Why Generic Sales Training Makes You Worse at Selling

I don't think people realize just how bad some of the popular sales training is out there.

It literally makes you WORSE at selling because it directs you to focus your efforst on pulling the WRONG levers.

Think about what that claim ACTUALLY means for a second.

If the blueprint works in ANY industry...

that means it WASN'T built for YOUR industry.

Not your niche. Not your offer. Not your buyer. Not your price point.

And CERTIANLY not the way your market compares options and makes decisions.

It was built for ONE thing: being SELLABLE to the largest number of people possible.

"Universal" is defined as being applicable to all in every sitution.

And in order to be that, it HAS to be generic.

Can't have your cake and eat it too, here.

Futhermore.

The way these types of run-of-the-mill "trainings" are BUILT is from the [often very narrorw] experience of the gooroo themselves.

No sales trainer has sold in "every industry".

It's physical impossible.

They do really well in 1-2 specific industries (and I'll give them the credit for their success) and thats how they gain their popularity.

Then they take what clearly worked for THEM, strip out what actually made them effective, packaged it up, mass produced it to work for everything.

What they're selling is a SHELL of what works. Not what ACTUALLY works.

Because what works for them in their industry is hyper nuanced and CAN'T to the degree it needs to, work for everyone else.

So they strip out the extremely nuanced, contextual, proprietary, only-applies-to-the-industry-they-crushed-it-in stuff because DUH, that stuff doesn't apply to everyone.

And what's left is broad principles.

Which, speaking of principles, isn't INHERENTLY wrong.

Principles are fine. Principles ARE universal and we should learn them.

The problem is these trainings teach the principles like they're RULES.

A true principle requires judgment. It gets applied differently depending on the industry, the buyer, the offer and all the other variables involved.

A rule just gets followed. "Say A when they say B."

And judgment is a lot harder to package in a course module than rules.

And think about this for a second.

How do you train someone on sales without getting ANY information from them first?

Who they're selling to. What the offer is. How their buyers actually make decisions.

Real training requires INPUTS.

A pre-recorded course module has none. It was finished before you ever showed up.

"Training" that never asks you a single question about your situation isn't training. It's a broadcast.

A training stripped of all the specifics still has to anchor to SOMETHING.

And the ONLY thing that is actually dead nuts "univerisal" is the human being.

Which is why, in practice, their training gets aimed at the variables that are consistant accross the board..

AKA, people's EMOTION.

Let that sink in for a second.

They are teaching what applies to everyone.

Which is WHY the vast majority of sales training is all based on manipulative, commodizied word tracks and leading question sequences.

It's also the reason people hate sales people and don't trust us.

We're being trainined to twist and mangle people's emotions, like thats the lever to pull.

It's not.

People say people make emotional decisions and justify with logic.

Chicken or the egg on that one, but I'll allow it for the sake of this argument.

IF that is true.

WHY in the ever living crap do we LEAVE out the freaking logic?

You can't say "say A when someone says B".

Even by YOUR OWN model, the buyer needs the logic to justify the decision.

Remove it, and you get closes that don't stick.

If the logic is sound. And the buyer is the right fit. The emotion will follow.

We can't help but be emotional. It's in our nature.

But there really isn't a need to aggitate the emotions.

People's emotions are what brought them to you to begining with. They have a problem and want it solved.

So our JOB as companies providing transformational servies to our audience is to provide the LOGIC. To EDUCATE.

Twisting the knife was never the job.

And wildly enough...the knife actually get's twisted THROUGH the education.

When someone starts to see the FACTS of how their situation is actually affecting their life or business, they will become even more emotionally agitated naturally.

Because now, because the company and sales rep they are speaking to is adding REAL data to their situation in a way they likely haven't fully unpacked yet, they're seeing this is actually a bigger problem then they tought it was.

And if they don't? No worries the problem really isn't that big of a deal to them. they TOUGHT they wanted to fix it, but the cost of change is too high. And thats totally fine.

People, with the right information, CAN make those calls for themselves.

So, drop the feeelings-based selling. And work to ensure that the potential buyer has been given the COLD HARD TRUTH.

Which, as domain experts with deep knowledge and undertanding of our industry, we should be able to provide to them.

Remeber, "sales" is not an indsutrty. You're not "in sales". You're IN whatever industry you sell in.

Which means you need to KNOW the ins and outs of that industry.

IF you beleive the lie that you are "in sales", then all you learn is exactly what these gooroos try to teach you. "Catch-alls that work anywhere."

Impossible.

No conversation is the same.

And when you try to MAKE them the same, they no longer become conversations. They become wierd, peformative, b-roll movies scenes where we spend more time trying to create the ILLUSION that it's a not pre-scrippted but a natrual converstaion, then actually having one.

20% close rates, refund rates, and complete LACK of proof the people we are closing are getting what tehy paid for... is the proof this type of "works anywhere" training is not working.

We're playing cat and mouse with prospects, new ways to say the same thing, destroy the trust of buyers as they start to resist, then come up with MORE new ways to counteract the very problem we created by NOT just giving people the freaking ANSWERS TO THEIR QUESTIONS.

We're failing our buyers SO hard by not being domain experts.

When you can't get asked a question that you don't know the REAL answer to, thats how you earn the full trust of the buyer.

The TRUTH is extreamly attrative, and its VERY convicning.

Buyers want the truth. They want to really understand what they are about to do.

I genuinely can't understand why these cats dumb down what they've actually been successful at doing.

Well. Other than greed.

If you crush in an industry, teach in THAT industry.

But no, we'd rather teach robotic "sales speak".

Sales is a CRAFT.

And no, the craft is not "frame" or having the "right tone". Please.

It's being able to GUIDE your prosepcts through their buying decision.

And how effective are you really if all you're ding is trying to get them to FEEL like making a change, rather than KNOWING they need to make a change?

Uncertainty is why many don't buy. They are uncertain becase we're selling them using TACTICS that were not made to serve them because they weren't DESIGNED for them.

Thats why generic sales training is an absolute WASTE of your money.

Pay the guy who's been in the industry you want to sell in a little bit longer for some domain training.

Use AI to become DANGEROUS on your domain, not at the latest stupid quips.

Learn from someone who can provude REAL insights into what the buyers are actually doing.

Buyers want to know you UNDERSTAND THEM.

And you might undestand them at an emotional level, sure.

But without the LOGIC (aka tailored, industry specific information relevent to the buyers specific situation), all we're doing is tugging on people's heart strings.

Which unfortunately is not real selling.

The stuff that actually moves close rates is the stuff that's DIFFERNT for every single offer. Which means it CAN'T be packaged. It can't be duplicated 10,000 times. It CAN'T be sold in a $5k course module.

So they don't sell that. They sell the blueprint.

The "any industry" pitch tells you exactly what you're buying: training that makes you just like literally everyone else who bought it.

Avoid.