If you're considering sales training for your team, the question probably isn't whether better sales skills would be useful.
The harder question is whether sales training will actually produce enough improvement to justify the investment.
That's a reasonable question.
I've spent more than 20 years in sales and sales leadership, and I've seen companies invest in training for very different reasons. Some need more opportunities at the top of the funnel. Others have plenty of opportunities but struggle to qualify and close them. Some have experienced salespeople who know what to do but don't do it consistently. Others are trying to build a sales process that doesn't depend on one or two top performers.
Sales training can help address many of those problems.
But training by itself isn't automatically a good investment.
The better question is: What needs to change in your sales organization, and is training the right way to change it?
What Should Sales Training Actually Improve?
Good sales training should create measurable changes in how your salespeople sell, not simply give them more information.
Depending on the organization, that might mean improving:
- Prospecting consistency
- The quality of sales conversations
- Opportunity qualification
- Pipeline quality
- Closing rates
- Sales cycle length
- Average deal size
- Margin protection
- Forecast accuracy
- Accountability
- Consistency across the sales team
Before investing in training, you should be able to identify what you're trying to improve.
"We need our salespeople to get better at sales" isn't specific enough.
"We have plenty of opportunities entering the pipeline, but too many proposals are going to prospects who aren't qualified to buy" gives you something you can diagnose, address and measure.
How Do You Know If Your Sales Team Needs Training?
One of the first questions I would ask is whether your salespeople have a knowledge problem, a behavior problem or both.
A salesperson may know they should prospect consistently but avoid doing it.
They may understand that they need to discuss budget but become uncomfortable when the conversation turns to money.
They may know how to qualify an opportunity but continue pursuing deals because they don't want to walk away.
They may understand the importance of asking good questions but fall back into presenting features and capabilities as soon as they're in front of a prospect.
Those aren't necessarily problems that can be solved by giving someone another sales tip.
In Sandler, we often look at performance through Behavior, Attitude and Technique. Technique is what someone knows how to do. Behavior is what they actually do. Attitude includes the beliefs and mindset influencing those behaviors.
Effective sales development has to address all three.
When Is Sales Training Worth the Investment?
Sales training is most likely to produce a return when there is a meaningful performance gap and leadership is committed to changing it.
For example, training may make sense when:
- Salespeople are struggling to create enough qualified opportunities.
- Different members of the team are following completely different sales processes.
- Too many proposals are being delivered to prospects who never make a decision.
- Salespeople are discounting unnecessarily to win business.
- The pipeline looks healthy, but revenue is unpredictable.
- Experienced salespeople have developed habits that are difficult to change.
- New salespeople take too long to become productive.
- Sales managers spend most of their time putting out fires instead of developing their people.
- The owner or sales leader still has to get involved to move important opportunities forward.
In situations like these, the cost of training shouldn't be considered in isolation.
You also have to consider the cost of leaving the problem alone.
How Should You Calculate the ROI of Sales Training?
There isn't one universal formula because companies invest in sales training to solve different problems.
The starting point should be establishing a baseline before training begins.
If your primary problem is close rate, measure the current close rate.
If it's discounting, understand how much margin you're giving away.
If it's prospecting, measure the behaviors and qualified opportunities being created.
If it's a long sales cycle, determine how long your average opportunity currently takes to close.
If it's poor qualification, look at how many proposals are being generated compared with how many result in business.
Then you can evaluate whether those numbers change.
The mistake is waiting until six months after training begins and asking, "Do we think this is working?"
Decide what success looks like before you start.
How Long Should It Take Sales Training to Produce Results?
You may see some changes relatively quickly, especially when a salesperson identifies something they're doing that is hurting their results.
Lasting behavior change usually takes longer.
Think about any skill you've developed over the years. Understanding a new concept and consistently applying it under pressure are two different things.
Sales is no different.
That's one reason I'm skeptical of expecting a single seminar or workshop to permanently change the way an experienced salesperson behaves.
Real development requires learning, application, practice, feedback and reinforcement.
A salesperson learns something, tries it in a real sales situation, evaluates what happened, adjusts and tries again.
