“Should we bring everyone together for training, or just do it virtually?”

It’s a question that sales enablement and training leaders face time and again. With the convenience and accessibility of virtual training tools, it’s easy to assume that online might be the best choice. However, new research indicates a more strategic blend is often most effective.

In fact, 93 percent of organizations with highly effective sales training programs include an in-person, instructor-led component in their training mix. This insight comes from a comprehensive study involving 242 sales professionals across various industries and regions.

The Business Impact

Research shows a clear performance advantage for organizations with highly effective training programs. Compared to those with less effective training, they are:

4.9 times more likely to report getting sellers to full productivity quickly
3.5 times more likely to report having well-prepared sales teams
These highly effective organizations tend to take a blended training approach, combining in-person training (93 percent) with virtual instructor-led sessions (66 percent) and self-study elements (50 percent).

The Value of a Blended Approach

While in-person training positively correlates with training effectiveness, the research indicates that the most effective organizations aren't relying solely on one method. Instead, they combine different approaches to leverage each method’s unique advantages:

In-Person Training: In-person environments offer distinct benefits that can be challenging to replicate virtually. They’re ideal for building excitement and shared purpose, particularly during key initiatives or sales kickoffs. Physical presence allows instructors to read the room, gauge understanding in real time, and make on-the-spot adjustments. Additionally, informational interactions during breaks and group activities cultivate peer learning, collaboration, and networking that reinforce a support system beyond the training session.

Virtual Instructor-Led: 66 percent of highly effective sales training programs include virtual instructor-led training, which offers flexibility while preserving interactive learning opportunities. Ideal for dispersed teams, live virtual sessions can foster interactive discussions and focused skill-building in areas such as prospecting and objection handling.

Self-Study: Half of highly effective sales training programs incorporate virtual self-study components. While sales reps typically forget most training content within a week, retention can be improved when information is reinforced through multiple channels over time. This makes self-study components valuable for knowledge retention and just-in-time learning needs. Organizations with highly effective training are 1.5 times more likely to use digital tools for these learning and reinforcement activities.

Building an Effective Blended Program

Returning to the original question, “Should we bring everyone together for training, or just do it virtually?”

The answer isn’t either/or; it’s both.

As you build your training agenda, consider these strategies:

• Design a Comprehensive Learning Program: Develop a program where in-person sessions, virtual training, and self-study resources work together to enhance learning and drive behaviour change. Each modality should reinforce the others, creating a more integrated and effective learning experience.
• Select Modalities Strategically: Use in-person sessions where they matter most: building excitement and shared purpose at sales kick-offs, gaining buy-in for new initiatives, and strengthening team relationships. Opt for virtual sessions for focused skill practice and feedback. Use self-study for knowledge acquisition and reinforcement.
• Provide Ongoing Reinforcement: Don’t stop with the initial training delivery. Organizations with highly effective sales training are nearly five times more likely to provide ongoing reinforcement. Activities such as role-playing scenarios, demos, and practice presentations can drive post-training reinforcement and enable coaching opportunities.
• Offer Continuous Learning Journeys: Deliver experiences over time through learning journeys, rather than treating training as a one-time event. Organizations with highly effective sales training are 3.7 times more likely to take this approach. Moreover, they don’t abandon new hires after initial sales onboarding. They are 3.9 times more likely to directly transition new hire onboarding into ever-boarding.
• Integrate Regular Sales Coaching: Make coaching a consistent part of the learning journey. Organizations with highly effective sales training are nearly three times more likely to strongly encourage regular mentoring or coaching. This coaching can happen through a variety of channels—in fact, organizations with highly effective sales training are 1.4 times more likely to provide online coaching than those with less effective training.
• Make the Effort to Measure and Assess: Regular assessment of skills and ongoing measurement of business outcomes can help organizations evaluate how their training approach is performing and guide continuous improvement. Highly effective programs are significantly more likely than less effective ones to measure effectiveness by facilitator feedback (2.4 times), employee retention rates (2 times), sales performance metrics (1.7 times), assessments (1.6 times), and employee feedback (1.3 times).

