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Sales Training + Development

maximize sales training investment

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5 Tips to Maximize Your Sales Training Investment

After you’ve hired a sales training vendor, there are a series of questions you need to answer in order to ensure you’re getting the most out of your sales training investment, like:

  • How do I maximize sales training ROI?
  • How do I measure training success?
  • How do I get results FAST?

Having been both the vendor and the buyer in this equation, I definitely have some insight to share. I’ve made mistakes as the Training Director hiring a sales/sales leadership training vendor, and I’ve had clients do some really smart (and less than smart) things. 

Although I could write about this topic forever, I’ve narrowed it down to my top 5 tips to maximize your sales training investment.

1. Customize the Customization. Then customize that. Twenty years ago, I paid a vendor $15,000 extra to customize the training for my company. I spent countless hours sending them examples, marketing data, and websites. I forwarded redacted emails and unpublished case studies. I just KNEW they would get the “real feel” for how special our snowflake was. The result?

The vendor added one half-page sheet to the back of the workbook with two custom role plays. TWO! The pages weren’t even numbered with the rest of the workbook. Total afterthought! Literally, nothing else was custom.

Ready for the vendor flipside? Six years ago we up-leveled all our workbooks for Factor 8. This meant I couldn’t build custom workbooks from scratch anymore for clients (the downside of totally custom is a less professional look – even a few errors). Now each of our course workbooks of about 10 pages has around 15 sections in bold red font that our Advisors tailor prior to delivery. It might be the customer’s language, an industry example, a customer voice example, specific sales objections, etc. During the live interactions, our coaches play their sales calls, coach actual delivery, and will give custom samples/scripts of every skill. That’s customization!

Tip: Get an actual list of what is tailored to your organization, its format, and when/how it is delivered. 

2. Require Manager Involvement. Note: I didn’t say attendance. You need attendance AND involvement! Back when I was delivering training in an enablement organization, we were afraid to invite all the sales managers to our training. They were so busy and important (and let’s be honest, a little rude). As I gained more confidence, I would meet with them 1:1 after the training with tips on what we trained and what to look for. As I got busier, I would schedule a 15-minute meeting so I could do this all at once. When I was put in charge, I required them to come AND met with them for 30 minutes afterward.

Guess what? They still couldn’t coach the skills. Sure, they attended the training, but they didn’t participate. They didn’t come and play to win as if they, too, would be graded on their adaption of the skills. They half-listened, did some email, smiled and nodded, and stole the stage as often as possible to give sage advice.

Vendor Flipside: At Factor 8, we meet with managers before the training, require attendance at the training, train the managers on how to coach the skills after the training, give managers 3+ tools to make it easy to support and coach the training, then do a follow-up meeting with the managers on how skills went, AND certify the managers to certify the reps on the skills. It may seem like overkill, but trust me, it works.

Your ROI will be cut in half if your managers aren’t underlying the importance of using the new skills and coaching their execution. Go overboard making sure they are trained, incentivized, and supported by your vendor to do this! 

3. Measure Your Heart Out! If you aren’t crystal clear on the results, KPIs, and metrics that should be impacted by the training, then you’re not ready to outsource sales training. (Really, a vendor just said that!) In fact, ask the vendor what numbers they expect to move with this engagement (and don’t hire them if they don’t know!) At some point, you’ll have to show your sales training ROI, so define during the interview stage what success looks like and then go get a 3-6 month baseline on these metrics. As a training manager, I was nervous early in my career to do this. It only took one sales leader saying, “You are not solely responsible for the 35% uptick in XYZ…!” for me to start backing down and measuring success anecdotally or with smile sheets. As I grew in my career, all I did was add two words: “contribute to.” If we measure pre and post, we can all SHARE the credit! 

Vendor Flipside: I love a case study. Number one reason I don’t have one on every client? They don’t provide us with their reporting. The leader pulls the trigger on the contract and then sales managers or the enablement team are left to execute and the ask never bubbles to the top. In fact, I’d love to take contracts based on the up-side (we get paid when you improve) and have offered it many times in the past, but the baseline metrics and results weren’t available from the client.

4. Get Leadership Involved (more than they are). How do I know they aren’t very involved? I’ve had about 3 clients out of 300 who were. As a training leader, I had about none. Why is this critical? Because your attendees determine how important the training is based on what the leader says, does, and spends money on. Even if you have to write the script for the VP to kick off the meeting and send over the questions they need to ask in their 1:1 meeting afterward, take the time and do it. Otherwise, you may be the flavor of the month. 

Vendor Flipside: They’re my favorite three clients ever. And when they ask for anything extra, they get it. I’ve helped them get jobs 10 years later, spoken free at their conferences, and featured them on our blogs. When a leader lends their time, voice, and stature to training, it will literally change the organization’s culture. Help convince them they’ll get more ROI by being involved. Make it easier on them with cheat sheets and reminders. These clients get double their money’s worth.

5. Focus on Long Term. Ever met with an internal client who wants you to train 5 things in 20 minutes? Me too. Try every single sales leader ever. Here’s why: Most people don’t know the difference between telling and training. That’s why their people don’t change their behavior after being told. Folks, if you want people to change what they’re doing, the training will take 5x longer than you want it to AND the support “tail” for the training will be months, maybe even years. Don’t make training an event – studies show they’ll remember about 30% of what is taught. The best leaders get this fact:

Training isn’t something you did, it’s something you do.

Vendor Flipside: Events are fun. They’re low risk and high reward. We often would have better selling days during training than normal days (live calling during training). Lots of energy, buzz, and results. But if that’s all your vendor is doing, reconsider. What about keeping skills alive? Pulling the buzz forward? Seeing skills move from the classroom to the sales floor? 15 years ago we offered a 1-day post-training follow-up. Then 90 days virtual. Now we do one-year contracts. It’s the right thing to do and the right way to do it. Doesn’t fit the SKO? Hire a speaker instead.

If you’re evaluating sales training, we’re here to help. Fill out the form or email info@factor8.com and let us know how we can help.

Want more information on how to maximize your sales training investment?

Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).


hiring salespeople

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How to Hire and Retain Top Sales Reps and Managers

Help! I’m hiring salespeople, but where do I find them? Well, probably not in the stack of resumes from your recruiting department. Or maybe you already know that and hence the Google search bringing you here. Great sales talent is near impossible to find these days and will continue to be difficult in the coming years thanks to shifting employment rates, aging demographics, and increases in sales hiring. Your ideal candidate profile with a few years of experience in your industry and a college degree isn’t coming to you. So, what do you do?

Here are a few creative strategies and tactics to consider when hiring salespeople:

Get Ready to Win

It’s a seller’s market, not an employer’s market so every candidate you do happen to find will be comparing you to other potential offers. You are competing with other companies, so make sure now that your…

  1. Website reflects a great culture
  2. Glassdoor reviews are positive
  3. Employees and customers have posted good things
  4. Website reflects diversity (they won’t apply if they don’t see it)
  5. Your process moves 2x faster than it used to. If it takes you 4 weeks to hire, they’ll accept elsewhere
  6. Social presence is engaging, recent, and active
  7. Pay and benefits are at, or above, market rate
  8. Company social causes exist and are enticing
  9. Job descriptions aren’t wish lists. Keep them short to fill the funnel (key for females)
  10. Career growth and development opportunities are plentiful

More than ever, employees are shopping employers and the new generations care less about pay and more about career growth, development opportunities, and social causes. Ask yourself: How would they look to their followers if they joined your company? Will their friends think they went back to the dark ages? Or will they have FOMO because the company is totally GOAT?

