Humans are creatures of habit and to change a habit takes approximately 42 days.

Attending a half or a full-day training course is great fun. Attendees come away energised, excited and ready to implement the new things they’ve learned.

But then back in the office reality hits them: a full inbox, meetings piling up and a crisis or opportunity to manage.

Within a few days the energy has gone and the new learning is beginning to fade. After a couple of weeks, the residue of what they learned amounts to a few tips and hints.

Sometimes this is enough, but if you want to move your people to the next level it’s nowhere near enough. If you want sustained improvements then you must change your sales environment first.

Install new processes, put different measures in place and provide them with the latest tools and techniques.

This will generate a need to change that drives your training programme, which should then be delivered over several weeks using a combination of online videos plus 1-2-1 and group sessions.

Little and often is most effective.

Then measure what they’ve learned and, more importantly, what they’ve done with what they’ve learned.

If you want to be ahead of the game match your training to human nature.

The good news is most of your competitors won’t bother. It’s just too easy to send people on a training course and tick a box.