Sales Training Courses in Belfast and Northern Ireland
Shift Control designs and delivers sales training courses that are built to outlast the training day itself. Every programme pairs structured group training with one-to-one coaching, so new skills and habits get developed and used on real life situations, real calls and real deals – not just remembered until the following Monday.
Each programme is written and delivered by Paul McAnallen for both large Enterprise-scale teams and individual sales professionals from across the island of Ireland.
Every programme follows five stages, from first conversation to measured results. See how a programme runs.
The call I get most often
A business owner called last summer. Her team needed “a couple of days of training” – that was the ask. When I asked what was really behind it, her answer was simple: “My gut feel is we’re missing a trick.”
That’s usually where these conversations start. A dip in results. A top performer promoted to manager who was never actually taught how to coach. Margin eroding because the team’s back to competing on price instead of value. A new product, or a move into a new sector, that the old sales approach no longer fits.
Whatever the trigger, the instinct is almost always the same: book some training, get the team in a room, reset the energy. And it works – for a few days.
Why the training day alone doesn’t last
That’s not a criticism of training. It’s arithmetic.
Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve – first documented in 1885, and confirmed by decades of research since – shows we lose roughly half of anything we learn within an hour if nothing reinforces it. Sales-specific research bears this out: the Association for Talent Development, citing Gartner, found B2B sales reps forget 70% of training content within a week, and 87% within a month.
22% vs. 88%. Training alone lifted productivity by 22%. The same training followed by eight weeks of coaching lifted it by 88% – roughly four times the result, from the same starting material. (Olivero, Bane & Kopelman, Public Personnel Management, 1997)
It’s why 79% of high-performing sales organisations build structured reinforcement into every programme, against just 46% of everyone else. The gap between teams that improve and teams that plateau usually isn’t the training itself. It’s what happens after it.
Training built to be used, not just attended
That’s the shift in how I run sales training courses: every programme is designed as a system, not a single event. Group training gives the team a shared standard and a shared language. One-to-one coaching afterwards is what makes sure it actually gets used – on this week’s calls, this month’s pipeline, this quarter’s key accounts.
Coaching isn’t an add-on tier. It’s the part that makes the training worth the investment in the first place.
How a programme runs
Five stages, from first conversation to measured results.
- Diagnose. Before any content gets built, I look at the problem from three angles – the seller’s, the buyer’s, and the sales manager’s. What’s actually broken: skills, process, belief, or something else entirely? The free SHIFT sales diagnostic is a good place to start.
- Design. A programme built around what your team actually needs, not a generic deck delivered the same way to every business. Content, format and pace are matched to the people in the room.
- Deliver. Structured group training sessions that build a shared standard across the team – practical, not theoretical, and built to be used the following week.
- Coach. One-to-one and team coaching that embeds what was covered into real selling – real calls, real accounts, real deals, not a workbook that gets closed and forgotten.
- Review and sustain. Regular check-ins, 1:1s and business reviews that measure what’s actually changed, catch what isn’t landing, and keep improvement compounding instead of fading.
Who it’s for
I work with individual sales professionals, founder-led SMEs, and enterprise-scale organisations – anywhere a business depends on a sales team to grow, across sectors including automotive, business services, construction, energy, engineering, finance, fit-out, leisure, manufacturing, retail, waste management & recycling and wholesale.
What’s included
- Sales coaching. One-to-one and team coaching for sales professionals at every level.
- Blended training and coaching. The full programme – group sessions plus sustained one-to-one coaching, run as a single system.
- Sales strategy consulting. Clarifying process, messaging and team structure to match your growth goals.
- Workshops and keynotes. Interactive sessions on sales leadership and performance culture for offsites and team events.
Frequently asked questions
Why does sales training often fail to change results?
Most of what is taught is forgotten before it is used. Research cited by the Association for Talent Development found that B2B sales reps forget 70% of training content within a week and 87% within a month. Training fails when it is run as a one-off event with no follow-up. It works when the team practises the skills on real calls and gets coached on them afterwards.
Is sales training worth the investment?
It depends on what happens after the training. In one study (Olivero, Bane and Kopelman, 1997), training alone increased productivity by 22%. The same training followed by eight weeks of coaching increased it by 88%. Training on its own gives a small return. Training followed by coaching gives roughly four times as much.
How do I know if my team needs sales training or something else?
Falling sales results are not always a skills problem. The cause can be the sales process, pricing, how the team is managed, or confidence and belief. I look at the problem from three angles: the seller’s, the buyer’s and the sales manager’s. If the cause isn’t a training problem, I’ll tell you before you spend money on training.
What should a sales training course cover?
That should depend on what your team needs, not on a standard syllabus. Common areas include discovery and questioning, selling on value instead of price, managing a pipeline, handling objections and negotiating. For sales managers, it often includes how to coach their team. The content is set after the diagnosis stage, so the course covers the gaps your team actually has.
How long does it take to see results from sales training?
It depends on your sales cycle. Changes in how people sell can be seen during the coaching stage, as they apply the skills to live deals. Results such as conversion rates or average deal value take longer to show. We agree what to measure at the start and review it at regular points.
How do you measure the results of sales training?
Before the programme starts, we agree which figures matter to your business, for example conversion rates, average deal value, pipeline value or margin. We review those figures at set points during and after the programme. If something isn’t improving, we change the approach instead of continuing with the original plan.
What is the difference between sales training and sales coaching?
Sales training teaches a skill to a group, so the whole team works to the same standard. Sales coaching works with each person individually to help them use that skill with their own customers and deals. Training explains what to do. Coaching makes sure people actually do it. Programmes that combine the two produce much stronger results than training alone.
My best salesperson was promoted to sales manager. Can you help?
Yes. This is one of the most common situations I see. Top salespeople are often promoted without being taught how to manage or coach a team, so they fall back on telling people what to do or doing the selling themselves. Sales management coaching gives them the skills to develop their team. Read more: why most sales managers mentor when they should coach.
Do you offer one-off sales training days?
Yes. The content can be delivered as standalone sessions. However, the research above shows that training without follow-up coaching produces much smaller and shorter-lived results. If budget or timing only allows a single session, I’ll be clear about what that can realistically achieve.
Is there a cost for the initial conversation?
No. It’s a free, no-obligation consultation to understand what’s actually going on with your sales team before recommending anything. That conversation is also where we’re upfront if blended training and coaching genuinely isn’t the right fit — not every problem is a training problem, and part of the value of that first call is finding out which kind of problem you actually have.
Sales training with Shift Control: key facts
- Trainer and coach: Paul McAnallen
- Based in: Belfast, Northern Ireland
- Area covered: Northern Ireland and Ireland
- Format: structured group training followed by one-to-one and team coaching; standalone sessions available
- Who it is for: individual sales professionals, founder-led SMEs and enterprise sales teams
- Sectors: automotive, business services, construction, energy, engineering, finance, fit-out, leisure, manufacturing, retail, waste management and recycling, and wholesale
- How a programme runs: diagnose, design, deliver, coach, review and sustain
- First step: a free, no-obligation 30-minute call
Download THE SHIFT CONTROL GUIDE TO SALES TRAINING
The Shift Control Guide to Sales Training sets out what the research shows about training on its own and why a blended programme might be better suited to your team.
Book a call
Prefer to talk it through first? Book a 30-minute call directly into my calendar: