Sales Training Seminars

Sales training seminars are a rapid way to deliver instruction in selling to people with a sales role. What does a sales training seminar cost? Do they work? Is this the best approach? What alternatives are there? - All reasonable questions, which I will try to provide some answers to.

"What does a sales training seminar cost?"

Currently, (2015) sales courses delivered by the well-known names such as Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins cost around £400 to £500 per person, per day, slightly discounted when the event is a multi-day one. Business development organisations - sometimes an agency associated with local government departments - charge less.

A slick reply to 'What does it cost?", is "Less than not doing sales training". Meaning that if a salesperson or a sales team is not very competent, then they are probably wasting business opportunities and hence company revenue. Should this be the case, then successful sales training will improve the situation.

Which brings us to a fundamental question:

"Does sales training work?"

The answer is that it is unlikely to do any harm, and since to be skilled in sales work takes aptitude, motivation and study, a sales course is likely to give the sales people some new ideas and techniques.

As with other jobs, it is very easy to fall into a routine way of working over time and there can be no certainty, until you gain fresh perspective, that it is as effective as it could be.

Sales training is bound to help here, since a competent and experienced sales trainer will be able to teach a variety of new ways to deal with those aspects of sales work which are difficult. These include 'how to find new clients', 'how to make a strong / persuasive presentation", "how to deal with objections" and "how to close".

"Are sales training seminars the best approach?"

A sales training seminar is just one of the available methods to convey fresh ideas. Alternatives are with training material recorded on cassette, mp3, video and social media such as YouTube. The oldest form of all, the book still has certain advantages, you get a lot of content at a modest price. But with a seminar, the impact of messages delivered by a real live expert, right there in front of your eyes, is far greater.

The degree of interest or personal motivation possessed by the recipient of the training is most significant in determining how  much lasting benefit there will be. A person who really wants to learn as much as he / she can will gain more for a modest outgoing than an unwilling trainee who is only attending because his boss has sent him on a course.

Some sales training seminars are delivered to huge audiences, making a fortune for the presenter most likely, but to my mind having the disadvantage that there is virtually no interaction between the audience and the speaker.

My experience is that it is far better if delegates can ask questions and receive answers as and when topics are being discussed. This can only be achieved with a small number of participants, I have found that around 12 or 15 people in a group is the optimum - enough for lots of ideas to be thrown around but not so many that individuals feel inhibited in contributing or asking about a point that they aren't clear on.

A further factor is that depending on the qualities and business sector of the people present at a sales training seminar, the content of the course and the style of delivery will vary. If you were training teams of car salesmen, the approach used would be rather different to what would be appropriate for doctors, engineers, lawyers and other professionals (who also need a flow of the right clients in order to prosper).

My speciality is training engineers and techies in sales (Selling for Engineers seminar), because engineering is where my career began. I'd be floundering if I tried to teach appropriate methods to people in, for example, the recording industry.

A good sales training seminar is informative, fun and worth more than it costs - that's what I aim to deliver. 

How to Motivate Sales People - without spending a lot of money