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3 Reasons Sales Training Doesn’t Work

Written by: Cheryl A. Clausen

Article Overview: The fact sales training doesn’t work isn’t exactly a news flash. Neil Rackham uncovered this fact years ago. Yet sales people and business owners continue to invest millions of dollars a year on sales training in the hopes...

3 Reasons Sales Training Doesn’t Work

The fact sales training doesn’t work isn’t exactly a news flash. Neil Rackham uncovered this fact years ago. Yet sales people and business owners continue to invest millions of dollars a year on sales training in the hopes they’ll get some sort of a return from their investment. Here are just 3 reasons sales training doesn’t work:

1. Sales training is too generic
2. Sales training typically teaches you to do the very things that make your prospects defensive and resistant
3. Sales training is too focused on techniques, tricks, and tactics

In order for sales trainers to work with the most people they develop their training in a way that can fit the most people. That means they purposefully intend to use the exact same program with people selling products in a retail setting, people selling products in a manufacturing setting, people selling a service, people selling low cost products or services, and people selling high ticket products and services. When Neil Rackham began his research he actually set out to prove the value of sales training. What he found instead was sales training only works for people selling low cost products. In other words, if you are selling a high ticket product or a service of any kind sales training will not produce the results you want. Sales training is not the right fit for you. The reason sales training is a bad fit for people selling a service of any kind or a high ticket product is because that type of sale requires a high level of trust. When you use the techniques, tricks, and tactics you learn from sales training they immediately trigger your prospects defenses and increases their level of skepticism making your job all that much more difficult if not nearly impossible. The techniques, tricks, and tactics you learn from sales training teach you to focus on:

• Your motivation
• What you want
• Asking for things you haven’t earned the right to ask for

Unfortunately, no one told your prospects they should care about what motivates you. They really don’t care what you want. Plus they really resent you for asking for things they don’t want to give you. There are 5 things you really should focus on when it comes to increasing sales. Unfortunately, you’ll never hear about these five things in a sales training program of any kind. You won’t hear about them because they all happen before you ever sit down for a sales conversation. You can read all about them in The Blueprint for Increased Sales.

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Article Tags: business owners, job, li li, motivation, neil rackham, news flash, prospects, rsquo, skepticism



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