How do you know the sales training was used?

I've delivered enough sales training to know how misleading a brilliant workshop can be. Everyone contributes, the exercises land, the feedback is positive and people leave with good intentions. Then Monday arrives. There's a forecast to update, customers to call and a backlog of work. The new skill has to compete with years of habit.

That's why I'd be very wary of declaring success on the strength of the room. Training is the intervention. The result is what people do differently afterwards. If nobody has planned the follow-through, you're relying on enthusiasm surviving a normal working week.

The useful question comes after the workshop: what changed in the next customer conversation?

A satisfaction score tells you whether people liked the experience. A knowledge test tells you whether they can recall an idea. Neither proves they can apply it with a real buyer who interrupts, objects or changes the subject.

Revenue matters, but it's a difficult measure to attribute to one workshop. Markets move, deals slip and all sorts of things happen between a conversation and a closed deal. The evidence I'd start with is closer to the skill: what people actually said and did before and after the training.

Decide what you want to change before you design the session. 'Improve discovery' is too broad. Perhaps sellers aren't exploring the cost of doing nothing, or they're accepting vague next steps. Those are behaviours you can listen for, practise and coach.

• You have named one or two specific skills to change, something narrower than 'better discovery' or 'more confidence'.
• You have written what good looks like for each skill, in plain words a manager could use to score a real call.
• You have reviewed a sample of recent conversations to see how often the skill appears today. That is your baseline.
• The scenarios used in training come from your real buyers, your real objections and your real sales situations.
• Every manager knows their role after the session, and has time booked in the diary to do it.
• You have agreed when you will review progress and what you will look at, before the training starts.

• People practise, out loud, more than they listen. Hearing about a skill and using it are different experiences.
• Practice uses situations your team will meet this month, specific to your own industry.
• Each person leaves with one specific thing to try on their next relevant call, written down.
• Managers attend, or are briefed afterwards on exactly what was taught and how to recognise it on a call.
• The group agrees what support they need in the following weeks, so the group expects reinforcement in advance.

Agree what good sounds like, review a sample of real conversations and brief the managers. If the manager doesn't know the standard or hasn't made time to reinforce it, the workshop is carrying far too much responsibility.

• Managers review real calls against the same standard within the first 2 weeks, while the session is still fresh.
• Coaching conversations reference the specific skill, with a moment from the call as the evidence.
• People get another chance to practise the parts they found difficult, instead of being left to work it out alone.
• You review a fresh sample of conversations at the agreed point and compare it honestly with the baseline.
• You report where the skill now appears, where it does not and what support is needed next.
• The standard is updated if real calls show it was unclear, unrealistic or missing something important.

During the session, people need to practise out loud. They need to make mistakes somewhere safe, receive useful feedback and try again. Listening to somebody explain a technique is not the same as using it under pressure.

Afterwards, managers should be able to point to a specific moment in a real call and discuss it with the seller. Was the skill attempted? What happened? What could they try next time? That's coaching with something tangible behind it.