BLOG

Sales Training Adoption Leads To Higher Quota Attainment [Roundup]

Sales for Life Admin
Sales for Life Admin

sales-training-social-selling-training.jpg

Whether you or your organization is thinking about implementing a new sales methodology, technology or training, one key driver for success will be adoption.

In this week’s roundup, we’re focusing on enabling your sales organization through sales training. We’ve included articles on how social selling adoption rates impact quota and why sales training sucks.

Social Selling Adoption = Higher Quota Attainment

In CSO Insights latest article entitled Effective Social Selling Part 2: Adoption Rates Impact Quota Attainment, Tamara Schenk discusses her recent research which looks at the adoption rate of socal selling and the impact it has on sales performance. What she uncovered in her research was that social selling adoption is still a challenge with many organizations as “only 12.9% reported having social selling adoption rates greater than 75%.”

The question you might have is, “well, why does social selling adoption even matter?

Schenk goes out to detail the correlation between social selling adoption and quota attainment. She found that sales organizations that have low social selling adoption rates actually did not even achieve average performance.

As she looked at the middle range of companies, she found that 60.9% of salespeople achieved quota which is 3.2% higher than the study’s average. Interestingly enough, when social selling adoption rates climb to 75%, quota attainment is at 64.8% which is an improvement of 12%.

The highest adoption rates which are greater than 90% actually lead to a quota attainment improvement of 22.4%.

Recommended Content: The Defintive Guide to Social Selling for Leaders

Schenk’s research has shown that the data doesn’t lie when it correlates the impact of social selling adoption to quota attainment. Although adoption is harder done than said, she advises that “Aligning the social strategies across marketing and sales is a prerequisite and a critical success factor to ensure clarity and consistency.”

Avoid Bad Sales Training

Sales training when done correctly can help your sales organization drive incremental results, however, many sales leaders find that some sales trainers miss the mark. In a Forbes article entitled Three Reasons Your Sales Training Isn’t Sticking, Christopher Kingman, Sales Enablement Manager at Transunion, discusses his experience on three reasons many trainings fail and solutions on how to fix it.

The three reason Kingman outlines include:

1. Not addressing the “what’s in it for me?” question

Kingman explains that incentives or inherent values are lacking with most sales training. Since sales is a performance-driven profession, an inability to address how the seller can benefit from the training is detrimental for success.

As a solution, Kingman recommends “Focus on informing the seller how they can increase their value to the customer, which is critical to their selling ability.”

2. Lack of reinforcement

Kingman illustrates the parallels between sales training and algebra, “Raise a hand if you can remember how to calculate the slope of a line from basic algebra. Certainly not me. Why? Because I have never used that skill in real life.” Most sales training solutions fail to demonstrate on these new skills can be applied in specific scenarios.

By providing your sellers with an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned is a great way to reinforce sales training and ensure its stickiness.

3. One-time event

One-time sales training events often doesn’t need to many outcomes. Kingman says “continuing to keep the training top of mind is key.”

One way he suggests is to incentivize training. “Incentives do help in ensuring proper learning takes place, or at least enough of it, especially if they are introduced at the beginning of the training,” says Kingman.

Recommended Content: Sales Enablement Spotlight: Best-In-Class Social Selling Vs. Status Quo

Next Year’s (Bigger) Revenue Goal

With a new year comes an even more audacious revenue goal to hit. How are you and your sales organization preparing yourselves to engage buyers more effectively? Whether it is social selling, sales training or implementing new technology, we hope this week’s roundup really illustrates that results don’t come a one-and-done event. Ensuring proper adoption and stickiness is proven by data to drive sales outcomes.

{{cta(‘4458d193-9e64-439e-9b55-e5df23e37414’)}}

Follow Us

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get our latest blogs direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive more sales insights, analysis, and perspectives from Sales For Life.

The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling