Although roughly half of the workforce will work in sales at one time or another, there is relatively little formal education on the topic. Thus, it’s necessary for sales enablement professionals to train salespeople to fill the existing knowledge gap. The Association for Talent Development (ATD) surveyed 227 sales enablement professionals to gain a clear understanding of the current state of sales training. ATD found that organizations spend an average of $954,070 on sales training every year. And they spend an average of $1,459 per salesperson annually—which is more than the average training expenditure per employee of $1,229 for workers in all functions, according to ATD’s 2015 State of the Industry.

Given that so much money is spent on sales training each year, it is essential to understand the barriers to effective training, the methods used to deliver training, and the frequency of sales training. The 2016 State of Sales Training also includes recommendations from experienced leaders in sales training and subject matter experts on how to overcome the most common challenges.

The full title for this report is 2016 State of Sales Training.