Online Sales Training

In the world of sales, the quest for effective training solutions is never-ending. For years, event-based sales training has been the norm, but is it actually effective? 

I’m here to tell you 7 reasons why event-based training won’t cut it, especially for leaders managing large teams.

1. Lack of Sustained Learning

Concern: Event-based training is like cramming the night before a test. You get a bunch of info all at once, but will you remember it next week? Probably not.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders get that learning isn’t just a one-time thing; it’s an ongoing process. Sales teams require continuous skill development and reinforcement. Event-based training, with its one-off sessions, can’t provide the consistent support needed for long-term success.

2. Limited Application to Real-World Scenarios

Concern: Event-based sales training can feel like it’s all talk and no action. It’s theory-based and detached from real-world sales situations.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders know that the sales landscape is dynamic and challenging. To thrive, teams need training that is directly applicable to their daily tasks. 

3. Poor Skill Retention Rates

Concern: Sales reps can struggle to retain the vast amount of information taught in a single training event. (That’s why micro-learning over time is critical to ensuring skills stick!)

Reality Check: Enablement leaders recognize that skill retention is the key to performance improvement. Event-based training can overwhelm participants, leading to lower skill retention. This leads to less effective training that fails to drive tangible results.

4. No Skill Reinforcement

Concern: Event-based training typically lacks ongoing skill reinforcement.

Reality Check: Just like learning a new language, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Skills deteriorate over time if they’re not regularly practiced and reinforced. Enablement leaders need training that includes coaching, mentoring, and opportunities for reps to apply what they’ve learned to their daily work life – something that’s missing in event-based learning.

5. High Cost, Limited ROI

Concern: Event-based training can be expensive, and the ROI may not always justify the investment.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders are under pressure to deliver results and prove the value of their initiatives. Event-based training’s high costs and questionable long-term effectiveness can make it a tough sell when trying to show ROI.

6. Challenging for High Attrition

Concern: High turnover is a common challenge for large sales teams, making it difficult to keep everyone up-to-date through periodic training events.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders understand that training should be agile and accessible. Event-based training struggles to accommodate the rapid onboarding of new hires or the need for ongoing training when turnover rates are high.

7. Inadaptability to Change

Concern: The sales landscape evolves rapidly, and event-based training can’t keep pace with these changes.

Reality Check: For those at the helm, it’s crucial that our teams are prepped and ready to tackle the ever-shifting industry trends and customer needs. Relying solely on event-based training might not give us the flexibility and swift adaptation we genuinely need.

A More Effective Approach: Continuous, Virtual Training

Event-based sales training has its merits. However, for those leading large teams with a notable churn rate, it might not be the optimal choice. The better route? Ongoing, virtual sales training. It promises consistent, deep learning, techniques that align with real-world challenges, enhanced skill retention, ongoing skill reinforcement, cost efficiency, and the flexibility to adapt to the ever-evolving landscape.

READ: Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget

Ongoing learning fosters a culture of proactive growth which improves employee retention. This continuous approach ensures that every team member, whether a seasoned sales pro or a new rep, is armed with the most current strategies, insights, and best practices. In a landscape as competitive as sales, staying updated isn’t just recommended—it’s imperative.

Last week, I soapboxed about how videos aren’t training sellers anything (read that post here).

So today, I’ll share a learning strategy that ACTUALLY works if you really want to use a new skill (or want your team to try it)…

“Associative Learning” – wait! Don’t go to sleep!

This theory is why everyone says, “Oh, you’re like Sandler” to me about my training company.

It’s also the reason your college lectures were SO BORING:

Adults learn by relating new knowledge to older knowledge and to experiences.

That’s it. The whole magic.

We’ve got to talk about it. We’ve got to know where to “file it” in our brains.

• Early call rapport-building is like when you met your freshman roommate
• Late call bridging to the next call is when you asked her out again before the first date was over
• Getting a decision-maker on the phone is like getting to first base 😉

Your amazing new software with zero competitors – “OH, so it’s like Ambition had a baby with Gong.” Don’t be offended, at least they’ll remember what you do.

Here’s why it works (for my fellow training nerds):

The “Associative Learning Rule” is the theory behind the phrase “Synapses that fire together, wire together.” It explains that brain cells grow stronger by sending off impulses at the same time, therefore, connecting them and overall growing stronger. When connections grow stronger, learning has taken place.

It’s why your video-based “learning library” is a waste of money. I get it, they’re easy, cheap, repeatable, and scalable – but nearly worthless when it comes to helping your team retain knowledge – let alone use it on the job to pick up the phone and sell something.