(If you don’t know what either of these terms mean, it’s OK, I had to look up one of them too. But maybe get a 20-something in recruiting to do the social checks for you 😉)

Get More Candidates

OK, got this all delegated and you’re ready to win the battle? Now it’s time to fill the pipeline. Like any smart sales leader, you know better than to have just one source. Here are some great actions to try this year:

  1. Repurpose a sales headcount to shop LinkedIn for passive candidates
  2. Start a program at local colleges BEFORE they graduate or go to career fairs
  3. Partner with sales colleges to volunteer to speak or judge role plays
  4. Grant a massive bonus for referrals
  5. Comp (or measure) managers for finding their own talent
  6. Go talk to employees in service, marketing, product, delivery who might try sales
  7. Try community college or tech school career fairs (is a 4-year degree totally necessary?)
  8. Use social networks to post (e.g. is there a local mom’s group?)
  9. Try advertising a contest, scholarship, or other promotion for sellers/leaders and use it as a marketing funnel (it’s a lead list! Call it!)
  10. Find your favorite person each week (Restaurant server? Your kid’s teacher?) and recruit

If these seem like desperate measures, then I’ve hit the mark. This is not a time for passive recruiting. Anyone great at selling who isn’t employed already is probably not your hire.

Improve Your Selection

Got folks in the funnel but need help choosing a better fit?

Listen, I made some HORRIBLE hiring decisions my first year in every new position. Bet you have too. It’s critical to remember that your hiring process needs to be a documented and rigorous pipeline just like your sales funnel. Here are a few questions to help:

  1. Is the screening aligned to the job (e.g. phone screens for phone sales?)
  2. Do you have defined gates to pass to the next stage?
  3. Are you involving multiple decision-makers?
  4. Are you looking for experience and skill? Or behavior and aptitude (pick the latter)?
  5. Who’s doing the heaviest lifting and how can you put less on your managers?
  6. Do candidates have a great idea of what to expect? Could a job shadow help?
  7. Are your managers aligned on the definition of a good candidate?
  8. Can managers hire their own teams (trust me, don’t do it for them)
  9. Do your screening tools help you increase the pool vs. decrease (your resume screener or profile tool may be weeding out today’s definition of good)
  10. Have you trained managers on how to interview?

I know, overwhelming – especially with your rag-tag group of new and tenured managers (just guessing). I got your back on this one with our new Sales Bar eLearning course, “Hire Like a Rockstar”, that will help your entire team define good, create a rubric of criteria, and align interview questions + scoring to make consistently better hires. You’re welcome. 🙂

SALES TEAM RETENTION [INFOGRAPHIC]

Keep the Talent You Find

Finally, we can’t address keeping your sales team afloat if there’s a hole in the boat. The best way to staff your team is to keep the ones you have. Remember, you make your number every month on the backs of your B players. Work like hell to keep your A, B, and C players coming to work and grow. Here’s what’s most important in this fight:

  1. Monthly sales training opportunities. That’s right, several hours a month is table stakes, and a pass to LinkedIn learning isn’t impressive anymore
  2. Monthly call coaching. Yes, monthly. Make sure your managers are trained on how to do call coaching well and are doing it consistently
  3. A documented career path with clarity on how and when they’ll move up
  4. Opportunities to move up within 18 months (average lifespan of a new rep)
  5. Access to leaders. Manager meetings, skip levels, feeling close to executives
  6. Company social causes. Volunteering together or a pet charity with hands-on opportunities
  7. Work/life balance. Kids these days (did I just type that?) are uber-focused on having a full life, less stress, and chances to be with family and friends
  8. Basic tech stack. They’re used to a great CRM, engagement tool, call recording, data sources, and more. If you’re using Excel spreadsheets, you’d better rock the rest of this list
  9. A mission to believe in. Listen, even if you sell floor wax, be sure every employee knows how they’re helping change the world
  10. A mentor and/or buddy. Having a great friend and/or confidant at work is a leading indicator of employee engagement.

They have choices, and as soon as they choose you, someone else is recruiting them.

Need to train newly hired sales reps or managers?

We’ve got your back! Contact us today to learn about our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps and managers.


good inside sales rep training

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Inside Sales Training: What Does Good Training Look Like?

Whether you’re shopping around for external inside sales training vendors or working with your internal training department, knowing what good inside sales rep training looks like is the first step to ensuring your training is checking all the key boxes.

We’ve outlined a few of the most important considerations to keep in mind when choosing an inside sales training partner.

Decide What Good Inside Sales Training Looks Like

This shouldn’t be a surprise to any sales leaders out there — but what makes good inside sales training is results. You’ll be able to know whether or not sales training worked simply because it moved the needle.

These “results” look different depending on your company, team, and goals. It’s important to go into the sales training and decide on what those goals are to you — whether it’s sales units sold or market share gained.

READ: How to Measure Sales Training ROI

This is even more important when partnering with an external sales training vendor. The vendor should understand your goals as well as your sales process, product, customers, industry, and competitors. There is so much specialization in the market today, don’t let a vendor bring SDR training to your team of AEs.

In order for sales training to be considered “good”, it must achieve your goals. Outlining what these goals are, and what success looks like, beforehand is a surefire way to get what your team needs out of their training.

We recommend identifying metrics, behaviors, KPIs, and overall results that you expect to shift during and after the training. Metrics and behaviors should lift immediately showing you’re on the right track, and KPIs are early indicators that the results are on the way. Identifying metrics or results only can lead to a miss.

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5 Characteristics of Good Inside Sales Training

After the goals are set, here are a few more tips to ensure you’re maximizing your training investment:

1. The Sales Training is Customized

Really great sales training is customized to your industry and product/service.

This ensures your reps aren’t left trying to figure out how to take a broad theory and apply it to their job, customer, or service.

While it’s true that customized sales training is more expensive, the ROI is up to twenty-fold when you consider how much your reps are actually retaining, and how much they can apply immediately to their practices.

Use public seminars and events to help someone get a tip or two. Use custom live training to move the needle on results.

2. Get a Professional Sales Trainer

Aberdeen reported that 85% of the sales teams that are considered “best-in-class” utilize professional sales trainers or resources.

Don’t try and turn your managers or reps into trainers. Let’s face it, they’ve got enough on their plates. Plus, even really good managers and reps have no idea how to train — it’s just not their job! They might be excellent at sales, but they have no expertise in training.

Even worse, don’t let your HR department teach sales. They’re great at training and professional facilitation in many areas of your business, but their bailiwick is in company orientation and sexual harassment training — not sales and selling. They may be excellent at training but have no expertise in sales.

See where we’re going with this?

Make sure to bring in someone who is an expert at both training and sales. That’s the secret to good inside sales training, and it’s what the best in class are doing.

3. Make Sure the Training Has the Right Focus

If you’re training your inside sales reps, make sure they’re attending an inside sales training. It sounds simple, but oftentimes well-meaning sales team leaders are duped into thinking “sales training” is enough. Shoe-horning your company’s existing field training for your inside team may actually do more damage than good.

Most popular sales books and training curricula deal with a very narrow view of selling: The conversation between Person A and Person B. Anyone who has been working in inside sales for a while can agree that the true issue lies in getting that interaction in the first place.

If your reps are struggling with connecting with decision-makers, getting callbacks, finding the right people, figuring out who to call, and capturing attention at the top of the funnel, then conversation selling and overcoming objections will miss the mark.