Over time, the new approach can become part of how they sell rather than something they heard in a training session.
Why Does Some Sales Training Fail?
Sometimes the problem isn't the salesperson.
It's the way the organization approaches training.
A company sends its salespeople to a program, everyone gets excited about a few new ideas, and then they return to exactly the same environment they left.
Managers continue managing the same way.
Sales meetings don't change.
Nobody reinforces the new behaviors.
The CRM measures the same things.
Leadership doesn't participate.
Within a few months, the team is back to its old habits.
If the organization isn't prepared to reinforce what people are learning, even excellent training can struggle to produce lasting results.
What Should You Look for in a Sales Training Program?
Before choosing a sales training provider, I would ask several questions.
Does the program teach a repeatable sales process, or primarily individual techniques?
How will the training connect to the situations your salespeople encounter every day?
Will sales managers know how to coach and reinforce what their people are learning?
Is there an opportunity to practice?
How will progress be measured?
What happens after the initial training?
And perhaps most importantly: Does the provider spend enough time understanding your sales organization before recommending a solution?
If someone knows what training you need before they understand your problem, I'd be cautious.
When Is Sales Training NOT the Answer?
This is an important question that doesn't get asked often enough.
Not every sales performance problem is a training problem.
If you have the wrong people in sales roles, training may not solve it.
If your compensation plan rewards the wrong behaviors, training won't fix the compensation plan.
If your salespeople aren't receiving enough leads and nobody is expected to prospect, the problem may be your go-to-market strategy.
If managers don't hold people accountable, teaching salespeople new techniques may accomplish very little.
And if leadership isn't willing to reinforce the changes expected from the sales team, the organization may not be ready for a significant training initiative.
Sometimes training is part of the answer.
Sometimes the first step is figuring out what the real problem is.
Should You Choose a One-Time Workshop or Ongoing Sales Training?
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
A workshop can be useful when you need to introduce a specific concept, solve a narrow problem or bring a team together around an idea.
If the objective is lasting behavior change, I prefer reinforcement over time.
Salespeople need opportunities to apply what they're learning to real prospects, deals and conversations. They also need coaching and accountability when they fall back into comfortable habits.
That's why Sandler approaches sales development as an ongoing process rather than an event.
The objective isn't to keep someone in training forever.
It's to make sure what they learn eventually shows up in what they do.
Is Sandler Sales Training Right for Every Company?
No.
And I think that's an important thing for any training provider to be willing to say.
Sandler tends to be a better fit for organizations that want to create a common sales process, develop their people over time and are willing to reinforce behavioral change.
It can also be a strong fit for business owners and sales leaders who want greater visibility into why opportunities are won or lost rather than relying entirely on individual salesperson instinct.
If you're simply looking for a motivational event or a few new closing techniques, there may be less intensive options that make more sense.
The right solution depends on what you're trying to change.
How Should an Edmonton Business Evaluate Sales Training?
For companies in Edmonton and throughout Alberta, I would start with the business problem rather than the training program.
Ask:
Where are we losing revenue today?
Maybe your team isn't creating enough new opportunities. Maybe deals are getting stuck. Maybe salespeople are discounting too quickly. Maybe the pipeline isn't reliable. Maybe too much new business still depends on the owner.
Once you understand the constraint, you can determine whether sales training, coaching, leadership development, process improvement or some combination of those things is the right response.
That's ultimately how I think sales training should be evaluated.
Don't invest because training sounds like a good idea.
Invest when you understand what needs to change, how you're going to measure that change and what it would be worth to the business if you get it right.
Not Sure Whether Sales Training Is the Right Next Step?
Before you invest in training, it helps to understand what's actually getting in the way of better sales performance.
At Sandler Edmonton, we work with business owners and sales leaders throughout Edmonton and Alberta to identify the gaps between where their sales organization is today and where they want it to be. Sometimes training is part of the answer. Sometimes the real issue is the sales process, management, accountability or something else entirely.
If you're trying to determine what would have the greatest impact on your team, let's start with a conversation.
