12 Reasons Why Sales Training Programs Fail

The top sales leaders in the world understand that organizational success only goes as far as their team takes them. That’s why they add the best sales training programs to their operations and empower their team with cutting-edge sales coaching, techniques, and practices.

However, choosing the right sales training program for your needs is a challenging process and should not be rushed. Doing so can cause you to miss out on finding a sales trainer with a proven track record, expertise in your industry, or one who will customize their programs to fit your needs.

Additionally, rushing this process can lead to one or many of the reasons why sales training programs fail, resulting in low ROI, wasted time and resources, and training that won’t stick with your team years down the road.

Don’t worry, XINNIX®, The Academy of Excellence, is here to help you avoid these 12 common reasons for sales training failure and find the right program that will develop your salespeople into high-performing leaders on your team.

For any sales training to work, management and leadership must buy into the program. Without a top-level commitment, the rest of the organization won’t commit either. The ideal version you envision for your company starts with creating a top-down standard. In this case, it’s buying into the training program you’ve brought into your organization. Without this clear establishment of values, there is a high risk of company culture and vision erosion.

Organizations seek professional training programs to solve issues like loss of revenue, lack of sales motivation and/or degradation of culture. This is a reactive approach rather than a proactive one. Top-performing companies don’t wait for an issue to arise; they take action in advance to prevent a problem from occurring in the first place.

Successful companies can be proactive by supplying their sales team with continuous learning. Continuous learning gives teams opportunities to grow and become overachievers. When they take time to learn new skills and techniques, they expect their managers and leaders to also invest time into improvement. This provides teams with a feeling of cohesiveness and structure.

A common scenario is that a sales team will undergo a training program, but the leaders and managers don’t. They may check in on what’s happening but never fully commit to the program. Because of this disconnect between leadership and sales teams, there will be conflict over the best techniques to use for customers rather than a mutual agreement. This creates an uncomfortable and unproductive process when working with clients or prospects. The sales manager will tell the salesperson not to worry about the “new” stuff they learned during training and to use their old techniques instead.

REMEMBER: Sales training programs succeed when leadership and management continuously support them.

Best Practice #1:

It will be easier to pass the program down throughout the organization if leadership and management go through the training first.

Best Practice #2:

Have someone from the leadership team welcome the sales teams and the training organization before training begins to ensure everyone on the team knows how important their success is to the company.

Best Practice #3:

Clear your calendar and make it a point to go through every step of the training with the members of your team so they can see you are all in this together.

It will be easier to pass the program down throughout the organization if leadership and management go through the training first.

After an organization has decided to move forward with a sales training program that fits its budget, the executive team must pick the right person to manage the training. This is easier said than done.

A few mistakes organizations make when selecting the right training manager are:

Choosing an underqualified employee from within the organization.
Picking someone with little to no sales experience.
Choosing a sales team leader who’s already overworked with other tasks.

Most companies can’t afford to allocate more resources and time toward an in-house salesperson who’s overworked or underqualified to lead a training program. Most of those employees have revenue targets and other projects that require their attention. It’s simply an inefficient and expensive process for many companies.

Worse yet is when enterprises spend those limited resources on a manager who has never spent a day in the life of a salesperson. Someone with limited or no sales knowledge or hands-on experience won’t give your company the best results. In fact, it could actually backfire and instill bad habits or ineffective techniques. Once these problems occur, it’s difficult to reverse them.

If you’re serious about developing your sales team with a training program, it’s better to invest in someone who is willing to offer 100% of their commitment toward cultivating and improving the sales team.

This ideal candidate can:

Increase revenue.
Improve margins.
Reduce turnover.
Promote shorter sales cycles.
Expand wallet share.
And much more.

REMEMBER: Sales training is about relevancy. The sales team needs to trust the person and the team who will be responsible for ensuring their training experience and participation will be valuable.

Best Practice #1:

Find someone on your learning and development team who has experience with sales, salespeople and sales processes. If this person doesn’t exist on the team, recruit for that person or use an outsourced partner who can fulfill that function.

Best Practice #2:

There is so much to be gained by a successful training program, so if a vice president or other sales leader is the best option to manage the program, consider compensating them fairly for it.

Best Practice #3:

Don’t expect the training company you have selected to partner with to fill this role. If you want to increase the odds of success, have someone in your organization or who is a partner with your best interest in mind manage the training program success.

Reason #3: A Universal “One-Size-Fits-All” Approach Is Adopted

One of the most common reasons sales training programs fail is because they train each team with the same approach and content. Two things happen when we attempt to put high-performing salespeople in a class full of new hires or rookies.

The first is that the top producers feel like it is a waste of time. They are unhappy and unmotivated about attending the training since the content might contain techniques or information they already have.

The second is that underperforming salespeople will be intimidated by the high achievers and hold back on their questions. When teaching sales rookies, the program should include topics such as understanding your market, personal confidence and motivation, pre-call planning and preparation, prospecting, communication skills, negotiation skills, etc. Advanced and high-achieving sales teams are looking for deeper, richer behaviors and skills required to grow beyond where they are today.

When companies don’t establish or follow clear values and treat sales training like a luxury rather than a necessity, even the most robust programs will go to waste.

In the early days of planning to buy, build and implement a sales training solution, organizations use reinforcement of the solution as a “must-have” to ensure:

The training sticks.
The sales teams adopt and use the sales skills and techniques learned during training.
Alignment of company values and vision.