Make sure that your inside sales reps are being coached on topics like:

  • Leaving compelling voicemails that will be returned
  • Capturing a prospect’s attention in the first 30 seconds
  • Leading with value
  • Creating engaging conversations vs. script reading
  • How to get a callback or bridge to the next call
  • Finding more decision-makers in the company
  • Dealing with gatekeepers

It’s important to make sure other aspects of the strategy are covered as well, so the reps can rely on their managers less for questions such as:

  • Who should I call first?
  • How often should I call?
  • Should I leave a voicemail message?
  • How often?
  • Now, what do I do?
virtual sales challenges
4. Sales Training NEEDS to Be Hands-On

Theory stinks.

During the training, make sure reps are getting on the phones. There’s no reason that training shouldn’t be stopped so that the reps can go try out the skills they’re learning, and role-plays don’t really tell the whole story, do they?

Live calls to live customers using the training guarantees that these training methods are going to be applied. Live calling in a safe space leads to more rep buy-in and builds confidence. When reps see the tactics work in real-time they adopt, apply, and try more often. Training fall-off (the forgetting curve) has the odds stacked against it now!

Make the training stick by actually making calls and building pipeline during training.

5. Make Sure Your Managers Get Involved in Sales Training

Put managers in the reps’ training, and when possible make sure they have their own version of the training class tailored for their needs. Managers need to learn how to recognize the new skills in action, when to coach, how to coach the new skill, when to celebrate it working, and how to keep the momentum alive when the trainers leave. Behavior change lives and dies with the management team, and their buy-in, involvement, and use of the new skills are critical to success.

Ask your vendor how the managers will be involved in retaining the new skills.

READ: Tips for Enablement Leaders to Increase Sales Coaching Focus

Good Training is Ongoing Training

You got it, training is a process, not an event. Reps reported a “Lack of Development” as a top 5 challenge every year for the past five years as reported by the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. Aberdeen also reported missing development opportunities as the number one rep-reported reason for leaving companies.

Deciding to invest in rep development is a smart choice, but be sure you don’t assume that it is “one and done.” Your teams want ongoing opportunities to learn, grow, and advance their careers.

READ: Why Event-Based Sales Training Falls Short

Training Magazine reported an average number of development hours/year/employee at about 48 hours – or four hours/month. Is your internal training team ready to provide this? Most corporate training teams get quickly maxed by providing new hire orientation and onboarding. Manager coaching can fill some of the gaps, but if you’re talking with learning vendors, check their ongoing offerings as well.

Ongoing training will often nurture and advance skills taught onsite – helping check the box of retaining new skills and providing the ongoing development reps crave.

The easiest way to accomplish this is with vendor-provided online skills training or inside sales training courses after their session to brush up on their skills, hone in on their weak spots, and keep skills in practice.

When evaluating sales training software, look for interactive resources such as:

  • Recorded call libraries
  • Sample scripts/messaging starters
  • Interactive micro e-learning modules
  • Printable cheat sheets
  • Manager coaching
  • Team activities
  • Videos
  • Sales certifications

Reps want skills on-demand. Learning should be easy, fun, interactive, and flexible. The old days of long-form narrated slides and sales training videos are over. Anyone who has clicked their way through to the final test (or let it run in the background while doing email) can attest to the fact this isn’t engaging or effective.

Again, look for sales training software to engage your management team as well as the learners. New skills and a culture of development live and die on your front lines. Does the software provide manager resources?

How about fast-reference cheat sheets, coaching guides, or contest ideas? Is it nimble enough to allow quick reference before a big call or team meeting?

Get your sales managers involved in testing your top choices.

Are you looking for the best inside sales training programs?

Contact us today to learn about our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps and managers.


sales rep onboarding

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8 Sales Rep Onboarding Best Practices

By now you’ve heard that the sales rep onboarding experience is a major factor in how they ramp to quota and ultimately affects how they feel about your company.  

There are about 3 million moving parts in an onboarding program since it happens across so many departments, mostly outside of sales. Because of this, it’s easy to lose our way during onboarding. One of the most important hindrances is the lack of investment — both in effort and money — in onboarding.

Insidesales.com did a study that found organizations spend an average of 3x more on rep tools than on rep development, with the average rep having between 5-10 tools. Similarly, Training Magazine found that organizations spend on average 25x more on recruiting than development. 

Moreover, Training Magazine tells us that a good onboarding program can cut ramp time and attrition by 50%. If we focus more time on crafting an onboarding program that will help retain the reps we recruit, we save time, money, and energy down the line.

So let’s do this! Here are 8 best practices you can dive into fixing right now.

Integrate These 8 Best Practices Into Your Sales Rep Onboarding

  1. “Just-in-time” training
  2. Leverage sales (not HR) professionals
  3. Balance software and traditional training methods
  4. Continue onboarding long after the rep is “ready”
  5. Adopt the six critical components of a training program 
  6. Use ample multimedia resources
  7. Create a formal, but flexible, rep training program 
  8. Set realistic, data-based expectations 

Let’s dive a little deeper into why and how to integrate these tips into your onboarding.

1. “Just-in-time” Training

When building an onboarding program, it’s tempting to start by listing all the things “Johnny” may ever need to know and start from the top. Instead, try slicing off only what Johnny needs to know in month one.

It can be tempting to dive deep into company waters with things like histories, organizational charts, and other detailed and specific areas. It’s more effective to shift this information to the backburner for the time being and focus only on what the new rep needs in the first month to be successful. After all, how often does a customer quiz your rep on key events in the company’s founding?

Onboarding training should mirror what a rep’s day-to-day activities will look like once training is finished during the first month on the job (and only that first month).  This ensures reps don’t feel like a fish out of water when the time comes to execute the tactics taught in training.

Why stop at month one? Because we want our reps to come out of onboarding feeling confident! We want them ready to pound the phones and execute what they learned! If we start introducing them to all the sales process complexities, advanced products, and deep conversations, then we run the risk of scaring or overwhelming them.  

This is a time when “you don’t know what you don’t know” is a good thing. If your reps will likely spend that first month talking to existing happy customers or cold calling and leaving a lot of voicemails, stop training there. Bring them back later for the rest. 

2. Leverage Sales (Not HR) Professionals 

Aberdeen reported that 85% of the sales teams considered “best-in-class” use professional sales trainers or curriculum. But the majority of us outsource our onboarding to HR.

This absolutely does not mean that your sales managers should be the trainers. It means that as a sales leader, you have sales managers and a sales training manager reporting to you (or at least attending your meetings). It could also mean that you have a sales manager who acts as a liaison to training.  

But what it definitely means is that you and your sales team all know what is being taught, agree with the how, and are thrilled with what reps can do when they graduate from the onboarding training.

Some companies shy away from investing in an expert for new hires due to the high turnover rate. But, by investing in good sales training and following best practices, companies can reduce new hire turnover rate and save money in the long run.

3.  Balance Online and Classroom Training 

What we use to teach reps is another balancing act between digital learning and resources and traditional training methods. 

Best practice? Use technology for about 30% of your overall curriculum. Much more and we’re missing the opportunity to engage new reps and ensure their first month is lonely and, let’s face it: boring. 

Online learning is easiest to leverage for one of the following areas:

  1. Rote knowledge that isn’t likely to change. This includes policies, laws, company history, and unchanging products.
  2. Already-created, third-party curriculum. Commonly this is from technology vendors like Salesforce or basic Microsoft how-to assets
  3. Trusted adviser curriculum. If you’re working with social, sales, or marketing experts already and have adopted their methodologies, ask about online resources to onboard new reps. 

