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How to Measure Sales Training ROI

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

How_to_Measure_Sales_Training_ROI

Improving sales performance and driving growth in the sales department are important objectives, and sales leaders must spend wisely to maximize any sales investments they make. Whether it’s technology or personnel, the expenditure must contribute to growing the bottom line.

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Sales training is one of the most important investments sales leaders can make. However, proving sales training ROI is often a challenge.

Only effective measurement will reveal the value sales training delivers. Discover how to measure ROI for your sales training efforts to power your decision-making.

Measure Rep Engagement and Satisfaction

After your sales teams complete any round of training, give them a quick survey. How satisfied were they with the program? Ask them how useful and interesting they found the training session.

Why is this important? While it may not seem to matter much if training was enjoyable, learner satisfaction and enjoyment have a large impact on information retention. If sales representatives didn’t enjoy the training or didn’t connect with it, they’re much less likely to remember it. If they don’t remember the information, they can’t use it to improve their performance.

If your salespeople don’t enjoy the training program, sales training ROI won’t be very high. Aim to provide enjoyable, engaging training sessions, such as those using active methods and blended learning. These are proven to improve sales training effectiveness.

Monitor Behavioural Change

When salespeople are engaged in the sales training provided, their behaviour will reflect this. Check how many views training videos receive. Monitor how many activities and assignments are completed. When your salespeople are engaged with the training material, they’ll be far more motivated to interact with it.

By contrast, if sales representatives aren’t connecting with the materials, they won’t make the effort to engage. They won’t watch additional videos or complete assignments.

Also watch for behavioural change in salespeople’s day-to-day activity in the office. Are they incorporating the new social selling tactics they learned about during the training session? If they’re truly engaged and interested, they will adopt these practices into their own sales activities. Another good measure is their ability to utilize the sales tools provided. As they learn more, they’ll be able to use these tools to greater effect.

Measure Impacts

Behavioural change is just one way to measure the impact sales training has on salespeople. If you want some hard numbers to prove behavioural change is truly happening, check in with your LinkedIn Sales Navigator data and your employee advocacy data.

Sales training wouldn’t have a very high ROI if sales professionals’ behavioural change was its only impact. Market leaders also pay particular attention to metrics such as lead generation and conversion. Pay attention to how conversations and content influence conversions as well. Measurements such as sales growth will also demonstrate sales training ROI.

Analyze the Data

Data is nothing without analysis. Quarterly earnings statements mean little if there’s no further interpretation of a trend. The same is true of the measurements market leaders use to determine sales training ROI. An increase in conversions might be the result of a successful sales training program, but in some cases, it may have another cause.

Keep in mind that results won’t be immediately seen. Be sure to set goals. Goals help to determine what needs to be measured, which then fuel the results report. If your goal is to increase the number of net new leads in a quarter, you must be able to report on what the number was both before sales training and after. You’ll also need an indicator to demonstrate how training has directly influenced lead generation.

Sales training can and often does have a high ROI. Knowing exactly how to monitor and measure it will enable you to prove sales training ROI to everyone in your organization.

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