How do we make sales training and enablement stick?

Sales reps have a lot on their plates. You're juggling pipeline, pricing requests, client meetings, shifting targets, managing expectations, navigating stakeholders, and the bane of any sales rep: updating the CRM. For all the great sales enablement tools out there, it doesn’t change the amount of work that has to happen day to day.

Somewhere in the middle of that, you're expected to remember the finer points of your last training session, and apply them perfectly, in real sales meetings, under pressure. 

Take Julie. Between a discovery call with Halden, Orr & Black, an RFP landing from Intraplex Systems, and a last-minute demo for Alturos Group, her schedule for today is back-to-back. Still, at 11am sharp, she logs in for her mandatory training: a 47-minute video on discounting and deal acceleration.

Somewhere around the 34th minute, just as they cover how to best manage pricing objections, Slack pings. Julie's manager is asking if she can jump on a call. She never finishes the video. And the following week, when a prospect questions product pricing in a live deal, she draws a blank and the lead is now at risk.

This is bad news if you're a sales leader. A whopping 91% of teams missed their sales quotas last year. And the main reason? A lack of skills and experience among reps—despite US organizations pouring a whopping $20 billion into sales training every year! 

But worst of all, there's very little evidence to suggest that traditional training sticks even when it has our undivided attention. And to understand why, we need to talk about the Forgetting Curve.

Gone in 60 minutes

In the 1800s, a German psychologist called Hermann Ebbinghaus tested how well humans retain information. And it's fair to say that, as a species, we flunked spectacularly. 

We lose around half of new knowledge in the first hour. A month later, up to 90% of what we originally learned has gone. Ebbinghaus' aptly named Forgetting Curve study has been repeated multiple times over the years, with remarkably similar results. 

Let's test it now. Remember our example at the start of this article? How many of the details can you remember? Hey, no scrolling back up! 

There's a pretty good chance you remember our fictional sales rep's name (although, was it Julia or Julie?). But what about the names of the three companies she was dealing with? Do you remember how long the training video was, or at what minute the pricing objections information came up? 

If you remembered everything, kudos! If not, don't worry—that's the Forgetting Curve in action. What's more, I'm testing you only a minute or two after you first read the information. How would you have done after 24 hours? Or a week? 

It doesn't help that many sales reps find training materials uninspiring—and a third believe this is actively harming their career development. After all, there's a good chance that when you're not engaged, your recall is going to be even worse. 

The above hypothetical scenario uses pre-recorded video training as an example. And in the real world, only 28% of reps say they enjoy learning this way, according to Spekit research. Online courses in sales training platforms don't fare much better (just 31% like it) and the consensus on in-class training is much the same (32%). 

So what type of training does keep sales reps engaged? For many, practice makes perfect.

Putting theory into practice

Everybody has their preferred learning methods. You've probably heard someone say they're a 'visual' learner, for example, or perhaps said so yourself? 

Visual learning, where you process information better when it's presented in graphs, pictures, diagrams, and charts, is a pretty common learning style, but it's one of many. Some are self-explanatory, like visual and verbal learning, whereas others are a bit more obscure. 

Reflective learners like to scrutinize information thoroughly, examining what they've learned in their heads from all angles before putting it into action. Sequential learners like to receive information in a linear, orderly fashion and apply it in systematic ways. 

But what about sales reps? How do they like to learn? The Spekit research shows that 75% of professionals within the industry 'learn by doing.'

This 'learn by doing' technique is more commonly called 'active' learning, and it means reps tend to process information by talking things through and trying them out. 

The good news is that active learning works! 

A recent study found that active learners retained 93.5% of material after a month, compared to just 79% for passive consumption. 

The bad news? Letting your reps learn by trial and error in a live sales environment isn't exactly ideal. You're not just risking lost leads, you're putting your brand reputation on the line when mistakes happen in front of prospects.

These mistakes have a tangible cost. Some estimates say the financial losses could be 10 to 25 times higher than a sales rep's annual salary. 

Effective sales training through AI roleplay

Simply put, traditional sales training methods often fall flat. They tend to be unengaging, misaligned with how reps actually want to learn, and quickly forgotten anyway.

Your team is probably made up of active learners, and that should be encouraged! Hands-on, interactive learning tends to stick, so it's a win-win if they prefer learning that way. 

The question is: how can organizations support 'learning by doing' training while protecting their pipeline? In-person roleplay is one option, and when done well, can get results. But a lot of the reps I know (myself included) find it awkward, time-consuming, and unrealistic. 

That’s why we now have AI sales training.

UneeQ Sales Trainer lets reps practice real sales conversations with lifelike digital humans powered by generative AI. Not only do they respond in real time, simulating the pressure of a real buyer, but do so in a safe space where mistakes won't cost you deals. 

And it works. Our research shows that users almost doubled their recall with digital human training compared to traditional methods—up from 44% to 82%. In other words, you can almost forget the Forgetting Curve as a reason your sales training investments are going down the drain.

AI sales trainers can also boost confidence, accelerate ramp time, and free up managers from constantly shadowing calls. It's hands-on, realistic training, without the downsides.

If you’d like to make your sales training and enablement more sticky, I'd love to set you up with a free trial of UneeQ Sales Trainer. 

With our 10 years’ investment in lifelike digital human interactions, I think it could be a tool you can’t easily forget.

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