Conclusion

Organizations have more training options than ever, and research suggests the best approach isn’t choosing one modality—it’s blending them strategically. In-person training remains strongly associated with sales training effectiveness, but it may be most powerful when combined with virtual instructor-led sessions and self-study components.

Organizations planning their sales training strategies should focus on creating comprehensive programs that leverage the unique strengths of each modality while providing consistent reinforcement and coaching support.

By Kelsey Harris 

VP of client results at RAIN Group
Wed Jan 15 2025

In this current era of slower economic growth and economic uncertainty, organizations are focused on talent performance and optimization across all teams, including the sales and revenue-generating functions. Organizations across the globe are fueling their sales teams to garner big wins. Providing training to their salesforce is one of the most popular ways to achieve this. However, sales training more often than not turns out to be ineffective.

When organizations are spending billions to train their sales staff, this number hardly evokes confidence in the efficacy of such programs. Many organizations are woefully groaning about dated sales training programs, wondering why they do not deliver the promised proverbial gold. From my experience with improving employee performance and engagement, here are a few reasons why that happens.

The 'Set It And Forget It' Attitude

Most sales training programs are cut from one giant piece of cloth. Organizations would love access to a playbook with all the tricks and tips to help their salespeople sell better. But what goes into selling? How do the salespeople identify implied needs when only explicit needs are being spoken about? How can they improve opportunities to cross-sell or upsell?

With a market that is constantly changing and evolving, sales training programs are still mostly following an archaic approach. Companies organize annual three-day-long or week-long training sessions, and they've been using the same modules for years. These programs do not take into consideration the dynamics of the evolving market, products and services, and neither do they consider the changes in customer interactions and how customers want to engage with organizations. Such programs hardly help to create a salesforce that is dynamic and current.

Training Versus Coaching: Which Does Your Sales Team Get?

Selling is a mental game. It is all about emotions, right from the beginning to the end. While prospecting and product knowledge is important, salespeople need to develop their capabilities to connect with the customer, identify opportunities for wins and develop strategic and critical thinking skills to sell more and sell better.

These are all power skills. Since power skills are behavioral, training programs will have to shift from being training-driven to becoming more coaching-driven. This is because three-day-long or week-long training programs fail to drive behavioral change. Coaching, on the other hand, is a continuous exercise, one that is development-driven and more transformational.

Coaching is a continuous relationship where the coach acts as a constant reinforcer of skills by sharing their knowledge and experience to develop salespeople to become sales superstars. Coaching needs to be year-round to enable sales reps and managers to exceed quota.

A Lack Of Effective Post-Training Networking And Coaching

Sales training programs may also not be effective because they are often seen as exercises needed to help the salesforce focus on learning about the product or improving prospecting skills. But sales training can only be successful when salespeople can close deals.

Closing deals is an art form that requires salespeople to not only become well-versed in their product offerings but also develop their power skills to build connections and relations with their customers. It is about identifying how to connect with the customer in the best way possible so that they can see the value the product or service brings.

Helping sales teams hone their power skills, such as empathy, critical thinking, strategic thinking, self-motivation and the like, and developing their consultative skills to create high-quality touches, go a long way to lead successful sales training outcomes.

By helping salespeople hone their power skills, organizations empower sales teams to sell faster, win bigger and meet their sales quotas more consistently. But to achieve this, you need a coaching paradigm for sales skills and to give teams access to a network of coaches within the company.

You Can't Manage What You Can't Measure

Unfortunately, organizations end up spending money on sales training initiatives that don't deliver the expected results because there is no barometer for measuring success other than the proverbial percentage quota attainment. Educating salespeople on the changing dynamics of sales and their product portfolio is one part. The other part involves accounting for their individual development needs. Sales programs need to be powered by data to measure progress, identify areas of improvement and fine-tune the program to make it more outcome-driven.

In Conclusion

One of the most compelling reasons why sales training programs fail is that there isn't enough reinforcement in the form of coaching to make the training stick. While participants might like, or even love, a three-day or week-long sales training, it is rare that they will go back home and look up the sales training binder thrice a week.

In the absence of a people network and coaching-based reinforcement, salespeople forget the skills and knowledge they have gleaned. They forget the inspiration they felt. They forget how motivated they were. And it is because of this that learning or sales training often fails to translate into action.

