I checked out a Slide Share from The Brevet Group. It has some pretty scary stats about sales.
Being a training pro myself, the ones that stood out to me were about sales training.
- 55% of the people making their living in sales don’t have the right skills to be successful
- Continuous training gives 50% higher net sales per employee
- The average company spends $10K – $15K hiring an individual and only $2K a year in sales training
Another stat that stood out was that 13% of all jobs in the U.S.—that’s 1 in 8 people—are full-time sales jobs. Based on the above stats, just think how many of those people never receive sales training of any kind.
Check out the Slide Share for yourself:
[slideshare id=40926113&doc=21salesstatsv7-141030111635-conversion-gate02]
Is Selling A Learnable Skill?
Some people want to believe that you either have selling skills or you don’t. But that’s just not true. Sales skills—like all skills—can be taught, improved, and refined. The sales process can be improved as well. To improve the skills and the process, all you need is willing learners and the correct training.
I preach a lot about training ROI. I’ve even written a book about it. Our system shows exactly what the ROI is for training. For some training areas, that can be harder than others. But if there’s any area where it’s simple to measure ROI, it’s in sales. More sales = more revenue. Better trained sales people = more revenue. A consistent, repeatable sales process = more revenue. ROI doesn’t get any simpler than that.
What Small Changes Could Improve Your Sales Training?
If you need sales to drive your business engine, then you need sales training. It’s just that simple.
Consider what the following training could do for your sales:
- A training program that teaches a proven, repeatable method for following up on sales calls
- A training technique that captures data about the best sales day and best sales times
- A module that teaches sales people how to use social media selling to build relationships and capture sales
- Role-playing training that walks sales staff through typical sales conversations, teaching them how to convert a “No” to a “Yes”
Those are only a few possible ideas. What benefits has your firm found from continuous sales training? What obstacles have you experienced with training? Please tell me in the comments. I’d love to know more. Please contact us at eParamus if you need to update your sales training programs.