All learning is not equal. Sometimes, the information is absorbed and immediately forgotten, as if we never learned anything in the first place.
Other times, it completely transforms our way of being.
What about learning can cause it to exist in two different extremes from one time to the next?
What determines whether the learning leaves us the same or transforms us?
The deciding factor is the brain. All learning has the potential to change us, but only learning that causes deep, structural change in the brain can lead to real transformation.
Sales Training that Changes Behavior
When it comes to training your sales team, you’re looking for the type of learning that causes transformative change. After all, why would you invest in a sales training program whose key concepts are absorbed by your sales reps and then immediately forgotten?
Training of that type certainly won’t cause your sales reps to change their selling behaviors.
If the training program doesn’t produce structural changes in multiple areas of your sales reps’ brains, they will return to the field and sell the same way they did before training.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what you need to do to ensure the training program in which you invest will cause physical change in your sales reps’ brains and, therefore, transformative change—because anything else would be a waste of your reps’ time and your company’s money.
To answer your question, we point to studies on neurological science.
How the Brain Learns
The cortex is the area of the brain most associated with cognition. Within the cortex is the neocortex, which has separate areas for sensory, association, and motor functions.
These are the functions most pertinent to how the brain learns. Within the neocortex and throughout the brain are millions of cells called neurons. These neurons branch out to one another and connect to form synapses.
The neurons send signals to each other across synapses to transmit information throughout the body.
As people learn new information, the signaling that occurs between neurons increases. This increase in signaling causes the neurons to generate new branches, increasing the density of cellular material in the brain.
As the density of the cellular material in the brain grows, the neurons enhance their ability to connect with other neurons to form more synapses.
As people learn new information, their brains physically grow! But there’s more. This cellular growth only occurs in the areas of the neocortex that are being used.
In other words, if the neocortex isn’t deeply engaged during learning, no physical changes or growth will occur in the brain. This suggests that learning is powerful and long-lasting in proportion to the number of neocortical regions engaged during the learning experience.
The Training Method that Produces Neocortical Change and Deep Learning
If you want your sales training program to permanently change how your sales reps sell, it must involve the four regions of their neocortex.
Here, we introduce Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, a learning theory that articulates the inseparable nature of learning and experience.
This theory is founded on the fact that humans have the unique ability to learn from experience.
Experiential learning occurs in four stages:
- A person engages in some experience (gathering)
- Looks back at the activity critically (reflecting)
- Abstracts some useful insight from the analysis (creating)
- Puts the result to work (testing)
To transform the behavior of your sales reps, your sales training must change all four regions of your sales reps’ neocortex. The only way to change your rep’s brains in such a way is to train them following the experiential learning cycle.
The Four Steps of the Experiential Learning Cycle
The experiential learning cycle must start with an experience from which to gather information.
Since experiential learning cannot occur without an experience, the experiential learning cycle naturally fits best in a face-to-face setting where participants can absorb an experience with all five senses.
The involvement of all five senses that result from a face-to-face setting leads to the creation of new neuron branches in the neocortex—which, as discussed, is the first step to creating behavior change.
Without the multi-sensory, live experience that a face-to-face setting provides for gathering information, the brain cannot change as extensively as it needs to produce lasting behavior change.
After gathering information through experience, the experiential learning cycle moves to the steps of reflection and analysis.
It is impossible for reflection and analysis to be thoroughly performed in the absence of dialogue and conversation. In fact, conversation and dialogue are so integral to the experiential learning cycle that Kolb, as part of his Experiential Learning Theory, states the importance of conversation in the learning experience: “Conversational learning that embraces differences as a source of new understanding and questions previous assumptions and prejudices can be called deep learning.”
When it comes to training your sales team, it is imperative that you ensure opportunities for dialogue and conversation are fundamentally woven into the training.
The final phase of the experiential learning cycle is testing.
Testing in the context of experiential learning means allowing learners to immediately put what they learned to work. When it comes to testing, individuals are more likely to implement their planned applications if shared with others.
The best way to create a shared testing environment that leads to real-world implementation is through face-to-face, in-person role plays.
Role-playing offers a vehicle for delivering theory input in an engaging and stimulating way relevant to real-world problem situations.
In sales training, face-to-face role plays are the most effective way to ensure your sales reps cement their new selling behaviors.
In Summary
To produce lasting behavior change, you must change all four regions of the brain’s neocortex.
This is done through experiential learning, which involves conversation and dialogue to produce deep learning.
To transform your reps’ selling behaviors, you must train them in a way that produces physical change to the structure of their neocortex.
Face-to-face experiential learning is the one learning method that is most precisely aligned with how the neocortex functions and, therefore, produces the most structural change in the brain.
Experiential learning allows for your reps to:
- Gather information from a multi-sensory training experience. This creates a structural change in the brain’s sensory region.
- Analyze the experience through conversation and dialogue with others (facilitators and fellow training participants) to eliminate the existing brain connections driving their current selling behaviors. This creates structural change in the brain’s back-integrative and front-integrative areas.
- Test their new learning in the presence of others for real-world problem-solving. This creates a change in the brain’s motor area.
Sales training that is not aligned with brain science won’t change your reps’ selling behaviors because it won’t physically change the structure of their brains.
To get the most out of your sales training program and to create actual behavior change in how your reps sell, you must ensure that your sales training follows a face-to-face, experiential learning approach.
The Carew Approach to Sales Training
Carew is dedicated to creating lasting behavior change and sales performance improvement on your sales team. Neuroscience proves that the only way to do this is to physically change the brain’s structure.
This is why Carew sales training programs are based on the science behind how the brain learns. Our sales training programs:
- Physically eliminate the connections in your sales reps’ brains that define their current selling behaviors.
- Replace the old brain connections with new ones to permanently change your reps’ selling behaviors. The finest sales and adult education experts in the industry facilitate this change.
The result? Your sales reps don’t leave Carew sales training with an idea of what they should do to sell better.
Instead, they leave with changed selling behaviors they can immediately begin to practice in the field.
