Why Conventional Online Sales Training Programs Have Zero ROI

If most online sales training programs were effective, there would be fewer struggling B2B sales professionals and entrepreneurs out there!

Don’t believe it?

Recent studies show more than 80% of sales pros forget the information taught in an online sales course within 90 days of completion.

You would think the knowledge would stick if these trainings were so great!

I’m shedding light on why most conventional online sales training programs have zero ROI.

Additionally, I’m sharing how to identify courses that are actually likely to produce a high ROI.

Sales success is fundamental to business development and growth success.

Unfortunately, most sales pros struggle and resultantly miss their business growth and development goals.

How much longer will you waste money on courses that only set you back?

Most Sales Training Programs Have This One Major Issue

Most sales training programs have many issues.

However, one issue is more pervasive and potentially damaging than all the rest: complexity.

Most training programs complicate the heck out of selling!

They do this because they want you to think you need their program to succeed in sales.

However, the truth is successful selling is far from complex.

Believing that selling is complex is a set-up for failure.

Selling Isn’t Complicated, But Sales Coaches Tell You It Is

Have you ever considered that selling is a simple matter of:

1. Generating leads;
2. Showing leads that you can help solve their problems; and
3. Signing a deal to help customers solve their problems?

Even though selling is this simple, most sales coaches convince struggling salespeople that selling is more complex than this!

If they convince you that selling is complex, you will feel compelled to listen to them.

Specifically, you will believe you must buy their training course to succeed.

Anybody who tries to convince you that sales strategy is complicated is trying to get you to depend on them!

Complexity Kills Your Sales Performance

Once a sales coach convinces you that selling is complicated, they teach you unnecessarily complicated sales methodologies.

For example, imagine that you’re trying to scale a mountain without falling. There are two methods to make it up the mountain, including:

1. Walking
2. Riding a unicycle backwards while juggling

Which method would you choose if you want to make it to the top without falling?

Of course, you would walk instead of riding the unicycle.

If you think of selling like climbing a mountain, most salespeople choose to ride the unicycle backwards instead of simply walking to the top.

Then they wonder why they‘re having such a hard time!

That said, complexity kills your sales performance because it takes an easy situation and makes it hard.

Why make things hard when they don’t need to be hard?

Suddenly, You Are Back at Square One

After being armed with unnecessarily complex sales techniques and strategies, you will eventually land back at square 1.

Methods the sales training course provided will prove invalid.

Once again, you’re wondering what it takes to achieve sales success.

Complexity NEVER works in sales, yet most online courses are 99% complexity with 1% toxic positivity.

Here’s Why Most Sales Training Programs Have Zero ROI

99% of online training programs are unnecessarily complex - Hence the reason they have zero ROI.

However, there’s more wrong with sales training programs than just complexity.

Here are a few other primary reasons why most sales training programs are nothing but garbage.

They’re Sales Skills-Oriented Instead of Methodology-Oriented

Most salespeople take sales training courses because they believe they need more selling skills.

However, most sales professionals already have more than enough selling skills.

Instead of learning new selling skills, they need to know how to apply the skills they already have to the sales process.

Unfortunately, most online courses do not teach sales reps how to apply skills to the selling process.

Instead, they entice sales reps into their training course by promising they’ll teach social selling and consultative selling skills. 

Most of the time, these sales buzzwords are just hype and never taught how to be applied.

What good is having any skill if you don’t know how to apply it?

Furthermore, most training programs are skills-oriented, yet salespeople don’t need more skills.

Instead, salespeople must learn how to apply their existing skill set to real-life scenarios.

They Add More Busy Work to Your Already Full Plate

Most sales training programs add pointless busy work to your already full plate.

For example, instead of working on methods and strategies, you’re busy:

• Taking nonstop assessments and quizzes
• Listening to the same-old pre-recorded webinars
• Going through endless e-learning slideshows

Busy work DOES NOT help you become a better salesperson.

Instead, actual practice helps!

Unfortunately, most online courses get learners caught up in busy work instead of actually practicing.

You Don’t Need to Be Told WHAT to Think.

As an entrepreneur or sales professional, you don’t need gurus telling you what to think.

Being told what to think is a recipe for disaster because it makes you reliant on the source telling you what to think.

