviews and forecast calls have standing meetings, but skill coaching doesn’t. As one leader put it, an undefined 1:1 defaults to pipeline review.
What’s working: coaching toolkits that make the job fast and easy (cheat sheets, feedback forms, exact questions aligned to what was just trained), e-learning that teaches managers how to give actionable feedback instead of “good job,” and calibration sessions where managers score the same call together so “good” means the same thing across the team.
A few teams are going further with AI, using it to track how often managers coach, how long, and how well, then serving up prep and insights so a busy manager can walk into a coaching conversation ready. The best framing I heard: make the insights self-serving for the rep and time-saving for the manager, not a big-brother report card.
READ: Why You Need Training for Sales Managers
AI is a supplement, not a substitute
Speaking of AI, the group was enthusiastic and clear-eyed at the same time.
The enthusiasm: AI role plays, coaching dashboards, call analysis, and just-in-time job aids are saving real time and surfacing real insights.
The caution came from one of the sharpest comments of the hour. AI only captures what already happened, one enablement director warned. If we put all our eggs in the AI basket, we risk building an echo chamber that reinforces yesterday’s behavior instead of developing tomorrow’s skills. Judgment, consultation, listening, and strategic thinking still have to be trained.
My take: AI can’t replace training, but it’s a powerful layer for reinforcement, guardrails, and analysis. An AI prompt suggesting discovery questions is just an interactive script if the rep was never taught to have the conversation.
Training that never stops requires ownership
We closed on the idea we call Everboarding: development that lives in every stage of the employee lifecycle instead of dying after an event.
Almost nobody in the room had seen it done, and the few who had all pointed to the same ingredients. It was part of the culture from day one. Leadership believed in development and funded it year-round, not with leftover budget. Enablement, operations, and sales leadership shared a brain on goals and metrics.
The group also pressure-tested what a lasting training system would need: a real competency model underneath (if the foundation is weak, modular content is just modular weakness), an internal champion to keep it alive, and integration across the whole organization so skills show up in coaching forms, career paths, and onboarding rather than living in a binder.
That’s the future we’re building toward, and this group sharpened our thinking more in one hour than most quarters do.
DOWNLOAD: Sales Enablement Playbook
What’s next
We’re making this roundtable quarterly, and attendees are voting on the next topic now. If you lead enablement or revenue and want a seat at the next one, fill out the form below and we’ll let you know when we schedule our next roundtable.
Training only counts when it changes behavior. Thanks to this group for an hour of honest conversation about how to make that happen.
Want to join our next Revenue Enablement Roundtable?
Why Your Sales Training Isn’t Driving Revenue (and How to Fix It)
Organizations spend millions of dollars each year on sales training. They bring in experts, launch new programs, and ask managers and sellers to carve time out of already packed calendars.
Creating training content has never been easier. AI can generate courses, videos, guides, and playbooks in a fraction of the time it once took. Yet despite producing more content than ever, many organizations are seeing the same disappointing outcomes.
The training itself often goes well. People participate, feedback scores are strong, teams leave energized and optimistic.
Then something happens.
A few weeks pass, managers get pulled into the next priority, sellers fall back into old habits, and performance looks remarkably similar to what it looked like before the training ever happened.
This scenario plays out in organizations of every size and across nearly every industry. The problem is rarely the quality of the content itself. The problem is that training alone does not create behavior change.
Failed adoption is expensive. Training budgets come under scrutiny, managers lose confidence in enablement initiatives, and organizations miss opportunities to improve pipeline, productivity, and quota attainment. Revenue leaders are not frustrated by a lack of training. They’re frustrated by a lack of impact.
Training doesn’t drive revenue. Adoption does.
Organizations that consistently improve pipeline, conversion rates, and quota attainment have figured out something others haven’t. They don’t treat training as an event. They treat it as an operating system that reinforces, measures, and continuously develops skills long after the workshop ends.
WATCH: How to Make Sales Training Stick and Drive Behavior Change
Why Sales Training Fails After Rollout
Training initiatives generally break down in a handful of predictable ways.
Excitement is usually highest during launch. Teams attend workshops, take notes, and leave with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions do not create new habits.
The gap between the classroom and the sales floor is where training initiatives typically fail. Sellers return to their inboxes, customer demands pile up, and old habits quickly reappear. Without reinforcement and accountability, people naturally gravitate toward what is familiar.
