Allego

Disconnect Between Sales Managers and Reps on Sales Training

A joint study by Allego and the Sales Management Association revealed a significant perception gap between sales managers and reps regarding the priority and effectiveness of sales training topics—managers favor value proposition communication and coaching methods like peer learning, while reps prioritize presentation skills and feel training falls short—with key improvement areas identified as micro-learning, salesperson practice, and sales enablement portals, alongside a notable lag in mobile-enabled training content adoption, highlighting opportunities for enhanced technology use to better support sales learning and collaboration.

Joint Study Reveals Disconnect Between Sales Managers and Reps on Training and Development

A joint study between Allego and the Sales Management Association (SMA) demonstrated a sizable perception gap between sales reps and managers regarding the importance of sales training topics and practices, as well as their firms’ effectiveness in delivering them. Key findings include:

  • Managers consider value proposition communication a higher priority training topic than salespeople, who prioritize presentation delivery and effectiveness.
  • Managers believe coaching (78%) and peer learning (73%) deliver the highest return on investment for sales enablement, while most reps feel the training offered by their organization falls short of expectations.

The study's findings were presented during a webinar on April 4, 2017.

Sales Training Improvement Priorities

The study identified three key opportunities for sales organizations to improve sales skills development:

  1. 1.Micro-learning
  2. 2.Salesperson practice
  3. 3.Sales enablement portals

These practices were ranked as most important by management but were also considered the least effectively utilized.

Bob Kelly, founder and chairman of the Sales Management Association, noted that most sales reps consider a greater portion of their learning to be self-directed, suggesting managers may underestimate how much salespeople seek out learning independently. The findings suggest there is ample room for technology tools that improve sales learning, foster better collaboration, and boost productivity.

Incomplete Transition to Mobile Learning

Technology improvement needs include not only sales enablement platforms but also mobile access to content. The study revealed:

  • About one-third (32%) of respondents’ firms have not implemented mobile access for salesperson training content.
  • Only 10% have fully implemented mobile-enabled training content.

Mark Magnacca, president of Allego, commented that many traditional learning tools used by managers are not having the assumed positive impact, and there remains a need for more peer-based, just-in-time learning. Allego’s mobile video sales learning platform aims to address these needs for both sales reps and managers.

Millennial Preferences

The survey found that age and experience influence preferences for sales training development practices:

  • Millennials (20-somethings) perceive role-play with manager feedback to be 33% more important than the average salesperson.
  • Millennials would like to spend 12% less time on in-classroom training.

As managers implement new training techniques, these age-based preferences are likely to play a larger role in sales organizations’ practices.

Additional Findings

  • A disconnect exists between managers and reps concerning learning and development: Salespeople perceive a greater portion of their learning and development time to be self-directed than management does.
  • Respondents’ ideal allocations of learning time suggest firms wish to slightly reduce reliance on online training (ideal time allocation is 17% of all learning time) and slightly increase coaching interactions (from 47% currently to 53%).
  • Only 16% of respondents rate gamification as effective in their organizations.
  • Both reps and managers agreed that self-directed training should be increased, while company-directed training should be decreased.
  • Managers view opportunity qualification as the highest priority area for improvement.

Survey Methodology

  • The research summarizes data from 260 respondents: 158 sales managers and 102 individual contributor salespeople.
  • Management respondents provided data on their firms’ practices; salespeople’s responses reflect their personal experience only.
  • Management respondents’ firms directly employ more than 83,000 sales professionals.
  • Data was collected in January and February 2017.

About Allego

Allego’s sales learning platform boosts sales performance by harnessing the power of mobile to transform enablement and training through video content sharing. With Allego’s mobile-first platform, organizations can create and curate the best content from the field and corporate office to better train and collaborate with distributed sales teams, without the time and expense typically associated with in-field coaching or on-site training. Users can easily access relevant, quality content anytime, anywhere, allowing them to capture their best ideas, master their pitch, and accelerate their performance. Tens of thousands of global users across a range of industries have adopted Allego to improve sales success. Explore further at www.allego.com.

Media Contacts

Allego
Allison Rynak
+1 781-400-2035 x22
arynak@allego.com

Matter
Alexandra Foley
+1 978-518-4558
allego@matternow.com