Training = Trust: Is Your Sales Game Strong Enough?

Teachers, police officers, pilots, firefighters, vets, nurses, and doctors consistently top the list of the most trusted professionals. But what do they all have in common? A deep commitment to continuous training. The more they train, the more they hone their skills, build their knowledge, and get better at performing their duties, no matter the challenge.

And it’s this training that creates a snowball effect. The more they learn, the more confident they become. The more confident they are, the more trust they earn from their communities and clients. That’s why we trust them. They’ve trained, they’ve invested, and they’ve earned that trust. And this trust doesn’t just appear; it’s earned through deliberate and constant action.

Training & Trust: The Key Ingredients of Success

To be trusted, you have to be competent. And to be competent, you must train. It’s simple.

So, here’s the question you need to ask yourself, especially if you’re in rural sales: How much time are you committing to your training?

Think about it. The most trusted professionals in the world spend years building their knowledge base and skillset. They dedicate themselves to training, constantly pushing the boundaries of what they know. So, how do you measure up?

• Do you have a structured training plan or a budget allocated for your professional development?

• When was the last time you committed to learning something new to improve your skills?

• What have you learned recently, and how have you applied that knowledge?

• Have you reinforced your learning consistently so it becomes second nature?

• How often do you share your learnings with your team to elevate their performance?

If the answer to any of these questions is “not enough” or “I haven’t lately,” then you’re missing the boat. Because in the world of rural sales, if you’re not actively training, you’re falling behind.

Training Isn’t Just an Option – It’s a Necessity

Let’s get one thing straight. If you want to be trusted, you have to train. And no one in any other profession worth their salt would allow you to just “wing it.” Teachers don’t teach without being trained. Doctors don’t perform surgeries without years of education and training. Architects don’t design buildings without years of preparation.

So why, then, are rural salespeople not given the same expectation? How can we trust rural salespeople to meet targets and deliver results when they aren’t consistently trained?

Would we ever let a doctor operate without rigorous training and residency? Would we trust a teacher to educate our children if they hadn’t been thoroughly trained? No. So why do we allow rural sales professionals to go untrained, with no dedicated support or development?

Your Business Will Pay the Price

Here’s the risk you run if you don’t invest in your training: You won’t improve. Plain and simple. You’ll get stuck. Your sales will plateau, and worse, they might even start to drop.

Your business will see rising operating costs while your sales stagnate. The consequences of not investing in training are significant, even if the stakes aren’t as high as saving lives. In the world of business, every lost sale is a missed opportunity and a step toward irrelevance.

Training keeps you ahead of the game, it keeps you competitive, and it keeps your business relevant. Without it, you risk falling behind your competition—silent competitors who are committing to their own growth, leaving you to play catch-up.

The Corporate Athlete: Training = Performance

There’s a great concept I recently came across in an article from Harvard Business Review called The Making of a Corporate Athlete by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. It discusses the irony of executives and athletes when it comes to training. Athletes train 95% of the time and perform 5%. Executives, however, perform 95% of the time but train only 5%.

That’s the difference between those who win and those who fade into the background. The best athletes know that training is what gets them to the top. Executives—just like rural salespeople—must also make training a priority. But we often fall short in this department.

The consequences? You risk becoming obsolete. You might not feel the burn just yet, but I guarantee that your competitors who train consistently are silently passing you by. And by the time you wake up to this reality, it might be too late. Your share of the market could be lost, one sale at a time.

Commit to Training or Risk Becoming Obsolete

If you want to remain relevant in your business, you need to commit to continuous training. Your profession demands it. Your competition is doing it. And if you want to stay ahead, you need to do it too.

Doctors train. Teachers train. Nurses train. And so should you. Continuous improvement is the key to remaining successful. You have to train to build trust, and trust is the foundation of every sale.

Training = Trust. Trust = Sales.

Trust is everything in sales. You know it, and your customers know it too. The more you train, the more confidence you build. That confidence creates trust—and that trust will directly impact your sales.

When you invest in yourself and your skills, you become more valuable not just to yourself, but to your clients. When you trust yourself, your customers will trust you too. And that’s when the real sales magic happens.