Developing high-powered sales teams through successful training programs needs a quantum shift in approach. These programs have to become more continuously coaching-oriented to drive knowledge reinforcement and be enabled by data. They have to become more contextual and personalized to address the pain points that prevent team members from moving from good salespeople to sales superstars.

By Madhukar Govindaraju

Forbes Councils Member.
for Forbes Human Resources Council
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Building a high-performing sales culture in a large global organization is not for the faint of heart. Of course, the benefits can be tremendous. Effective sales training and coaching not only boost your team’s effectiveness, win rates and revenue growth but also drive long-term benefits, including a more cohesive global approach to customer value and higher retention rates.

On a recent trip to Melbourne, Australia, I met with our APAC managing partners and was reminded of the need to tailor our approach to successfully train sales teams around the world. Further exploring this idea, I examined feedback from our sales training and coaching customers with global deployments. What did they look for? What were they wary of? And how did they make their global sales training programs succeed?

Master Strategic Localization For Sales Impact

One of our clients, a senior training manager in the software industry who implemented training across the U.S., Australia and the U.K., emphasized the requirement to tailor each training to a company’s needs so the examples and scenarios in the training resonate with employees.

It’s important to remember that localization is far more than translating content. Ensure your sales training programs will be delivered by local trainers who are culturally attuned to that region and can customize the content accordingly. Incorporate locally-relevant and customer-specific training materials, role-plays and scenarios to ensure these exercises are meaningful to your trainees and immediately applicable to real-world sales challenges.

Learning styles also vary widely by culture. The U.S., for example, is known for being direct, assertive and results-driven, while the Japanese favour indirect communication, and Germans prioritize facts, data and thorough product knowledge. Although your underlying sales methodology should stay the same, your approach to sales training and its delivery must be culturally attuned to be effective.

We’ve seen localization and customization work very well for global sales training initiatives when using the “flipped classroom” model. Instead of spending training sessions passively listening to presentations, sales professionals participate in self-paced, pre-training modules to engage with content ahead of time. Then, the sessions with the trainer can be used for role-playing exercises and to provide real-time feedback. This lets global training participants spend ample time understanding the basic concepts before participating in group training.

Insist On A Strong Sales Methodology For Global Success

All sales training programs should build and advance skills, but the real differentiator lies in the sales methodology—a proactive approach to create, qualify, advance and close sales opportunities. A strong sales methodology gives reps easy-to-learn, repeatable steps to accelerate sales results. By learning a replicable process to uncover value and have better business conversations, they will save time and effort in all selling situations.

This engagement framework is your touchstone—the centrepiece of a global sales training program to facilitate the buying process and build buyer confidence. Although sales training delivery must be localized and customized, the sales methodology itself must remain consistent, ensuring a common framework for customer-facing teams and a seamless customer experience.

Balancing global best practices with localized execution lets your sales teams navigate different communication styles and negotiation tactics while maintaining a unified approach to selling.

Develop A Plan To Make Your Sales Training Stick

Of course, sales training shouldn’t be viewed as a one-time event. Coaching is the support needed to reinforce the training and help reps implement it. According to Aberdeen Research, companies that provide real-time, deal-specific sales coaching increased revenue by 8.4% year-over-year—a 95% improvement over companies that didn’t deliver that level of coaching.

When coaching is enhanced by AI tools, even greater potential emerges. Research from my company, ValueSelling Associates, and Aberdeen Research shows that companies integrating AI into their sales training processes saw a 3.3x year-over-year growth in quota attainment compared to those using AI tools without sales training. On average, these companies shortened sales cycles by 56% and increased profit margin per customer by 118%.

Conclusion

I’m proud to say that two of our customers recently won the prestigious Stevie Award for “Global Sales Team of the Year.” The gold winner has offices in 21 countries, and the bronze winner has offices in 48 countries; both organizations worked closely with us to create sales training and coaching programs to help generate impressive, measurable success in global sales and revenue growth.

Another client contact of ours, a global marketing VP at a manufacturer of energy and water metering solutions that has expanded its sales training to include all revenue teams, said something that really resonated: “It’s easy to promise value. But it’s difficult to know what the value to the customer is unless those who sell the products and those who design and develop the products are on the same page.”