Sadly, most sales training courses tell sales pros what to think instead of how to think.

As a result, they get into sales situations, a curve ball is thrown, and they don’t know how to handle it because they don’t understand how to manage the situation.

Being told what to think instead of how to think only works in a controlled environment. 

However, sales is anything but controlled!

That said, being told what to think doesn’t help you in the real world.

Perhaps it works within the confines of sales training, but it doesn’t work in the real world.

Here’s What Makes the Best Sales Training Programs THE Best

While most sales training courses are trash, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any hope.

There are still training programs out there that actually help improve sales outcomes by enabling sales teams to close deals in less time than ever.

To prove it, I’m sharing what makes the best sales training courses THE best!

Ready to step up as a sales organization to achieve your business goals?

These factors define successful sales courses.

Every Effective Sales Training Course Addresses Your Sales Approach

For starters, most sales reps walk into sales training courses believing selling is complicated.

They believe it’s complicated because it is what they’ve been wrongly told for most of their careers!

Unfortunately, believing selling is complicated is a set-up for failure.

As I said above, approaching selling as if it’s complicated informs how you develop sales strategies.

Sadly, complicated sales strategies are DOOMED to fail.

Therefore, the best sales training courses address how sales professionals approach selling.  Specifically, they change how you perceive sales to one of simplicity.

Ultimately, only sales leaders who believe selling is simple achieve success.

They Stick to Sales Fundamentals

As I said above, selling is a simple matter of:

1. Generating leads
2. Showing leads that you can help solve their problems
3. Signing a deal to help customers solve their problems

Therefore, top-notch courses stick to sales fundamentals that check these three boxes, including:

1. Sales prospecting - making cold calls and follow-up sales calls
2. Making sales pitches as if you’re life depends on it
3. Forming solid customer relationships to seal the deal off

Instead of taking you through less important information or tactics related to social media and inbound marketing, these courses put fundamentals FIRST.

As a result, you walk away with the most essential knowledge for success.

The Program Is Live In Real-Time

How many pre-recorded sales webinars have you sat through before?

Yeah, how well do those usually work for you?

Unlike most sales courses, the best sales training programs are hosted in live weekly sessions.

Contrary to pre-recorded programs, live sessions allow salespeople to role-play or be interactive with the sales coach.

Sometimes, salespeople even get put on the spot to work out their challenges with the coach.

I don’t need to hear your answer to know that webinars are not only ineffective, but painfully boring to sit through!

Busy Work Gets Taken Off of Your Plate

Stepping up your sales game is challenging and requires hard work.

However, hard work is not the same as busy work.

As I mentioned above, busy work is the kind of work that consumes a lot of time but doesn’t add real value to your life.

For example, consistent assessments, quizzes, and modules only add busy work to your plate.

Contrary to most sales courses that add more busy work, the best sales training programs take busy work OFF your plate.

Instead of adding busy work to your plate, they take it away by helping simplify your sales processes.

With simpler sales processes, you have fewer hoops to jump through and more time on your hands to focus on what really matters to success.

You will know a sales program is effective if it challenges you without getting you bogged down on a bunch of small boxes to check.

You Are Taught HOW to Think Instead of WHAT to Think

Finally, the best sales training courses teach you HOW to think instead of WHAT to think about sales!

A better way of putting this is the best courses empower you to take control of your sales career.

Think of it like this- Learning new skills or how to have sales conversations during the sales cycle is pointless.

Why?

Because, skills mean nothing without a deeper understanding of how sales works.

For example, you can put a child in a car simulator, and they will prove they have the skills to drive a car.

However, the moment that child gets to put on the real road to drive, they crash because they don’t understand how driving works!

Moreover, there’s a big difference between knowing how to drive a car and knowing how driving works in the real world.

That said, top-tier sales training courses will give you a deeper understanding of how the sales world works.

Ultimately, you can get into any sales scenario and kill it because you understand how to play the sales GAME!

Final Thoughts on Why Most Sales Training Courses Have Zero ROI

You don’t need to go through another interactive module or see another excel spreadsheet to become a more effective sales pro.

Instead, you need to stop being taken for a ride by sales coaches who only set you back further in your business journey.

Always remember: selling isn’t complicated! Anybody who tries to tell you so is only taking you for a ride.