Leverage your training department’s learning management system with whatever you’re doing. You’ll want to track what reps have and haven’t done and add a layer of accountability with reporting and testing.

4. Don’t Let It End! Continue Training Even After Onboarding

Rep development should be ongoing. Don’t ever fall into the trap of “They’re trained! My job here is done.” That’s akin to the NFL putting players in preseason camp and then stopping practice when the regular season begins.  

Development is an ongoing sport.  

At Factor 8, we’re huge champions of sending new reps to the phones early and often. But that is with the assumption that they’ll come back to the classroom to address the gaps they find while out on the harsh streets of your sales floor. It’s also assuming that managers are closely keeping track of rep progress and development needs.

How do you facilitate this?

Try to organize the curriculum into three levels:

  1. Level 1 maps to onboarding – the foundational/month 1 skills.  
  2. Level 2 is “just in time” after reps master level 1 and get 6-12 months under their belt. They’re ramped to quota, and it’s time for ongoing development to keep growing and do the whole job well.  
  3. Level 3 maps to the mastery of the job in years 2 to 3 — more advanced skills to help them be superstars.   

Between each level we add exercises, activities, assignments, and refreshers to keep the skills top of mind, show new ways to try certain tactics, and help managers engage reps in 1:1 and team skill development. The Sales Bar helps us make all of this accessible on-demand so teams can learn what they want to when they want to while still keeping track. We also drip new content monthly and use leaderboards to keep things fresh and different so users want to log back in.  

Use this as an example of the microlearning and ongoing development young reps crave. Millennials expect a certain percentage of learning to be in the classroom and online, and they expect opportunities to develop themselves long after onboarding.  

Offering blended learning, leveled learning, and ongoing learning checks all those boxes.

5. Adopt the 6 Critical Components of a Sales Training Program

If you’re just starting to build your program or you’re going in to assess yours, start by evaluating what’s being trained. It’s easy to go deep into systems and products, but those are just two of the six components of well-rounded onboarding training:

  1. Systems and tools — Your CRM, intranet, engagement tool, dialer, etc. 
  2. Product and service — What you’re selling. Tip: Focus on “how to sell it” versus a full rundown of product history, speeds, and feeds. This harkens back to best practice #1 and maintaining training relevancy. If your product people are teaching this, chances are your reps don’t need half of it and are using this time to snooze.
  3. Sales — Even if you hire for experience, reps need to be taught how to sell your services to your customers in your industry over the phone.  Haven’t met a new hire yet who doesn’t.
  4. Process — Think of how your leads and orders get processed internally and who a rep goes to for the top customer questions. In other words, how do you get stuff done at your company?
  5. Acumen — Sorry folks, they’re not coming out of school with business acumen and certainly not industry and customer acumen. This is a big gap, and filling it will drastically shorten ramp time.  
  6. Manager integration — this is where tip #5 really comes to life, both during and after onboarding. Reps need to see their leaders often, and training needs input and oversight.

6. Utilize Ample Multimedia Resources

No two reps are identical when it comes to learning style. Make sure you’re meeting every new hire where they’re at by using a mix of helpful resources. 

This includes but is not limited to:

Mixing up these methods not only appeals to reps with different learning styles but also helps keep training exciting and fresh. Who wants to sit and listen to someone else make calls all day and slap a “training” label on it? 

7. Create a Formal, but Flexible Rep Training Program

If you’re not putting all new hires through the same rep onboarding process, how can you ever tell if what you’re doing is working?

As we said: Different reps have different learning styles, so it is important to remain flexible to an extent. Just make sure you have some core pillars of onboarding training in place so all new hires are experiencing the same process.

This helps you measure KPIs and tweak your processes if weak spots surface.

8. Set Realistic, Data-Based Expectations for Your New Reps

How many times have your managers set sky-high call quotas for new reps? How many times have they failed to reach it? But, most importantly, how many times has this been documented?

The only thing more frustrating (for both rep and manager) than someone consistently underperforming on quotas, is for there to be nothing in place to fix it moving forward.

Make sure when you’re setting expectations and KPIs for new hire reps that they are based on data. Once you have a fleshed-out onboarding process, it will be easier than ever to keep track of this information.

Find a Tool That Works for Your Onboarding Needs

What if we told you there’s a tool that complements in-person sales training, allows managers to monitor new hire learning during onboarding, and offers a wide variety of inside sales resources?

It’s not magic — it’s The Sales Bar. Fill out the form below to learn more.

Want more information on our sales rep onboarding programs?

Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).


best sales coaching questions

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The Best Sales Coaching Questions Ever

Learning to be a great sales coach is hard – really hard. It’s the hardest thing we teach new managers who were formally reps. Now, it’s not as hard as climbing Mt. Everest or teaching your grandma how to order presents online, but it’s rough. 

It’s the #1 skill that most new managers struggle with. If you’re a naturally phenomenal coach, congrats (seriously!), but the rest of us are struggling. Why? We don’t often know what defines great sales coaching. So let’s break it down…

The Difference Between Presenting vs. Facilitation vs. Coaching

The lines are often blurred between presenting, training, and sales coaching, especially when we don’t have staff and resources dedicated to each. Why does it matter?

Well, does this sound familiar?

“I’VE TOLD THEM 100 TIMES!!”

We’ve heard it from managers and VPs (and parents 😉 ). It’s rough, folks. If people aren’t retaining what you’re telling them to do, they obviously aren’t going to do it. So we have to back up a few steps and make sure it gets in their brain and sticks.

What is presenting?

We define presenting as…Introducing new information through speech often using slides/visual aids.

Watching a webinar? You’re listening to someone presenting. Sitting in a lecture hall in college? That’s presenting.

Now the downside to presenting is something called The Forgetting Curve. If you’re in sales enablement or training, you’ve likely heard of it. It shows us that by the end of the day, reps have lost 50% of what you taught them. In a week, they’ve lost 90%. So it’s pretty obvious why they aren’t doing what you told them to do – they can’t even remember it!

There are two ways you can beat The Forgetting Curve.

  1. By utilizing great facilitation or training. The better (and more interactive) the training, the more likely the skills will stick. The more often reps actually do something, the more likely they’ll remember it and the more likely you’ll get results. 
  2. Through coaching. All you have to do is tell people what to do and then 1:1, 4x throughout the week, go and coach them on the same skill. You’ve got time to do that, right? 😐 Nope! That’s why good facilitation is the better option.
The Forgetting Curve
What is facilitation?

Folks the name of the game to get people to do what you need them to do, to get results, to get commission checks is: RECALL. They can’t do it if they can’t remember it.

In order to obtain recall, you need to have good facilitation or training. Unfortunately, most facilitation is broken. You can’t just tell someone to do something and expect them to do it perfectly, they need to practice.

Grab a sheet of paper and draw a picture of the Statue of Liberty based on memory. Assuming your side hustle isn’t as an artist, it’s probably going to look like something a child drew. Why? Well, when was the last time you drew something? Drawing is something we did a lot as a kid until other things became more exciting or interesting. We quit practicing, and when we quit practicing, our skills freeze. 

For many of us, teaching is also a skill frozen in time. We think of teaching and we see ourselves sitting in a lecture hall with someone talking at us, telling us what to do. And we know that’s not how people learn.

That’s why we’ve got to redefine teaching and facilitate instead. 