Ultimately, building a high-performing global sales culture requires strategic localization, a strong methodology and ongoing reinforcement. More than anything, ensure your enablement teams tailor training to cultural nuances, ensuring relevance and engagement. Next, anchor efforts in a proven sales methodology to maintain consistency across regions. Finally, prioritize coaching to reinforce learning and drive real-world application. Remember, sustainable success comes from a structured, adaptable approach that aligns teams, accelerates performance and delivers measurable business impact.

Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives.

 ​By Julie Thomas

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Julie Thomas, President & CEO of ValueSelling Associates and a noted speaker, author and consultant. Read Julie Thomas' full executive profile here.
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​Sales training isn't a one-and-done process; it's an ongoing investment in your team’s success. From onboarding new hires to refining skills for seasoned reps, the most effective sales organizations take a thoughtful, structured approach to enablement.

Below, 20 Forbes Business Development Council members share the best practices they use to keep their sales teams motivated and aligned with business goals. Follow their recommendations to boost your team's skills and effectiveness.

1. Have Each Employee Train The Next New Hire

Train your first hire thoroughly, then have them train the second hire while you observe and evaluate. Continue this chain with each new hire training the next, with the previous trainee evaluating. This approach ensures that knowledge is properly transferred and reinforced, as teaching others demonstrates true understanding. This method creates a sustainable system while maintaining consistent quality across the team. - Vipin Thomas, SparrowGenie

2. Incorporate Customer Feedback And Market Trends

Institutionalizing customer feedback and relevant market perspectives is key to being a great sales organization. Successful sales organizations understand their customers' pain points, lead with questions instead of solutions and are equipped with overall market context information to have a relevant and meaningful conversation with potential buyers. - Jojo Duttaroy, EY

3. Have Top Performers Share Their Own Best Practices

Sales teams are inherently competitive by nature and they learn heavily on the job and through practice. They all aspire to crush their quotas and make more money. To this end, learning from their colleagues by creating forums where the best teams share their own best practices is a very effective way to land key messages and train the broader organization. - Anjai Lal, Google Cloud

4. Customize Training With Real-World Scenarios And Expert Input

One best practice is to tailor training to your sales team’s specific needs, using real-world scenarios and role-playing. Incorporate ongoing coaching, leverage data from CRM tools to identify gaps and bring in industry experts for insights. This keeps skills sharp, relevant and aligned with current market demands, boosting performance effectively. - Tomer Warschauer Nuni, Kima Network

5. Use Practical Examples From Real Customers

The best way a sales team learns is through practical examples. Showcasing the business pain a customer was looking to solve and how the product/service tackled it is pivotal. Instead of focusing on feature parity and market validation, teach your team that the best selling happens when people want to work with other people through trust and customer validation. - Olga Lykova, monday.co

6. Offer Formal, Centralized Training Programs

Have a rigorous, formalized, classroom-type training program for new hires, quarterly training for seasoned sellers on changing paradigms and new technology (like CoPilot, AI and more) and mandatory, on-demand online training. It is most critical to ensure that all trainings are cataloged in one place. This can help build a sales force of the future - Ruchir Nath, Dell Technologies

7. Hire People Who Are Passionate And Eager To Grow

Hire the right people first—those passionate about the client, product and industry with a strong desire to learn and grow. Then, implement a continuous, structured learning program with hands-on coaching, real-world scenarios and data-driven feedback. Ensure dedicated team members own sales enablement and learning to drive consistency, skill development and long-term success. - Amit Ashkenazi, Artlist

8. Create Solution-Focused Training Environments

Create "solution sandboxes" where reps solve client problems with peers coaching in real-time, not just scripted role-plays. When training shifts from knowledge transfer to decision-making under pressure, you build sales muscle memory that works with real customers. Link training directly to what's happening on actual calls. - Sidharth Ramsinghaney, Twilio

9. Leverage AI To Deliver Personalized, Adaptive Training

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest, so cultivate a perpetual learning ethos by leveraging AI for tailored coaching, real-time intelligence and adaptive instruction. This ensures sales teams remain agile and adept. Impart expertise in AI-powered tools that streamline, refine and elevate productivity. Continuously update training with AI innovations to enhance efficiency and performance. - Praneeth Kudithipudi, Sacumen

