The importance of sales training according to leading experts

Training on sales strategies has been proven to have ROIs north of 300%. TaskDrive found that for every $1 a company spends on sales training, it can expect up to $4.53 in return. That's a strong reason to invest in training your sales team!

Experts say the importance of sales training goes way beyond making more money. Sure, increasing revenue is the end goal. However, taking this route will help you enjoy the many benefits of sales training, such as increased customer loyalty and salespeople retention.

In this post, we've curated thoughts from leading sales experts on the importance of sales training for your organization.

What is sales training?

Any training that enables the sales team to qualify leads and close more deals falls into the sales training category. This can include:

• Call reviews
• Audio courses
• Video training on how to use sales tools or techniques
• In-person workshops to practically improve specific skills
• Written documentation or sales enablement resources

In short, sales training is what salespeople use to inform their daily interactions with potential customers and how to turn those leads into revenue.

Sales training has a multi-focal approach and can help everyone, from new employees to seasoned sellers, gain new skills.

For example, sales training can teach a certain sales technique, like in this micro-course with 5 super short video lessons:

Or it can improve product knowledge, like in this video sell sheet:

Soft skills such as self-confidence, relationship building, or cultural sensitivity, which are core elements of any successful sales transaction, can also make the subject of sales training:

Regardless of the type of sales training you focus on, the benefits can't be ignored. Companies that spend $1,500 per employee training annually stand to earn 24% more profit than those with lower budgets.

So, let's put on the expert lens and take a closer look at why sales training is important and what benefits it offers that lead to increased revenue.

1. Sales training helps your salespeople adapt to every situation

By cultivating a mix of soft and hard skills in your sales team, you train well–rounded sales professionals who can adapt to every situation, which gives your company a competitive edge. Effective training can also improve sales skills like social selling, curiosity, empathy, and boldness.

Simply investing in training makes your sales force 57% more effective than their competitors. On an individual level, sales training can increase a sales rep's performance by 20%, on average. Training programs equip sales professionals with various sales techniques and strategies, such as consultative selling, solution selling, and negotiation skills. 

Sales expert, author, speaker, and consultant Jeff Shore discusses the skills reps learn through sales training, practice, and intentional effort and the skills that can't be taught.

"I've often said that the destination called mastery lives on a road called repetition, and there's no other way to get there."

2. Sales teams get more deals thanks to their increased empathy

Getting the "yes" from someone, whether you're selling a pen or a Lamborghini, is about understanding your customer's underlying psychology.

No one buys just because it fills a need. They buy because it enables a tantalizing hope for their future selves. It important that sales reps go through training that helps them deeply understand the emotional drivers behind why and how people buy.

Sales training that teaches empathetic soft skills and a product emotionally-driven benefits will help your sales team reach their quotas faster than you can imagine.

World-famous sales strategist, speaker, and author Shari Levitin points out the importance of knowing what you're selling and the emotion you facilitate to lead the sale with the emotional benefit. Here's what she says about emotional sales messaging:

"If the emotion is strong enough, the objections go away." She further explains, "Saving money is not an emotional reason someone will buy". Instead, it's about "creating an experience, about creating an event, about being able to enjoy your own party, about being able to have the memories of a lifetime."

3. Reps become more confident and persuasive sellers

Training leads to improved communication skills, a deep understanding of sales fundamentals, and rock-solid knowledge of the product. Armed with all these, any sales rep will feel more confident in their interactions and successfully build relationships with high-value leads. They'll create more persuasive presentations, and the confidence they ooze throughout various sales processes will help them convert more prospects into buyers or even upsell existing clients.

Sales trainer and motivational speaker Matt Easton talks about how crucial it is for sales reps to maintain and project confidence while interacting with potential clients:

"Confidence is almost silent, and insecurities are loud." He advises salespeople to "remain calm, remain confident, and slow down" in their interactions — that's easier said than done without a proper sales training program.

4. You achieve consistency in sales performance

Sales training programs help your sales team by providing a unified, standardized process. This consistency brings order to the sales cycle and creates a powerful sense of security and confidence within sales organizations. As an added bonus, consistency in sales performance also stabilizes sales forecasting numbers and makes it easier to predict future revenue.

Imagine the relief your salespeople feel when they have a sales strategy and know exactly what steps to take next. Anxiety melts away, and the often chaotic sales journey becomes predictable and reliable, making strategic planning and accurate forecasting a reality.

Sales trainer Khabeer Rockley shares some very specific ideas on how a structured and repeatable sales process provides a clear framework. This approach helps sales teams achieve consistent and reliable sales performance.

"A good sales process acts like a guide to help you or your team know exactly what to do at what step to be able to move further towards the sale. It's a guideline, it's a framework structure."

According to Rockley, "By having this certainty in place, it takes a lot of angst, it takes a lot of anxiety, it takes a lot of pressure off your salespeople because they know what they need to do at each step to be able to move towards the sale."

5. Customers are more satisfied with your services

Consistent sales training focuses on improving communication and relationship-building skills. Therefore, it leads to a better customer experience. 

Well-trained sales professionals don't just excel at closing deals. They easily make customers feel understood and valued during the selling process, increasing satisfaction and sowing the seeds of brand loyalty. Happy customers mean an easier onboarding process, higher retention, and valuable referrals.

Motivational speaker and organizational consultant Simon Sinek advocates for a sales training approach that prioritizes meaningful connections and a strong sense of purpose. 

Sinek says these two factors are key to achieving high customer satisfaction. And you're more likely to gain them with properly trained sales reps who know how to court customers:

"We sell, sell, sell, and we forget that relationships, whether it's a date or a business relationship, are all built on the same things."

6. You increase employee loyalty and retention

Ultimately, sales training is an investment in employees' professional development, making them feel valued and supported. While providing training to improve customer experience, you improve employee retention because every professional appreciates ongoing support to upskill.

When a sales leader gives agents the tools and knowledge they need to succeed, their job satisfaction increases, reducing turnover rates. By contrast, 40% of employees who don't receive the job training they need to become effective quit within their first year. Sales managers can create a massive impact in employee retention.

Once again, Simon Sinek discusses getting people to stay at your company. He says that the best companies have all kinds of programs to help employees grow as humans. While this isn't technically written in any sales playbook, it makes perfect sense: "The younger generation is asking companies to provide everything… we want to have our sense of belonging, our sense of community, our sense of personal growth, our sense of purpose to come from work."

Companies should invest in sales training programs that teach hard skills and human skills. The goal is to gain loyalty and make people love their jobs, even on the hard days when they don't really like what they're going through. "At the end of the day, the reason that we stay or leave a job is because of how we feel about that job."

How to create effective sales training videos

Training is super important if you want to meet and exceed your sales goals and make more deals. Sales training will help your team overcome obstacles and get buy in from the very first call.

Some L&D professionals or even sales managers struggle to create exciting sales training. Others are torn between cost, time, and quality issues. By choosing AI video creation, you can generate sales enablement training sessions quickly and easily, translate them, and scale them to remote teams.

Check out how to create outstanding sales enablement videos and sales coaching without any editing skills.