“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” That’s what immediately comes to mind after reading “Are You Looking at Sales Training Strategically?” Within it sales industry consultant Dave Stein discusses the most common reasons sales training fails to deliver the intended results. A few that really resonate include:

• Delivery systems not designed for effective adult learning
• No post-program reinforcement
• Not having appropriate technology support for learning and sales enablement
• Not having a measurement process in place for real-time feedback on what’s working and what isn’t
• No thought paid to the behavioral changes required for sales performance improvement.

Unfortunately, most sales and marketing leaders continue to suffer these same failures in 2014. This infographic, detailing the key findings of our research, should give pause to every sales leader looking to develop their own team, and grow topline revenues.

While these numbers are daunting, the good news is that we now possess both the hard data and the sales reinforcement tools needed to reverse this trend. Above all else, the transformation to a higher-performing sales force begins with the acknowledgement that sales reps are people, and people possess learned behaviors that cannot be reversed after a single training event (no matter how beautiful -- or bountiful -- the PowerPoint is).

Part of the problem is that our brains simply aren’t equipped to retain the information overload that typically occurs at these multi-day sales meetings. In fact, people will forget up to 79% of new information within days and weeks.

Harvard researchers have shown that the best way to counteract this “forgetting curve” is through the presentation of small amounts of content in spaced, repetitive intervals that allow reps to actively recall it. This repetition, executed over several weeks, was shown to increase retention of critical messages by as much as 170% and durably change sales behaviors. Now that's progress.

So ask yourself, does your sales team really have what it takes to win? And how do you know?

Feel free to contact us to learn more.