Effective Sales Training Content: What Works and What Doesn’t

Effective sales training starts with the right content. The right content starts with a well-documented sales process, a focus on the skills most critical for success and the custom needs of the company being trained. 

It’s simple — well, kind of. Even the most well-intentioned sales trainer can fall into the trap of accidentally creating completely useless materials because their best efforts were built on a faulty foundation.

In most cases, an effective sales training process is created with the intention of helping salespeople be more effective. Unfortunately, when creating content to help support this goal, many training creators start from the mistaken position that all they need to succeed is a smile — leaving everything built upon it touched by that misguided principle. 

If we get too caught up in the idea that sales is only about charm, personality and attracting attention — we miss the whole point of effective salescraft. Training isn’t just about matching psychological profiles to pre-scripted templates. It’s about gathering as much unique data as possible and making the time to really learn from it.

Where should you begin when trying to create effective sales training content?

The most effective sales training content will always begin with well-researched and documented data. It will come from reputable scholars and researchers who have documented their findings on how people behave. The right content will make sense when experienced salespeople look at it. If your sales training can’t stand up to valid scrutiny and a demand for evidence, then it’s over. Pack up and go home. 

Solid content that is based on well-researched and documented data will be as plain as the nose on our face. We should be able to visually look it over and understand it quickly. It’s immediately accessible, teachable, and learnable. 

Step-Driven Sales Training: Effective or No?

Choose any random sales training program and inevitably you’ll find some step-driven process. What happens when we follow these steps and we don’t get the results we want? How do we figure out where we went wrong? How do we determine which step is flawed or which step we didn’t step on correctly? 

By using data! When a sales process is synced up to observable buying behaviors it’s fairly simple to identify where a customer is along the buying decision timeline. We can quickly determine at which point along that line that has the customer objecting, delaying or having trouble. 

In a case like this, we can always identify where the customer is having trouble on their buying decision path so all we have to do is take the corresponding action associated with that buying decision. When the sales process is breaking down it helps us know precisely Another added benefit is that the right process can make it easier to collaborate because you and your team will all be versed in the same lingo, process and map.

That’s what Action Selling ® is: a map. Here to always help you know exactly where you are — and where you need to go — in the sales process. Contact our team to see for yourself.