Why your sales training doesn’t work

The Forgetting Curve, remember that?  Let me remind you.  Within 1 hour of completing that sales training course your sales team may well have forgotten 50% of the information presented. Within 24 hours, they have forgotten an average of 70% of new information, and within a week, forgetting claims an average of 90% of it.  Attend the best training course in the world, but unless you immediately start doing something differently you have wasted your money.  As Henry Ford put it so well “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

So, what’s the answer?

Choosing sales training that adopts these 3 simple steps will improve your chances of maximising your ROI.

Step 1 Pre-work.  Not optional if you want to get better.  Whether this is collating information on your customer’s industry and trends or completing an online digital integrated learning experience, completing these activities will set you up for what you are about to receive.

Step 2 Do it, workshop it and do it again.   Whether in a traditional classroom setting, or through a digital platform, practicing what you have learned, interacting with others and putting it to the test will help embed the learning and start you off in changing your habits and behaviour.

Step 3 Bite size follow-ups, anytime any place anywhere.  The smart phone never leaves the side of a salesperson.  Highly interactive brief reinforcement sessions delivered straight to the handheld device in a timely fashion combined with gamification and social learning will get far better results than “read your notes over the weekend”. Coincide with this coaching tips and tools for your frontline sales managers delivered straight to their phone and you have a recipe to forget about the Forgetting Curve and focus of the Revenue Growth Curve!