Big takeaways:

1. Don’t think that telling or showing a video will result in behavior change
2. Create opportunities for your team to talk about what they’re learning and tell their stories
3. Use your LinkedIn Learning budget to hire a trainer or a training company that can interact, workshop, and actually help sellers apply new skills on the job

(Now, if only I knew a great sales training company… Seriously, if you’re looking for sales training techniques that actually work, contact us here.)

Calling All Leaders Training Sellers! 

There’s something wild happening in the sales training industry right under our noses, and it’s severely impacting the skill level of your front-line sellers. Truth: Sometimes I’m part of the problem.

Riddle me this, my friends:

If it takes 8 meaningful interactions for a buyer to take action (Salesforce) or 900 digital touches before a major purchase decision (Google), then…

Why do we expect sales reps to try a new skill after watching one video? 

Video learning is as passive as it gets (not that anyone ever checked email while playing a training video) and yet we’re “training” sellers with this single touch (not even eight touches like SFDC says we need. Video alone should take hundreds, right?)

Getting a seller to try a new skill = getting a buyer to make a purchase. 

And a 30-minute training video = a single commercial.

In other words, sales training videos alone don’t work – they’re not effective in teaching skills. In fact, I’m going to climb up a little higher on my soapbox and say… 

Video-based sales training is NOT ACTUALLY TRAINING.

It’s entertainment. “Edu-tainment” at best. In our marketing vs. sales analogy, training videos would be the equivalent of content marketing. Its purpose is to brand, to “passive touch”, and to warm a prospect. 

READ: 10 Signs Your Sales Team Needs Sales Training

Unfortunately, not a lot of leads convert from content alone. Especially from a single blog or ad. This is where marketers share the stat that it takes eight “meaningful interactions” before someone will take action. And sales leaders get that “meaningful interactions” are best driven by the sales team – things like asking the right questions, qualifying, customizing the pitch, applying the solution to their world, showing value, etc.

Training works the same way. What we’re selling is a behavior change – the breaking of one habit and the installation of another. Let’s say the goal is to stop sellers from prematurely pitching as an example. We want to replace the habit with a new one like asking prospects 5 questions before delivering a custom pitch.

A great webinar or video on the subject will at best introduce this concept or maybe passively gain some attention or buy-in to the idea. Great first step!

READ: What Makes Good Inside Sales Training?

But as leaders, it is irresponsible of us to leave it there. We left off the entire rest of the learning cycle!  If your training is only (or primarily) video-based, then your learners are missing:

1. If and how the idea applies to them
2. When in the sales cycle it’s happening
3. Which behaviors they do today that they need to stop
4. How to write better questions
5. When to ask new questions
6. What to do when they get the answer
7. How to ask the questions confidently
8. How to bring up the pitch
9. When to bring up the pitch
10. Practice and support doing this over and over until it’s a habit

The most important parts of training to gain behavior change are missing. Don’t even get me started on maintaining that behavior (heard of the forgetting curve?)

Here’s the hard truth: If your training does not include an opportunity to try the skill, customize the application of the skill, share examples of the skill being done in different situations, practice using the skill, or feedback on the execution of the practice, then I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not training. You’re entertaining.

READ: How to Level Up Your Team with Sales Training

It’s gotten harder to influence buyers to take action with all the “noise” out there, right? Your sales teams are right in the middle of all that noise, and the younger generation is accepting video training as complete. It’s up to us to do it better. It will be a competitive differentiator for those who do.

Please do yourself, your managers, and your salesforce the favor of checking. Here are some questions to ask your training/new hire/enablement team:

1. What percent of our new hire (or ongoing/career path) training lessons are video-based? 
2. What do we do after the video?
3. When do they customize and practice the skill?
4. Who gives feedback on the execution of the skill?
5. What actions are being done to keep it alive?

Sales enablement leaders and trainers, I know you feel me. You’ve been preaching this for years, and you could chart out where video lands on Bloom’s taxonomy and how much real estate is between a video and the confident application of the skill. Need some buy-in? Send this blog, and then go ask your sales leaders these five questions:

1. What are you doing to teach new hires basic selling skills?
2. How much of their training is video or webinar/zoom-based (aka a “talking head”?)
3. What percent of their time in training is spent listening to live calls or practicing the skill?
4. What tools do the managers use to reinforce the training?
5. Have you taught managers how to coach and reinforce the skills?

READ: How to Find the Best Inside Sales Training Company

Let’s all do this better. There are too many young salespeople failing out of sales. Very few get to sit next to a rockstar to soak in how it’s done. It’s up to the sales and enablement leaders to demand better skills training! I’d LOVE to share how we built 10-15 interactive touches into our training at Factor 8. If you have teams of front-line digital sellers or managers, please let us show you our methodology and our results.