Understanding the enterprise sales training landscape

Sales training has always been viewed as an important tool for enhancing productivity. In our conversations with CXOs of startups regarding their sales problems, sales training almost invariably comes up as one of the top 3 things that is bothering them. 

However, sales and marketing consulting firms are one of the broad umbrella terms that cover a wide range of interventions. While the objective is to make sales representatives more effective, the type of intervention, trainer profile, mode of training varies significantly depending on the sales training. 

We’ve had a long held view on the effectiveness of sales training in general. More on that later. In this article, we will try to understand the various types of sales training interventions that organizations do.

To start with let’s look at the large buckets that constitute sales training in an organization:

• For Individual Contribution Roles

  Individual contribution roles, as the name suggests, are roles where sales representatives are directly selling to clients themselves. 

  1. Initial training: Every organization has a set of training sessions done with a sales representative when they join the organization. 
  2. Sales basic training: Some organizations hire fresh graduates or candidates without sales experience in previous roles. In such cases, they conduct training on sales basics for these first-time sales representatives.
  3. Refresher training: Periodic training sessions are done with the sales team to keep them updated on changes in product or other sales elements.
  4. Skill enhancement training: Specific interventions to improve skills in existing often tenured sales representatives. These interventions usually focus on one specific area of the sales cycle eg. Negotiations, Discovery, Closing skills, etc.  

• For Team Roles

  It’s hard to define specific training sessions for team management roles, these are the broad buckets where new skills are required: 

  1. Team management: Newly promoted individual contributors need training on how to handle a team, set & monitor performance, how to deal with low performers, how to train the team etc.  
  2. Lead management: Team roles require individuals to distribute & manage leads amongst the team in an efficient manner.
  3. Escalation management: As a sales manager, you’re expected to handle escalations arising out of your team and resolve them effectively
  4. Upskilling & coaching: Sales managers need to continuously upskill and coach their team members.
  5. Data analytics: Sales managers need to be capable of analyzing basic sales data to arrive at areas of improvement.

• For Sales Leaders

  A sales leader should be able to drive his team to achieve the goals set. This is a highly complex role which includes hiring & training, designing the organisation, identifying lead sources, targets & incentives, designing sales conversations, pricing and promotions etc. Needless to say, this can’t be addressed by merely trainings and we need a different approach to mentor sales leaders.

As you must have realized, this is a vast gamut. In the following sections we’ll focus on understanding the initial training for individual contribution roles. We’ll look at the key components of each sales training type, objectives and our recommendations on how organizations should go about this.

For Individual Contribution Roles

• Initial training
  These are training sessions which are essential to get a new sales person in your organization ‘market ready’. Unless these training sessions are done well, it is difficult for a sales representative to do his job effectively. Any organization with a sales team should have these in place. There can be very little debate on the effectiveness of these; they are necessary & provide basic tools for a sales person.

• Induction & onboarding
  All sales & non sales employees go through an induction & onboarding process when they join. This training helps employees to understand basic details about the organization:
  • Company history, vision, mission
  • Key company policies
  • Key verticals, departments & functions
  • Key portals & internal SOPs ( leaves, reimbursement,  

  For sales employees these might be slightly tweaked to include specific sections relevant to them ( travel, reimbursement, incentives etc.).

  This training is usually conducted by HR and is fairly standard in organizations.

• Product training
  Product training is held for sales people in the organizations to understand the product they have to sell. Apart from being able to explain the product, sales people should be able to clearly articulate the advantages & benefits of the product, as well as answer questions that clients are likely to ask about the product.Sales representatives need to have two important takeaways from the product training: 
  • Understand the product end to end in a way that they can explain it and answer any questions
  • Have belief/pride in the product that they can sell it to the customer. 

  The trainer should be approachable and be able to draw questions from sales representatives. She should also be able to create excitement and pride about the product in the sales team.   

• Sales (“Pitch”) training
  Sales representatives are taken through the pitch deck and the common sales pitch. This is typically done by someone from the sales team. Usual mode involves an experienced sales person giving a mock sales demo to the new joinee followed by a series of mock sales pitches by the new joinee with feedback and improvement areas shared after each attempt.  These sessions are best done by either the reporting manager or by a high performing sales representative.

• Buyer persona, segments
  Some organizations have specific training to explain the buyer segments and persona that a salesperson is likely to encounter.  In our view, this is the most important piece of information that a salesperson should have before he hits the field. If your organization doesn’t have training specifically on buyer persona, we suggest you get that one first.
• Internal & external tools
  Salespeople need to familiarize themselves with the tools an organization uses. These include internal tools like CRM, video conferencing, price list portals, Knowledge sharing portal, Invoicing and accounting software, etc. These are best conducted by a tenured salesperson.

Recommendations for Initial Training Sessions

How important are initial training sessions?

• These sets of training should be standard in any organization. They are necessary to get a new salesperson ‘market ready’. 
• If these aren’t done well, you either have one of the scenarios: 
  • Infant churn: Sales people exiting the organization early
  • Long ramp up time: Sales people  
• Organizations should look at fixing initial training before considering any other kind of training.

How should one look at organizing initial training?

• These are very specific to the organization and require a lot of context to be effective. These should ideally be done by an internal resource. 
• In case an internal resource isn’t available, it’s best to have one external agency do this consistently over time. 
• Even when external agencies are involved, they need to work closely with the existing sales team to develop collateral and understand  

At Sales Design Institute, we help you set up the right sales system.  If you feel we can help you with your sales development, please reach out to us here and we’d be happy to share our approach.