10. Combine Scenario-Based Learning With Peer And Mentor Feedback

Establish a perpetual transformation culture by combining scenario-based training with peer and mentor feedback. This ensures that knowledge sticks, fosters adaptability and boosts sales excellence. Real-time practice and relevant sessions empower teams to handle evolving challenges effectively, leading to lasting growth and performance. Dynamic development motivates teams to exceed targets. - Kiran Yelamaneni, TCS

11. Incorporate Peer Learning And Real-Time Coaching

One best practice is to create a continuous learning culture by blending structured training with real-time coaching, peer learning and practical application. Combine formal workshops, role-playing and e-learning modules with ongoing feedback and collaborative knowledge sharing, ensuring training stays relevant, actionable and evolves with changing customer needs and market trends. - Aziz Jafri, Reckitt

12. Have The Right Mindset About Enablement

Enablement is the magic word here. Many leaders think of enablement as a simple support role when they need to prioritize enablement as a strategic, transformational lever for their business. When done right, enablement becomes so much more than sales training—it can shorten ramp times, increase win rates and drive real business impact that brings out the best in their sales reps. - Toby Carrington, Seismic

13. Let Your Sales Team Shape The Learning Process

The best practice is to treat training as a continuous process, not a one-time event. Markets, clients and environments evolve constantly. Stay vigilant, adapt regularly and involve sales teams in shaping learning. Create space for them to ask questions, even anonymously, to address reservations and ensure training stays relevant and impactful. - Anna Jankowska, RTB House

14. Encourage Shadowing And Client Feedback

Foster ongoing learning by encouraging sales teams to shadow top performers, gather client feedback and adapt training based on real-world insights. Continuous improvement, shaped by both wins and losses, keeps training relevant. Training is not one-and-done. Build regular development opportunities and seek external insights for fresh ideas. - Alexander Masters, MBA, BIDA, Siemens

15. Have Leadership Set The Example

Our sales leadership set a fantastic example, offering hands-on support and leading by example to ensure the team is poised for success. Be present and participate in client meetings for the best training. This enables junior sellers to learn how to handle sales objections and position products consistently and accordingly. This can also inspire effective strategies to help the best sellers train others. - Michael Della Penna, InMarket

16. Use Recordings And Weekly Training Sessions To Reinforce Skills

Work with your top rep to build weekly training on the market, product, ICP, competitors and sales tactics. Reps should record demos for feedback. Start with small accounts before mid-market and enterprise. Give one to three months to ramp up to full quota. Regularly audit and update training materials to keep them fresh and aligned with strategy. - Raviraj Hegde, Donorbox

17. Identify Areas To Provide Individual Support

Establish regular coaching and feedback sessions, reviewing recordings of past client interactions. Foster continuous learning on industry trends and encourage thought leadership discussions to build subject matter experts. Share performance data periodically, covering pipeline management, deal close rates and revenue targets, and identify areas where individual support is needed for improvement. - Jayant Walia, Gainbridge

18. Train For Execution

Train for execution, not just knowledge. Sales training should be hands-on, strategically aligned and reinforced through sales enablement tools. Role-play real scenarios, drill objections and refine messaging—then back it up with AI insights, content libraries and coaching nudges in the flow of work. When training, enablement and strategy align, reps adapt faster and close with confidence. - Michael Fritsch, Smarter Operations

19. Work With Your Team During Live Walkthroughs

One best practice is to work closely alongside your sales team during live walkthrough sessions. By reviewing each case in detail and discussing the rationale behind every decision, you create an interactive training environment that enables your team to learn, adapt and master effective sales closure techniques. - Suhail Syed, Vesper Telecom
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20. Align Training With Broader Business Goals
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​Align training with business goals such as increasing revenue, expanding product offerings and entering new markets. Partner with leading business schools to deliver targeted training to the right audience at the right time, ensuring alignment with business objectives. Regularly measure the ROI of training programs and update content accordingly to enhance effectiveness and relevance. - Salice Thomas, Wipro Limited

ByExpert Panel®
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