Recent data on sales training practices reveal that that the highest priorities in sales training are teaching employees how to sell and teaching them about what they're selling. To achieve a more detailed picture of how sales training hours are being allocated as well as the methods used to deliver it, the research study examined the relative importance organizations place in addressing sales training in terms of the "mix" of five different categories of sales training: selling skills, product training, industry training, company-specific training and sales management.

These five sales training categories all contribute to success, but organizations place more emphasis on some of them than they do with others. Selling skills emerged as the most critical type of training, accounting for more than one-third of the annual sales training hours. Product training receives the next largest share, while industry training, company-specific training, and sales management training receive a share that is typically at a much lower level overall. In fact, sales management training is the category of sales training focus addressed with the least frequency - less than annually, if at all.

These findings appear in the recently-released ASTD/Intrepid/i4cp State of Sales Training Study, which explores how today's organizations are approaching sales training and sheds light on opportunities that organizations are missing to optimize those approaches or consider new ones. The data included in the report provides new insight into the current - and future - state of sales training globally. Based on a survey of more than 500 experts, the ASTD/Intrepid/i4cp study includes statistics to inform important sales training decisions and provides a background on the current sales training environment, as well as detailed policy recommendations that can drive sales training efforts.

Source: State of Sales Training(ASTD/Intrepid/i4cp)

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