Why Are Most Sales Training Seminars So Boring?

Something every business professional in virtually every field can relate to, is having to suffer through an excruciatingly boring corporate sales training seminar.

We’ve all been there. The kind of seminar you anticipated attending with a positive attitude, ready to learn new skills and get motivated — but instead found yourself feeling sleepy, spaced out and not at all interested in what the speaker was saying. How did this happen?

Here are some of the most common reasons sales training seminars end up being so boring:

Boring Sales Speaker

It seems an obvious one, but something as simple as a speaker who doesn’t know how to talk to a crowd can singlehandedly put a seminar on track to snoozeville. A speaker at a corporate sales training seminar needs to have an engaging voice and presence.   They use stories, anecdotes and content relevant to the audience to make sure they have their full attention. (A joke here or there helps too, just stay away from the ‘knock knock’ variety. Corny is just as bad as boring)

Too Much Jargon

Another seemingly obvious reason is that the speaker is simply using words to hear themselves talk and isn’t being understood by the audience. Increasing ‘pipeline visibility’ and ‘win rates’ through ‘smart storming’ and ‘smarketing’ might sound very impressive to some, but the glazed-over faces of those not in the know should tell you something. The most effective sales seminar speakers use language and terms familiar to the employees they are trying to reach and don’t talk over them.

Doesn’t ‘Connect the Dots’

So, you have a great speaker who can relate to the crowd. However, this isn’t a formal lecture in a university, this is a sales training seminar. Contextualizing and customizing the content of a sales seminar to the specific needs of the employees allows them to see the value and future impact on their performance and the health of the business overall. We all want to see a boost in sales performance and if the audience can clearly see how the sales training seminar will assist them in doing so, they will be naturally interested.

Poor Presentation

Even with a great presenter, a poor presentation will have an audience reaching for their phones and daydreaming about lunch. Relevant information is all well and good but no one likes to listen to facts or theory for hours on end. Engaging directly with the audience, role playing exercises and multimedia such as slideshows or videos can break up the content and make it more interesting and more likely to be retained.

Wrong Audience

You’ve finally done it. You’ve got yourself a dynamic speaker who is clearly and concisely communicating relevant and interesting content to an audience in a fun, engaging style. There is just one problem. You sent the wrong employees to this sales training seminar.

Some employees will benefit greatly from top sales training programs and others will not. A few of those employees, can slow down the rest of the group and affect the overall rhythm and pace of the seminar because the content is not applicable to them.   Personality tests and employee evaluations are some of the ways to ensure the employees who will benefit most from a sales training will be in the audience.