Organizations frequently measure training success by attendance, completion rates, or satisfaction scores. Those metrics may indicate whether people liked the experience, but they reveal very little about whether behavior changed afterward. The real measure of success is whether sellers are applying new skills consistently enough to influence business outcomes.
Several factors consistently show up when training fails to stick:
- Training is treated as an event rather than a system
- Managers are left out of the reinforcement process
- Executive sponsorship fades after launch
- Training is too generic and disconnected from the business
- Learning relies on passive content instead of application and practice
The encouraging news is that these challenges are remarkably predictable.
After nearly two decades of helping organizations improve sales performance, we found that adoption issues tend to fall into the same categories repeatedly. That led us to develop a framework called BLISS.
READ: Why Event-Based Sales Training Falls Short
The BLISS Framework: Why Sales Training Doesn’t Stick
BLISS is a simple way to diagnose where training is breaking down and identify the barriers preventing behavior change.
B: Buy-In
Training adoption starts with leadership.
Executive sponsorship is far more than approving a budget. Leaders need to communicate expectations, attend kickoffs, talk about progress, and visibly reinforce why the initiative matters. When leaders disappear after launch, managers and sellers often interpret training as optional.
L: Learning
Content still matters.
Many training programs rely heavily on videos, webinars, and one-way knowledge transfer. Sellers may complete the training, but completion doesn’t automatically lead to behavior change. Training should be designed around adult learning principles and help sellers understand not only what to do, but why it matters.
I: Interaction
Watching is not the same as doing.
Skill development requires practice, role-play, discussion, and application. Sellers need opportunities to try new techniques, make mistakes, receive feedback, and refine their approach before they are expected to use new skills with customers.
S: Systems
Training cannot operate in a vacuum.
Compensation plans, CRM workflows, manager routines, and quality scorecards all influence behavior. One conflicting system can undermine an otherwise excellent training program. Training works best when it reinforces the processes and tools people already use every day.
S: Supporting and Seeing Results
Training needs reinforcement after the workshop ends.
Coaching, recognition, certification, and measurement are what turn learning into sustained behavior change. Organizations that consistently improve performance do not simply deliver training. They create systems that reinforce it over time.
Training initiatives rarely fail because all five areas are broken. More often, one or two weak links undermine everything else.
Train Managers Before Reps
Organizations often invest heavily in seller training while assuming managers naturally know how to reinforce it.
They don’t.
Manager coaching consistently ranks among the weakest skills in sales organizations. Frontline managers are juggling priorities, putting out fires, and managing performance. Very few have been taught how to coach effectively or given the tools to do it consistently.
This matters because managers are the reinforcement engine of any training initiative. They determine what gets coached, what gets celebrated, and what gets repeated long after the workshop ends.
That’s why we train managers first at Factor 8.
Managers need their own enablement before reps ever attend training. They need coaching frameworks, reinforcement plans, and practical tools that fit naturally into existing one-on-ones, huddles, and pipeline reviews.
When managers are equipped to coach, training stops being an event and starts becoming a system.
READ: Why You Need Training for Sales Managers
Stop Teaching. Start Facilitating.
One of the biggest misconceptions in sales training is the idea that information automatically creates skill.
It doesn’t.
Research consistently shows that people forget information quickly when it isn’t reinforced. Roughly half of new information is forgotten within a day, and the majority disappears within a week. Training initiatives that rely on one exposure and hope for lasting behavior change are fighting against how adults actually learn.
At Factor 8, we use a facilitation approach called CUP.
C: Connect
Tie concepts to the seller’s real world.
Why does this matter? Where does this challenge show up in customer conversations? How would improving this skill help them hit their goals?
U: Use
Apply the concept immediately.
Sellers should use new skills in realistic scenarios, live calls, or customer situations that mirror what they experience every day.
P: Practice
Practice until the behavior becomes natural.
Role-play, coaching, and feedback loops are where confidence develops. Videos may create awareness, but practice creates skill.
Training becomes significantly stickier when people connect, use, and practice new concepts rather than simply hearing about them.
The Goal Isn’t More Training. It’s Everboarding.
