Although retail organizations vary in their approaches to sales training, most ultimately fall into the same trap of trying to get their sales staff to sell the right way. This goal meets with much resistance from salespeople for four basic reasons:

1. Some salespeople don't care about learning how to sell more. In most of these cases, the salespeople are not held accountable for their sales performance anyway, so their feeling is why bother? It seems to take too much effort to improve skills that they'll never get fired for not having.

2. Some salespeople feel that if they're not on commission, then it is a big waste of their time and energy to try to be a better salesperson.

3. Many others resist sales training because they perceive that management is trying to turn them into the pushy, aggressive, obnoxious salespeople that they themselves encounter when shopping.

4. Many veteran salespeople and/or top producers perceive sales training as an invalidation of the way they've been selling.

The first two reasons are valid. If you're not going to provide performance-based compensation and you're not holding salespeople accountable for minimum standards of sales performance, then why should they be motivated to learn how to sell more effectively?

The third reason is a common misconception by salespeople who don't understand that pushy salespeople are those who are motivated to sell but lack the skills and techniques to make the shopping experience pleasurable for the customer. If you can't communicate this point to your salespeople, you'll be fighting a losing battle.

Management's perception is that everyone can always improve. This may be true; but forcing salespeople to sell the right way is defeating the goal of sales training if you don't take into consideration each salesperson individually. Asking top producers to change their personal selling style that they know works may be counterproductive. So what is the ultimate goal?

Use Sales Training to Improve Sales Statistics

You may, in fact, be so determined for them to sell the way you believe to be better, that you get caught up in having them open the sale this way, probe that way, and on and on. You may be asking them to change what already works. Don't fix what isn't broken.

If top producers don't want to ask a probing question that you think is essential but write a terrific amount of sales every week, let them ask any probing question they want. The top salesperson in the store can't be better than the best. Sure, even the top salesperson can improve, but why concentrate your efforts there? You've got plenty of substandard performers that you should be focusing on instead. Get off the backs of your top performers and put your emphasis on your weakest links.

No salesperson with substandard performance can say it is unfair for you to hold them accountable for certain selling behaviors on the floor that you don't require from top producers. As soon as they become top producers, they don't have to take your advice either!

Just remember, salespeople are often not resisting sales training itself. Even if they're not compensated for sales, salespeople are human and want to do well. The root to their resistance is often the lack of acknowledgment for their past or current performance. So the challenge for store managers is not to give sales training, but to encourage salespeople to want to use sales training.