We’re a huge fan of intensive sales training workshops at Dynamo Selling, in fact they are often the first activity we deliver for new clients, however ongoing training/coaching should not be overlooked. We are such big advocates of ongoing training, that we incorporated it into our baseline packages. Research from The Corporate Executive Board Company shows that “sales reps who receive just three hours of coaching a month exceed their goals by 7%, boosting revenue by 25% and increasing the average close rate by 70%”. * 

Considering the time, energy and wages spent on your sales team, it makes sense to ensure you give them the tools to perform their jobs to the best of their potential. In fact, there are multiple benefits you will get from ongoing sales training:

Information retention

Full day workshops are very comprehensive and deliver a wealth of information within an 8-hour period. If this information is not revisited within a reasonable timeframe, it will become harder to recall and implement. 87% of training content is forgotten within weeks, so ongoing training will help you get the most out of the initial training.

According to Sales Performance International, “When sales managers are used to reinforce sales training, retention is increased by up to 63%”. * It’s hard for anyone to become an expert in a topic after one course – and salespeople are certainly no exception.

Increased long-term motivation

A sales training workshop can work wonders for motivation – but this is often short-term motivation. To fully understand this, it is vital we describe the difference between short-term and long-term motivation.

• Short-term motivation can be gained from another person who projects ideas, wisdom, and agreeable content on behalf of the listener.
• Long-term motivation can be gained most effectively when an individual internalises this advantage and consciously works to maintain it.

This internalisation of motivation is what we are aiming for – and we have found that it is best achieved through ongoing coaching. Ongoing coaching serves as a constant reminder that we should be striving to achieve our goals everyday.

Career satisfaction and progression

Most sales people are competitive-minded in nature, and are constantly looking for ways to better themselves. Once they have accomplished one skill set or task, they are ready to tackle the next. This kind of person needs to be constantly stimulated, challenged and progressing. Ongoing coaching ensures your team can constantly look forward to improving the skills that will help them within their career – which helps you mitigate the risks of your team jumping ship. 

Organisational strategy aligns with sales strategy

Do you realise that more than half of your sales team may not understand your company’s organisational strategy,? (According to research from Harvard Business Review (HBR)) *. Ongoing coaching enables sales people to understand the part they play in achieving business goals and know the purpose and reason behind what they do day-today.

Improves the middle 60% of your core performers results

Managers often skew their training towards their best and the worst performing sales people however the real benefit lies with training the middle 60% of performers. This is because it is more likely that underperformers are just not suited for the role than needing the right training – and similarly, star performers won’t improve as much because there’s not as much room to grow. For the middle performers, the best-quality coaching can improve performance up to 19%.* In fact, even moderate improvement in coaching quality — simply from below to above average — can mean a six to eight percent increase in performance across 50% of your sales force.

In summary, it pays off. When training is reinforced by ongoing coaching, companies see up to 4x the ROI from training programs alone.

1. https://www.knowledgetree.com/blog/2015/09/why-you-need-sales-coaching 

2. https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-dirty-secret-of-effective 

Contact us today to find out how we can help your business with sales training.