Furthermore, it’s best to know that even after the training is done, teams will have access to content, techniques and best practices that can be reinforced. Most of the top training organizations have built some very dynamic and robust tools when it comes to supporting their team even after the initial training has happened.

The available modalities for reinforcement include Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT), podcasts, online courses, online short-form tips and techniques, coaching and mentoring, conference calls, webinars and future Instructor Led Training (ILT), as well as attendance at local, regional or national seminars. There is available technology and apps that include gamification to help make reinforcement fun and engaging.

There are also ways to build the content and selling system into the company’s CRM so that access to the programming is pushed into the salesperson’s workflow.

When you use and focus on the reinforcement of sales training tools, you can set the right expectations and create a culture worth overachieving in.

Best Practice #1: Make reinforcements a “must-have” in all training programs. The training must be constantly reinforced if your company wants to optimize your selling process.

Best Practice #2: All levels of leadership need to demonstrate the company’s commitment to the program. Consistent success begins when leadership becomes familiar with what is available in the reinforcement tool kit and utilizes it often.

Best Practice #3: Understand which reinforcement tools and technologies will work within your organization. There is no reason to purchase supporting tools, apps, games and coaching hours if these are not practical within the company.

REMEMBER: Reinforcement is a huge part of the decision-making process when choosing which training company to partner with. When companies treat reinforcement as optional rather than mandatory, even the most robust support and tools will go to waste.

You shouldn’t ask, "How much does a sales training program cost?”Instead, you should ask, “Is our budget established and updated correctly?” A sales training program often fails because it wasn’t properly budgeted for from the beginning.

When considering implementing a sales training program for your organization, some factors need to be explored before establishing a budget.

How many people are you going to put through the training?
How many locations will require the program?
How many people are in each classroom?
Are you looking for just one training session for each person with no reinforcement?
Are you looking for a complete program with follow-up training, coaching and reinforcement?
Are you looking for an online-only solution?
Will customization to your company and industry needs be required?

Sales training is an investment in driving revenue, improving margins, increasing win rates, reducing sales cycle time and much more. It’s an investment in cultivating deeper and stronger relationships with clients, resulting in greater retention, more renewals and additional upsell/cross-sell opportunities. Lastly, it helps reduce the turnover within your sales team — which is extremely costly — and develops individuals that can grow into management and leadership roles within the company.

REMEMBER: When considering a training partner or building your own program, cutting the budget might sound like a simple way to save some short-term dollars, but when you invest properly, you can maximize your ROI and transform your organization.

Best Practice #1:

Competition will only get tougher as buyers have access to more information to help identify who they want to partner with. Top-performing companies ensure that their sales teams are always focused on learning as much as possible so they can add greater value to the customer.

Best Practice #2:

When the budget is limited, smart organizations look closely at who they should be training first. Most will focus on the moveable middle. However, when faced with a more urgent need to earn conversions, organizations will identify who has the greatest potential for near-term success and train them first.

Best Practice #3:

You get what you pay for, so make sure you do your due diligence and partner with an organization with a proven track record.

Tailoring and customizing a sales training program to a company’s needs is a reasonable strategy. Teams need relevant and applicable techniques and skills. As mentioned above, a one-dimensional approach won’t cut it. Not only will this type of approach fail to give your team the necessary tools to succeed, but it will also be a glaring flaw that shows up in your meetings with clients and prospects.

There is, however, such a problem as over-customizing a training program to the point where expectations just can’t be met. This is why it’s best to communicate your needs with your trainer or coach and work with them to create a roadmap that will check the boxes that make the most sense to check. Otherwise, you risk inefficiency and low ROI with the training program.

A solid training program and roadmap will allow layering additional content and building upon the initial concepts and processes. It will also give sales managers a path toward coaching and mentoring in small bites rather than tackling it all at once.

Best Practice #1: Keep it simple. The more we try to over-engineer a sales methodology or process, the harder it is to integrate and use in the field.

Best Practice #2: When customizing or personalizing a program, consider bringing the management and leadership teams in first. Get their buy-in and ensure they are comfortable delivering the message when the trainer or the training company is not there.

Best Practice #3: Choose a training program with a proven track record when making your selection. You will be shocked to discover how much of what already exists will work. By using an off-the-shelf program, you’ll save money on customization, accelerate the launch of your training program and learn what parts you should consider changing after a few classes.

Sales training is usually driven by the belief that there’s a lack of skill, technique, motivation or alignment of values in specific areas of an organization.

Some companies may see vulnerabilities in their team’s front-end abilities, like performing pre-call or account planning, prospecting, etc. Others may notice their team struggles during the middle of the sales process with skills like qualifying, questioning or presenting. In other companies, sales leaders believe their team encounters the most friction at the end of a sales cycle — negotiating, closing and follow-ups.

By focusing on each trainee’s needs, you can maximize their potential and optimize their performance. A few ways you can accomplish this is to:

Instill a healthy self-image.
Develop and maintain positive behavior.
Encourage building winning relationships at home and at work.
Set KPIs and achieve goals.

Just imagine how we could accelerate success and reduce turnover if our new or new-to-sales folks achieved greater success earlier in their careers.

REMEMBER: If someone knows where they have a gap in their skill set, they will be more likely to participate in training. When continuous learning is valued by the company, prospective employees will want to come and work with your organization as well.