We define facilitation using the acronym CUP. It stands for…

  • C = Connect. If you want people to remember things, apply them, and do what you tell them to do, you have to help them connect with the information (it’s called Adult Learning Theory). It basically says that adults have filing cabinets in their heads. If you tell a kid something new, they’ll accept it as fact. Adults won’t even log it until you help them find the file folder. That means you’re helping them connect with it.
  • U = Use. Great training takes longer because we’re facilitating them actually getting their hands on it. I’ve watched people do systems training where their team is just sitting and watching. Totally hands-off, and totally a waste of time. If we want people to understand, we have to get them to use it.
  • P = Practice. We absolutely, positively have to practice. End of story.

By using the CUP method for facilitation, that’s how we beat The Forgetting Curve. Expect 70-80% recall. Get some buy-in along the way, a little practice and roleplay, synthesis with what they do on the job, and you’re looking at 80-90% recall. Plus, you’ll create new habits.

What is sales coaching?

Everyone does it a little differently, but a lot of people confuse sales coaching with leading, but with a few questions sprinkled in. 

We define sales coaching as… Ongoing development method used by leaders using questions to inspire and deliver personal feedback on skills.

Pay attention to the bolded words. If you’re just giving people advice or there are 25 people in the room, that’s not coaching. When you’ve got a team of reps in the room, what you’re really doing is presenting.

ACTION: Go and CUP check your virtual sales training. If you’ve got a lot of videos and little practice, people aren’t doing what you tell them to do. Leaders, if you do a lot of announcing without any coaching, follow-up, or roleplays, they’re not doing what you tell them to do. And when it’s something critical like learning how to sell and be successful in new hire onboarding, you’ve got to do all 3.

READ: Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget

The Power of Sales Coaching

If behavior change is critical, start with the 1-2-3 punch. Begin with the presentation, then facilitate, and then coach. Now, coaching alone CAN be powerful (but not how you think…)

Great coaches have 1 thing in common: they motivate people. Motivation is the key to everything. It affects recall (information + caring = recall).

READ: Tips for Enablement Leaders to Increase Sales Coaching Focus

Our job as managers and coaches is to ensure our reps leave our coaching sessions feeling like superheroes. That’s why we teach the 5:1 method – share 5 positives and 1 area for improvement. It’s also the #1 mistake new managers make. Why? We hear the laundry list of things that went wrong on a sales call and can’t help but tell them every single one of them. 

The power of sales coaching is in the questions you ask. Said in another way:

“Leaders who ask more, get more.”

That’s why we coach in questions. It’s called “Instinctive Elaboration”. It’s the secret behind the Factor 8 SWIIFT℠ intro where we’re literally hijacking the brain of the prospect to answer our questions even if they didn’t mean to and it’s why it works to get them talking.

It works like this: how old are you?

Did a number pop in your head? Now it’s halfway out of your mouth. 

The brain stops what it’s doing and starts answering questions whether it wants to or not. 

Here’s more proof: how much do you weigh?

I know you didn’t want to share it, but you thought it, didn’t you? 🙂 

DOWNLOAD: 20 Ways to Increase the Sales Coaching Focus at Work

The Best Sales Coaching Questions Ever (and Why!)

We’ve spent years mastering the art of coaching and have compiled the best sales coaching questions ever (and they’re backed by science).

1. “Tell me about a time you had to do something similar?”

This helps them connect. Unfortunately, not all of us have the time or tech to do the CUP theory. We use a lot of video, but do videos actually teach? We don’t think so (read more about that here.)

2. “Why are you so good at this?”

You can ask this to anybody in any coaching session and something happens in the brain called “Confirmation Bias”. If you ask them a ‘why’ question, they’ll look for the reason that it’s true. This instantly boosts motivation. 

3. “What happens when you knock this out of the park?”

This question builds confidence by creating mental imagery, scientifically known as “Functional Equivalence.” You’ve probably heard it with Olympic athletes where they picture themselves doing their gymnastics routine perfectly in their head and it fires the neurons as if they’re doing it. If you can get your reps to picture success, they’re more likely to achieve it.

There’s also something called the “Pygmalion Effect” which says that if your manager believes in you, you’ll believe in yourself more. Read differently:

“Leaders who expect more, get more.”

4. “What are you most proud of on that call?”

If anybody has reps that beat themselves up a little bit, this question is for you. The brain will search for an answer and find it – guaranteed.

5. “What should we do next?”

This is all about active recall; going in and finding the information in the brain. The other question we ask is “what was the customer thinking?” This is out of our head and our noise and puts ourselves into the shoes of the customer which is what we’re trying to do. It shortens ramp time, folks. Ramp time isn’t about me not knowing it, it’s about me not knowing when to use it. And if we can burn the pathways in the brain to recall the information we need at the right time, that’s how we get people to learn and apply skills faster.

6. “What one thing is most important to work on?” 

You can use this in any coaching interaction anywhere and the science behind it is called “Implementation Intention.” Studies show that if you work on one thing and put a plan in place, it’s 2-3x more effective. 

Coaching your team is more than just sharing information with them—it’s about really changing the way they think and act. By incorporating presenting, facilitating, and coaching, you’ll move from just talking at your team to actually sparking real behavior change.

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Sales Team Development Plan and Sales Training Budget Guide

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Ultimate Guide to Building Your Sales Team Development Plan and Budget

Building your sales team development plan and sales training budget for the next year can be daunting. That’s why I’ve compiled tips from my 20+ years in the industry to help make this as painless as possible!

Table of Contents:

The Current State of Sales Training

Every year Training Magazine releases its Training Industry report. I read it cover to cover and then pull out some important nuggets of information. 

Here are a few that stood out to me:

  1. Training payroll was down 9% last year – Big shock, right? We’re all in this economy together. We all know people who have lost jobs.
  2. Training hours/per employee was down 8% – Makes sense, we have no one left to train the team.
  3. External vendor spending was up 20% – We cut headcount and realized we still needed training so we hired external vendors.

In today’s sales world, training isn’t just important – it’s critical. We’re short on reps but not on quota, low on training and resources, and everyone’s working from home without role models to learn from. And let’s face it, customers expect more while the flood of (terrible) outreach makes it harder to stand out. 

A buddy of mine who used to be the head of sales at Outreach said it used to take 5-7 touches to get a prospect talking, and now, it’s more than double. The noise is real, selling is harder, and ramp times are stretching while tenures are shrinking. So, stop skimping on sales training. It’s tough out there, and our teams need every advantage.

Why Sales Team Development is Critical

Another reason not to skip out on sales training is these staggering numbers…

  • 98% of reps would stay indefinitely with a company if they received ongoing development. (Ambition)
  • Forbes reported that “Development Opportunities” ranks #1 when Millennials are considering companies.
  • #1 company benefit able to RETAIN top talent = training and development (Factor 8 Retention Survey)
  • #1 company benefit to LURE AWAY top talent = training and development (Factor 8 Retention Survey)
  • Only 50% of reps feel they get the training they need to be successful (Emblaze)

sales team retention

TIP: If your team offers ongoing training and development, make sure your HR/recruiting team incorporates that into your job postings!

Why We Need to Build Skills Faster

Ramp time is everything. The reality today? We’re training a lot of fresh-out-of-college sellers (or non-college grads), and the timeline isn’t working in our favor. It’s taking them 6 months just to hit quota, and by month 14, most are already heading for the door. Think about that, over half of our reps don’t make it past 14 months. That’s a huge investment in time and money that we’re throwing away.

