Table of Contents
Learning & Development teams training salespeople are working in a brave new world. Since the pandemic, most sales teams remained either fully or partially remote, so they need new tactics and methods. Sales representatives are still seeing swift turnover, so many enterprises are having to onboard new talent more often, and more quickly, than ever before.
Buyer expectations have also changed. Digital sales and the rise of the self-led purchase journey have also brought changes to the typical sales path, and demand that sales employees acquire new skills.
At the same time, the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought new tools, new strategies, and new workflows to the sales process. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024, acquiring AI skills is a top priority for employees. The ways we onboard, upskills, and retrain sales teams are all in flux, upping the pressure on L&D personnel.
The silver lining is that L&D budgets are still growing to accommodate these needs. Tech stacks recently began expanding again and L&D is a priority. The Insight Partners 2024 State of Enterprise Tech report showed that 51% of business leaders say that L&D is top of the list for tech spending, up from 29% in 2023, and 65% say the same about employee performance, rising from 36% in 2023.
So what can you expect to see L&D teams doing to adapt to the new reality? Here are 9 trends in L&D for sales teams to prepare for.
Digital learning draws on technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to bring newly effective and engaging training experiences. With digital training, you can offer a mix-and-match of different learning modalities that includes live and real time, on demand, mobile-first learning, interactive experiences, and more.
Digital sales training software allows you to offer fun learning options like:
Making learning enjoyable moves your sales training a million miles away from dry frontal learning and actually attracts salespeople to want to complete a certification program.
Our client Zoom demonstrated this perfectly when it certified its entire global sales force without having to twist a single elbow.
“With Second Nature we completely gamified our certification process, and we have a 100% completion rate. 100%. Even we were amazed.” – says Mike Fisher, Enterprise Sales Productivity and Enablement at Zoom.
Find Out How Zoom Leverages AI to Scale Sales Certification
Now that the vast majority of sellers are remote or hybrid, training has to meet them where and when they are available, which requires the flexibility of digital learning. Leveraging education and upskilling platforms that use AI and digital interactions allows L&D leadership to offer remote training that’s every bit as engaging as in-office experiences.
What’s more, digital training allows you to lead team building exercises that bond remote workers into a connected unit.
For example, Second Nature offers team-based leaderboards where each member’s score affects the team total. This helps overcome the isolation that can often affect employees who work from home.
Once training is no longer frontal and classroom-based, you can also make it available on demand. Offer bite-size training sessions that employees can easily complete in between tasks and whenever they feel the need to refresh specific skills.
For example, Second Nature’s AI-based sales coaching platform invites sales employees to practice cold calls, objection handling, sales pitches, and other sales conversations whenever they like. The AI simulation partner is always available, no matter what time it is or where they are located.
There’s a growing realization that onboarding, training, and knowledge goals need to be aligned with business objectives. We’re seeing this already in the way that sales enablement personnel are gaining a seat at the table with sales leaders, so that sales training strategies and sales strategies work together.
L&D executives are moving in the same direction. In March 2021, 63% of L&D executives agreed that learning has a seat at the business table, compared with 24% in March 2020. Once L&D teams are more intimately familiar with broader business challenges and concerns, they are able to make sales training more relevant and effective.
Personalized or adaptive learning helps improve organizational and individual performance, but it’s only possible with a foundation of reliable and accurate data. AI sales coaching and training platforms like Second Nature gather data about each employee’s progress, learning style, strengths and weaknesses, and more, together with powerful analytics that deliver actionable insights to make your L&D programs more effective.
Second Nature can:
In this way, sellers consistently strengthen their weak points and work on the skills they most need to improve.
We all learn better when we learn together. Research has found that not only it is more enjoyable to learn as part of a team, it’s also more effective. BCG describes social learning as our “superpower” – and one that can drive a competitive advantage.
Once again, advanced tech like AI makes this possible even for remote and disparate sales teams. Digital learning platforms enable immersive experiences through augmented reality (AR) headsets that can make scattered sellers feel like they are all in the same room. Use tools like
All of these are to enhance the feeling of connection.
Converting sales enablement playbooks and messaging into actual sales conversations has always been a challenge. In 2025, we’re seeing L&D teams find new ways to track, measure, and prove ROI on these achievements.
Digital training platforms and AI for learning and development go a long way to help. At Second Nature makes a difference in a number of ways:
For decades there’s been no practical way to teach sales employees soft skills like reflective listening or identifying pain points in a prospect’s conversation, or even to teach sales managers how to effectively coach and improve the sales performance of their team.
But AI-powered simulations and immersive learning made it possible. AR headsets and AI role play persona like Second Nature’s diverse avatars allow managers to practice coaching a new salesperson, for example. Second Nature scores sellers both on their hard knowledge of the company value proposition and product features, and for soft skills like how quickly they talk and how many filler words they use.
As the sales coaching environment changes, sales training coaching, and L&D practices are keeping pace. By embracing digital, on-demand, personalized training that incorporates fun and social learning, is aligned with business goals, and trains for soft skills, L&D teams can deliver sales training programs that are engaging and effective, helping boost profitability across the board.
Second Nature offers a digital training platform that uses AI to deliver interactive, engaging training experiences. The easy-to-use session editor enables you to create new sessions in just a few clicks using existing material like:
Each empower you to adapt your L&D content to any situation.
Our role play personas are always ready to conduct a practice conversation and deliver timely, actionable feedback that strengthens users’ soft skills, sales capabilities, and product knowledge.
Second Nature supports personalized training that employees actually enjoy, with dynamic leaderboards to encourage friendly competition. The built-in analytics provides valuable insights into areas of weakness that you need to focus on, which employees need extra support, and your state of sales readiness, so you can make strategic decisions about learning, development, and sales. With Second Nature, you can ensure your L&D programs stay ahead of the trend, keep employees engaged and motivated, and effectively drive performance.
Sales learning and development means helping sales professionals to enhance their skills, knowledge, and capabilities in order to improve their effectiveness in generating revenue. It involves continuous training, coaching, and mentoring.
There are many ways that technology can improve sales learning and training experiences:
Sales professionals have to continuously update their skills and knowledge to keep pace with constant changes in customer preferences, market trends, and competition. A continuous learning culture fosters adaptability, innovation, and growth in this an ever-evolving marketplace, encouraging teams to embrace new technologies, strategies, and best practices.
See Second Nature for yourself
AI Training News Q3 2025
Why Role Play Is Sales Enablement’s Secret Weapon
About the Author
More great blogs
Working in sales leadership is like running up the down escalator - there’s no such thing as standing still. If you don’t keep moving…
Closing deals and meeting sales quotas is always challenging. The right sales frameworks set your sales teams up for success and give them the…
If you’re one of the many enterprises adopting a new platform, tool, or solution that relies on artificial intelligence (AI), you’ve probably discovered that…