Sales Education Is More Important Than Sales Training

It’s a Snow Day here in NYC. The bad weather seems to be following me around the country...

There’s an essential difference between Sales Education and sales training. Do you know what that is?

(Aside from the fact that training too often is boring and CEOs, managers and sellers too often think it’s a waste of time and money...)

Sales training is primarily concerned with the “how” of selling. Sales education is about the “why.”

Education provides a seller with the context to effectively put into use what s/he has learned in sales training.

In fact, sales training is incomplete without sales education.

It’s why I built The Sales House.

To help sales professionals like you learn the essential human skills, critical thinking skills, behaviors and habits you need to put your training to effective use.

Too often I have worked with sellers and sales managers that are well drilled in a process and methodology; but are unable to think their ways through difficult sales situations.

They know the “how.” Just not the “why.” They need education.

Sales reps and sales managers need more sales education.

Training is all about what the sales process and what the sales rep does.

Sales education focuses on the buyer’s process and the critical ways it should shape how you sell. How do they gather information? How do they make decisions? And how do these influence the strategies a salesperson should employ to earn their business?

Sales training teaches fundamental and repeatable sales skills. For instance, how to handle objections.

However, it’s sales education that teaches the reasons why buyers raise certain objections in certain situations and what actions you should take in response.

Sales Ed keeps your skills fresh.

Sales training must continually be reinforced by sales education.

Without ongoing education and reinforcement, sales training has a short shelf life. In other words, the skills you learn in training become stale. And your personal development withers on the vine.

Sales education teaches sales reps to be mindful, thoughtful and deliberate and to treat each sales interaction with a prospect as a unique value-driven event.

Start incorporating “Sales Ed" into your sales training plans.

- Andy Paul