So, how do we change this? We need to get reps to quota faster, plain and simple. When they hit quota sooner, they stick around longer. I’ve built new hire programs throughout my career, and I can tell you, sales training works:

  • At IBM, improving our new hire program cut churn by more than 50%
  • At SAP, our inside sales reps were ramping up faster than the field reps, contributing to a 90% retention rate
  • At Waste Management, it used to take 6 months for reps to make their first sale, we got them their first sale in a week.

Training is the game-changer. When reps feel that early success, they stay. It’s as simple as that.

Seasoned sales leaders know what it was like when we first started out. We didn’t have hand-holding; we figured it out as we went. We manually dialed phones, pressed the record button ourselves, and learned by trial and error. That mindset makes it easy to underestimate how much help today’s reps need. But the truth is, investing in development fixes so many of the issues we see with our teams: from new hires trying to find their footing, to field reps adjusting to virtual, to the small groups left standing after layoffs.

Bottom line: sales skill-building isn’t just nice to have, it’s the key to retention and performance. Let’s start ramping our reps faster and watch the difference it makes.

Top Sales Skills to Train
  1. Call Goals – Reps need help mapping out each step and knowing exactly what the goal of every call should be to keep deals moving.
  2. Running Online Sales Meetings – Virtual meetings are here to stay, so reps need to know how to run them in a way that’s engaging and keeps prospects hooked.
  3. Demos That Don’t Suck – Let’s be real, most demos are a snoozefest. Reps need a game plan for delivering demos that grab attention and close deals.
  4. Planning for Prospecting – Most reps dread prospecting, but training them to prep smarter helps them work faster and get more done in less time.
  5. What Customers Care About – Reps need to know what makes buyers tick and tailor their approach to what matters most to their audience.
  6. Stopping Deals Going Dark Between Calls – Deals tend to go dark when reps don’t know how to keep the momentum. Reps need strategies to stay top of mind and keep deals alive.
  7. Having Engaging Conversations – Every conversation should build trust and move the deal forward. Reps need the skills to make that happen.
  8. Day/Time Management – Most reps spend way too much time not selling. Training them on day management helps them stay out of the weeds and focused on revenue-driving activities.
  9. Gaining Referrals – Referred customers close faster and stick around longer. Reps should be pros at asking for and leveraging referrals.
  10. Voicemails – Great voicemails can boost callback rates by 3-5x. Reps need to know how to leave ones that get results.
  11. Intros – Reps have only seconds to make an impression. A killer intro is non-negotiable.
  12. Value Props (AKA the Pitch) – Too many reps pitch too soon or miss the mark on value. They need to know how to craft and deliver a value-driven pitch at just the right time.

virtual sales challenges

Download: Top Virtual Sales Challenges

Why Budget for Sales Manager Training

Only about 30% of companies invest in training for their managers, and it shows: 60% of managers fail out of their role within the first year. Shocking? Maybe not. Here’s why budgeting for manager development is so crucial:

  • They own every rep
  • They own every customer
  • They own every deal

Most companies pour their resources into reps because that’s where they see immediate ROI. But here’s the thing: while you might have 100 reps, only 5-6 managers oversee all those reps, customers, and deals. And these managers are BURNT OUT, nearly 50% according to LinkedIn.

I learned just how tough it is when I ran into an old colleague who’s now a Sales Director. At a wedding, I joked, “Hey, Chris, you must love this virtual work setup, right? No commute!” He sighed and said, “Virtual is great for everyone except sales managers. It’s rough.” And he’s right. I’ve had every job in sales and I now own three companies, sales management was my toughest role yet.

Burnout is real, and we expect our managers to be like Ted Lasso, coaching, motivating, and making magic happen. But here’s the difference: Ted spends hours on the practice field, with a 10:1 practice-to-game ratio. Your managers? They’re lucky if they get a 1:50 ratio, squeezing in 5 hours of daily calls and maybe 1 hour of weekly training. And that’s without factoring in new hires. My friend Dave said it best: “We give them about 3 weeks of systems training, then they practice on customers.” Yikes.

Ted lives on the practice field; your managers are stranded on an island. And they’re coaching teams of entry-level reps who lack business acumen and are terrified of the phone.

Moral of the story: budget for manager training. Give your managers the support, skills, and development they need to thrive. They’re the key to getting your teams to quota.

DOWNLOAD: Critical New Manager Skills to Master

Building a Better Partnership Between Revenue and Enablement

If you need to partner with enablement or revenue leadership, alignment is key. Early on, I learned that my superpower is the whisperer who can translate between revenue and enablement. That’s why I put together the cheat sheet below. Use it to bridge the gap, get aligned, and make sure you’re speaking the same language to get what you need for your reps and managers.

DOWNLOAD: How to Partner with Busy Sales Leaders

Training Before Tools: The Conversation We Need to Have with Sales Leaders

When talking to sales leaders, emphasize training before tools. Show them the spend, analyze the processes, and start there. Leaders tend to pull one of three levers when tackling problems: people, process, or tech/tools.

  • Process is all about consistency—repeating the right things, the same way, over and over.
  • Tech/Tools focus on efficiency and speed.
  • People are about quality and skills—that’s where we, as enablement leaders, live.

Here’s the issue: leaders are spending double on AI-based tools compared to training. They’d rather buy a shiny new tool than invest in building their team’s skills. Just look at the average number of tools per rep (5-10) and the flood of automated, AI-generated, subpar emails we all get daily. We’re bypassing quality and going straight to consistency and efficiency.

Reps today come with less experience, fewer skills, and more to learn to meet rising customer demands. They don’t have the fundamental selling and communication skills to truly benefit from AI. We need to sit down with our sales leaders and have this conversation: tools are great, but training is essential.

virtual sales challenges

What to Budget for Sales Training and Development

In general, industry standards say you should budget 1-3% of your total annual budget for employee development. But let’s make it easier: budget 2-5% of your employee’s salary for training. And remember, these numbers cover every industry (from forklift drivers to CEOs).

For your sales training budget, we need to be on the higher side—expect sales training cost to be around 3-6% of your reps’ salaries.

Here’s the quick math:

  • Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 3% = $2,700 per rep
  • Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 4% = $3,600 per rep
  • Average Sales OTE Salary = $90K x 5% = $4,500 per rep

(That’s about $50 for every $1K of salary)

Overall Internal Training Budget

If you’re new to training or enablement budgets, here’s what to ask for based on your company size:

  • Large company average training budget: $16M
  • Medium company average training budget: $1.5M
  • Small company average training budget: $500,000

This is your total training budget, not just for external spend. For external training, most companies spend 10-15% of their total budget.

External Sales Training Budget

Here’s a quick look at what companies are spending on external sales training vendors:

  • Large companies: $1.2M
  • Midsize companies: $120,000
  • Small companies: $75,000

Top External Spends

  • 12% on management training
  • 11% on onboarding
  • 7% on sales training

Other spending usually covers tools, learning management systems, and instructional design.

DOWNLOAD: How to Partner with Busy Sales Leaders Checklist

What’s Being Outsourced?

  • 59% of instruction is outsourced—vendors come in and do the training.
  • 41% is delivered in-house with a vendor-provided curriculum.

And this isn’t changing anytime soon. According to Training Mag, 89% of companies expect these numbers to stay steady.

What Skills Are We Training?

