How to make sales training more effective?

• Focus on fundamental skills. Most sales failures take place because of a lack of ability or practice in very fundamental skills–questioning, presenting and closing.
• Include skills training. Set a goal to spend at least one-third of every team meeting on sales training. You'll increase everyone's numbers more by improving skills than with product training alone.
• Tie the fundamentals. If you understand how those skills help move an opportunity through the sales cycle, you can identify exactly where additional training is needed–either on a group or on an individual level.
• Include role-playing. While it's fun to bat around sales theory, it's only useful if tied to actual behavior. That means practicing, in a controlled way, so that the skills are really learned.
• Check and revise of what was taught before. Sometimes sales training involves eliminating bad habits and integrating new ones. That means you need to make sure that the training sticks and continues to be used.
• Make it fun. Sales training should ideally involve a contest, a competition, and/or prizes. People who sell pros are naturally motivated to win–so turning sales training into an opportunity to win guarantees participation.