High-performing organizations approach learning differently. They don’t think about training as a one-time initiative or an annual event. They build systems where development exists throughout the employee lifecycle.
At Factor 8, we call this Everboarding.
Development becomes part of:
- New hire onboarding
- Ongoing skill development and upskilling
- Performance improvement plans
- Career progression and leadership pathways
- Recognition and certification programs
Training shifts from being something employees attend to something employees experience continuously throughout their careers.
This approach creates an environment where learning becomes part of how the organization operates rather than another item on the calendar.
Manager coaching is built into every level. Development is introduced, reinforced, and expanded over time. Skills compound because learning never really ends.
That’s the goal. Training should live everywhere, not in isolated events that disappear after rollout.
Results-Focused Training Starts with KPIs
Training should never exist simply because a topic sounds important. Every initiative should connect directly to a business objective.
For example:
- Low outbound activity often points to prospecting confidence and phone skills
- Weak Stage 1 conversion rates frequently indicate gaps in discovery and customer engagement
- Heavy discounting usually reveals opportunities to strengthen value-building skills
- Long sales cycles may require better commitment-setting and call-closing techniques
- Low show rates may indicate a need for stronger call planning and commitment-setting
Revenue is the lagging outcome.
Successful organizations also measure the smaller behaviors that lead to revenue improvements. Metrics such as outbound activity, average call time, conversion rates, lead acceptance, and manager coaching activity often improve first.
Those smaller wins are frequently the earliest indicators that training is working.
Revenue leaders are not asking whether employees enjoyed the workshop. They are asking whether performance improved.
That question should shape every training initiative from the beginning.
READ: How to Measure Sales Training ROI
The System Behind Adoption: The Factor 8 Results Engine
Over nearly two decades of implementation work, we found that organizations need more than great content. They need a repeatable system for turning learning into behavior change.
The Factor 8 Results Engine consists of six stages:
- Analysis and skill assessment
- Customization
- Buy-in and kickoffs
- Coach the Coach manager training
- Blended rep training
- Support and results reviews
The sequence matters.
Organizations often want to jump directly into rep training. That approach frequently skips critical work upfront, including identifying skill gaps, aligning stakeholders, preparing managers, and establishing measures of success.
The strongest implementations begin with analysis and customization. They create buy-in before training begins. They equip managers before reps. They reinforce learning through coaching and accountability. Then they continuously review results and adjust the plan.
Training initiatives rarely fail because people lacked good intentions.
They fail because there was no system designed to sustain behavior change.
DOWNLOAD: Sales Training Implementation Guide
The RETAINED Model: How High-Performing Teams Make Training Stick
Sales training should be designed as a behavior change system rather than a one-time event.
At Factor 8, we use the RETAINED model to help organizations build programs that drive sustained behavior change and measurable business outcomes.
R: Results-Focused
Tie every skill to measurable business outcomes and agreed-upon KPIs.
E: Executive Sponsored
Leaders remain visible through kickoffs, monthly check-ins, and results reviews.
T: Tactical
Move beyond theory and give sellers practical language and behaviors they can immediately apply.
A: Application Accountability
Build reinforcement into existing manager rhythms such as huddles, one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, and coaching sessions.
I: Interactive
Replace passive learning experiences with discussion, practice, and active participation.
N: Nuanced
Customize training around your products, customers, calls, and business realities.
E: Embedded
Integrate skills into existing tools, coaching forms, QA scorecards, and workflows.
D: Deliberate Duration
Focus on one skill at a time over weeks and months rather than cramming multiple concepts into a single event.
Taken together, the RETAINED model reinforces a simple idea: training isn’t something you deliver. It’s something you operationalize.
Training doesn’t fail because organizations need more content.
Training fails when there isn’t a system that helps people adopt, reinforce, and apply new skills consistently enough to change outcomes.
The organizations seeing meaningful improvements in pipeline, conversion rates, deal size, and quota attainment understand that distinction. They involve leaders, equip managers, reinforce skills, and measure progress.
Ultimately, they recognize something that many organizations still miss:
Training isn’t an event. It’s a system.
Are you looking for customizable sales training?
Contact us today to learn about our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).
Sales Training Doesn’t Drive Revenue (Unless You Do This) [Video Recording]
Sales Training Doesn’t Drive Revenue (Unless You Do This)
[Video Recording]