Since the shift to remote work, communication skills have been the big focus (no shocker there). Other areas getting attention include:

  • Business skills
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Gamification
  • Course design
  • DEI initiatives

DOWNLOAD: Sales Training Vendor Partner Checklist

Top Challenges for Training and Enablement Leaders
  1. Lack of resources
  2. Low learning engagement (cue gamification!)
Sales Training Budgeting Tips
  1. Make It an Annual Line Item. You’ve got a budget for recruiting and tools, so why not training? Your managers need this to keep their teams engaged.
  2. No Budget? Get Creative. Re-route spiff funds or tap into your tools budget. I know sales leaders who took a rep headcount and turned it into a coach/trainer role, making every rep better—and they saw higher ROI.
  3. Budget MORE. If any of the following apply to you, plan to budget 1.5-3x:
    • Major GTM, strategy, or channel change (e.g., going virtual)
    • Big competition, industry, or product change
    • No training in over a year
    • Teams have gone hybrid or remote
    • Increased or new goals
  4. Hire a Development Resource. If you’re a startup wondering when to hire a trainer, aim for when you have 25-50 employees.
  5. Remember, Good Training Takes Time. It can take someone at the manager or director level 6-18 months to build a solid onboarding program (consider outsourcing for sales, systems, etc.).

How to Get Approval for Your Sales Training Budget

If you want to secure budget for sales training, the key is to show ROI or projected ROI. Here are some powerful stats to back you up:

  • 2x Profit per Employee – Companies that prioritize training see double the profit per employee compared to those that don’t (HR Magazine). 
  • 2x Income per Employee – Companies that offer thorough training earn double the income per employee compared to those that skimp on training (ATD). 
  • 50% Faster Time to Quota – Good training can slash onboarding time to quota by 50% (Training Magazine). 
  • 63% Improvement in Manager Performance – Teams with managers who receive development see an average of 63% performance improvement (CSO Insights). 
  • 353% Sales Training ROI – Sales training delivers an impressive 353% ROI (Highspot, NH University). 

Use these stats to build your case, and don’t forget to show how investing in training impacts the bottom line, whether that’s shortening ramp time, boosting rep performance, or improving retention.

sales team retention

Maximizing Your Sales Training ROI

If you’re investing in sales training, make sure you’re squeezing every drop of ROI out of it. Here’s how:

  1. Go Beyond New Hire Training – A lot of places crush it with new hire training but stop there, which means reps are out there struggling and figuring it out solo. Space it out! Even if you have limited training time, don’t pack it all upfront.
  2. Train Managers First – This is huge. Why? Because better-trained managers mean better interactions with reps. Remember, reps join companies but leave bosses. When managers understand what good training looks like, they engage more, coach better, and partner with you to drive development.
  3. Get Custom – Find the sweet spot between speed and personalization. Off-the-shelf training is fast, but built-from-scratch takes too long. Go for custom solutions that let you tailor without sacrificing speed.
  4. Slow Your Roll – You can’t pour everything into their heads at once. Just-in-time training is key. Trim down your new hire program, so reps don’t feel overwhelmed. Bring them back for more at months 1, 2, and beyond. This keeps them confident and builds skills over time.
  5. Use Interaction, Not Video – Videos alone won’t break habits or change behavior. True training needs interaction and real practice. Read more on why video training isn’t real training here.

READ: How to Measure Sales Training ROI

What Does Good Inside Sales Training Look Like?

Most companies are training internally for only 4-5 hours a month, and that number has dipped from 5 to closer to 4 over the past year.

  1. NOT Just Company/Product Training – Product and systems training isn’t enough. Focus on tactical skills that help reps build their careers.
  2. Professional Trainer or Curriculum – Don’t keep it all in-house. Bringing in a pro adds credibility and expertise.
  3. Training AND Coaching – Know the difference and make sure both reps and managers are part of it. Training is learning new skills; coaching is applying and reinforcing them.
  4. Learners Love Certifications – Give them something to show off and add to their LinkedIn. It makes them proud and keeps them engaged.
  5. Go Beyond the Classroom – Spice it up with huddles, meetings, and contests. Make it fun!
  6. Involve Your Leaders – Manager buy-in is crucial for making training stick. When leaders are part of new hire training, onboarding, and coaching, reps take it more seriously.
  7. Make It Easy for Leaders to Coach – Fast and simple is key. That’s why we built The Sales Bar at Factor 8. Managers who spend their weekends creating training content don’t have the bandwidth. They’re already juggling too much, and half of them are burnt out.
  8. LinkedIn Learning (Alone) Doesn’t Count – Watching videos isn’t training; it’s edutainment. People forget 50% of what they hear by the end of the day and 90% by the end of the week. True training requires practice, application, and reinforcement to make skills stick.
Forgetting Curve
Smart Spends vs. Money Wasters

Before you drop money on sales training, make sure it’s going to the right places:

Where to Spend Your Money:

  1. Customization – If you’re using an external training company, check how much they customize. Have them show you what’s tailored and how.
  2. Measure Baselines First – Always know your starting point to prove ROI. This protects your budget. If managers aren’t giving you data, go straight to Ops.
  3. Ongoing Reinforcement vs. Events – One-time events create a short buzz, but everyone reverts back afterward. Invest in long-term partnerships to keep training from becoming just a “flavor of the month.”
  4. Manager Training – Managers are key to keeping rep skills alive, but they need to be trained on how to do that effectively.
  5. On-Demand Tools – Make it easy for managers with tools like coaching guides and activities.
  6. Live Interactive Sessions – eLearning can be boring when it’s just talking heads. Make it engaging with real interactions, live call reviews, and fun elements to keep energy high.

Where Not to Waste Your Money:

  1. Not Involving Managers – Manager buy-in is essential to make sure they reinforce what reps learn.
  2. Managers Owning All Training – Most managers aren’t great trainers (I know because I was one!). It’s not their core skill, so don’t leave training entirely to them.
  3. Talking Head Video e-Learning – Videos alone don’t change behavior. You can’t just tell someone what to do and expect it to stick.
  4. One-Stop eLearning Libraries – More content doesn’t mean better content. Massive libraries may seem like a bargain, but they often lack impact.
  5. SKO Training – SKOs are great (I’m here for the speaking gigs!), but they’re mostly edutainment. They inspire and motivate, but real training? Minimal. Use SKOs for hype, not skill-building.
  6. Training Before Changing Expectations – If you haven’t adjusted expectations, comp plans, rewards, or systems that might block behavior change, you’re throwing money away.
Virtual Sales Training Checklist

If you’re investing in virtual training specifically, make sure it checks these boxes for maximum effectiveness:

  1. Interactive – Get Hands Dirty Every 5 Slides
    Don’t let your training turn into a snooze-fest. Make sure there’s interaction at least every 5 slides. Whether it’s a poll, a Q&A, or a quick discussion, keep it engaging. Videos alone don’t cut it—videos are not training!
  2. Micro – Nothing Over 20 Minutes
    Break it down into bite-sized pieces. Reps lose focus with long, drawn-out sessions. Keep each module under 20 minutes to ensure attention stays sharp and retention stays high.
  3. Mid-Level Bloom’s Testing – Scenario-Based Interactions
    Test more than just knowledge. Use interactions that challenge reps to apply what they’re learning. Scenario-based questions are perfect for this—they show how well reps can use their skills in real-world situations.
  4. Multi-Modal – Engage All the Senses
    Use a variety of formats to keep reps interested and involved. Incorporate call samples for listening, scripts and templates for reading, and hands-on practice for doing. This multi-modal approach ensures reps learn through different channels and retain more.
  5. Fun & Casual – Make it Entertaining
    Training doesn’t need to be serious 24/7. Add some humor, informality, and competition to the mix. Gamification, leaderboards, or friendly contests make training more enjoyable and motivate reps to stay engaged.
  6. Involve Managers – Provide Toolkits and Tailored Paths
    Your managers need to be part of the training process. Equip them with toolkits and separate training paths to help them reinforce what reps are learning. Include live sessions that focus on coaching and skill reinforcement. And don’t forget success measurements—tracking progress helps keep everyone accountable and shows the impact of the training.

Crafting a sales team development plan and a sales training budget is no small task, but with the right approach, it can unlock your team’s potential and set them up for success in the year ahead. Ready to take the next step? Let us help you create a winning plan and budget! Schedule a call with us today to get started!

Is sales training included in your budget?

Contact us today to learn about our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).


Onboarding New BDRs

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5 Sales Manager Tips for Onboarding New BDRs

Great news. You’ve got proof of concept, found your ICP, and gotten some funding. Now it’s time to build out your BDR team.

Bad news. Once you win the war for talent, the real work of sales training begins. Since most SaaS startups aren’t hiring classes of 15 reps and a trainer, you get the task of onboarding one or two at a time. And then again. And again. And again.

Here are some sales manager tips to save your sanity when onboarding new BDRs:

  1. Start a Google Doc now with everything they’ll need to know. Brainstorm in the following categories:
    • Industry acumen
    • Product knowledge – feature, function, benefit
    • Customer knowledge
    • Ideal customer situations
    • Business acumen
    • Competitor acumen
    • System logins and skills
    • Company info – who’s who, relevant background, etc.
    • Company processes, procedures, etc.
    • Customer FAQ
    • Demos
    • Testimonials and case studies
    • Questions to uncover ideal customer situations and challenges
    • Call recordings to hear good, bad, and ugly calls
    • Phone sales skills like leaving good voicemails, intros, uncovering contacts, and delivering value props on the phone
  2. Wherever possible, start hyperlinking to internal and external sites, videos, and resources so reps can self-serve for the info. Why go back and re-find that email 20 times?
  3. Now identify what you can outsource. Trust me, if you try to hire, train, coach, and lead the team you will either explode or mess a few of these up in a serious way.
    • Buy the system training if your vendor offers it or go find free forums and videos to link to. 
    • Sales skills are another area. Your job is to coach them, not teach them from scratch. Outsource the heavy lifting and stick to leading the team and coaching the delivery. The Sales Bar has hundreds of phone sales resources for new BDRs and Managers. They’ll also want some basic LinkedIn skills. I like Vengreso or Frontline. 
    • Find internal experts. Use your CEO, product geeks, and past customers and get them to do a video or recorded webinar to teach key points. Keep them short and on track with some guidelines during your request; these folks typically aren’t natural trainers! And if they do it live, get it recorded, I promise they won’t be available every time. Where you can’t record, set up a lunch or coffee chat vs. a formal presentation. Get your new rep to record it, plus their notes!
  4. Start a schedule and get your document in chronological order with about 6 hours of learning work/day to start. Make the schedule about 2 weeks long and ramp the training time down while call time goes up. So by the end of the second week, they may be doing 1-2 hours of training/day and 6 hours of work. Show that training doesn’t stop and they have some assignments every month! Bonus: show a path to the next level in their career, even if it’s just a footnote. In addition to the learning, your schedule should include:
    • Call shadowing with you or other reps. Bonus: have them score it using your coaching form. Side note: get a coaching form
    • Calls to past customers to hear their stories and happy outcomes
    • Research on their own – e.g. top features of competitors
    • Outbound calling – even if it’s just to capture contacts, qualify accounts, data cleanse, etc.
    • LOTS of time with you where they bring their questions, you talk shop, build a relationship, and make your newbie feel important
  5. Hook them up with a buddy/mentor. Reps who build strong friendships at work are happier and stay longer according to Gallup. With the average lifespan of a BDR under 18 months, it’s worth the effort. Pay for their first lunch and ask them to get together weekly for the rep’s first month. If it doesn’t stick after that, you’ve at least planted some seeds. Bonus: they’ll come to you less often for their questions when they have a buddy.

This approach will help your reps be more independent while saving you at least twenty hours per rep. Each hire can help make the document better and old hires can support the new. 

Make updating the document and improving it part of their work assignment so it stays current and off your to-do list.

May this also help you resist the temptation to hand your new rep a script and wish them good luck on the phone. Millennials are searching for career development and time with their boss at work, and they make their employment decisions based on this. Spend a few bucks, give them some structure, buy them some training, and you’ll see the payoff in their faster success and tenure!

Want some help onboarding new BDRs?

We’ve got your back! Contact us today to learn how you can incorporate sales training into your new BDR onboarding process to speed ramp time and improve retention.


best inside sales training company

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How to Find the Best Inside Sales Training Company

Are you looking for the best inside sales training company? With all of the noise out there and everyone claiming to be the best, how can you tell when a training vendor is truly great and different from the rest?

Allow me to introduce Factor 8. Unlike most training companies, we were built by people who get sales. And we try really hard to not be apples. In fact, let’s call this the apples to…um…beer…comparison. 🙂

Here’s why you should drink beer with us instead of buying apples from them (this is getting better and better!):

THIS ISN’T YOUR DAD’S SALES TRAINING

We teach digital sales/phone sales/inside sales/telesales/voice-to-voice sales… however you and your company phrase it. If you run a team that doesn’t primarily sell by knocking on doors, setting up face-to-face meetings, or giving live PPT presentations, we’re your vendor. Not sure the difference? Go ask any inside rep who’s been forced to attend the field’s training. We hear horror stories about this about once a month. We’ve all tried it. It. Doesn’t. Work. And in addition to wasting precious selling time, it makes your inside reps feel insignificant. Instead, teach them strategies to get people to call them back, start a call, navigate phone trees…you get it.

DOWNLOAD: Sales Training Vendor Partner Checklist

GET ON THE PHONES

Don’t want sales downtime? Sick of skills not getting applied? We got you covered baby. In every Factor 8 class, we teach a skill, practice the skill, and then go back out onto the floor and get on the phones to try that skill! No kidding. Nobody else does this. Here’s why you should care:

  • You may get better sales results during a training day than on a regular sales day. Yes, that happens a lot.
  • You may pay for the sales training before the training is over. Again, really common.
  • If you’re paying for new skills, why not make sure your people can actually do them before your trainers leave?
  • When reps try the skill, see it works, and get results, “training fall-off” is really a non-starter. In the wise words of a recent rep who came back to class over fifteen minutes late, “This Factor 8 shit really works!” He was asking the prospect questions and just couldn’t get him to stop talking to get back to class in time! High-class problem, right?

CUSTOMIZED TRAINING

This is a really big deal. Even if you don’t consider using us, ask vendors to show some specific examples of their materials customization. If your reps have to “translate” the generic sales theory in their heads to figure out how to use it, well, they’re not going to use it. I think this is the number one reason we see fall-off from training application. They can spit back a “right answer” right after training because it’s in their short-term memory. But they don’t know how to use it and aren’t using it post-training so no wonder they can’t remember it a month later. Our workbooks include messaging examples, references to your product, your customer’s top objections, and even recorded calls from YOUR reps. Seriously, we’ve never taught the same class twice. Don’t practice selling a widget. Get experts to help you practice selling your services to your customers in your industry. THEN it sticks.

Quick Note: you guys, this is why most of you haven’t heard of Factor 8. It’s really HARD to customize each class. It’s not uber PROFITABLE to customize each class. It certainly isn’t SCALABLE to customize each class. This is why the big dogs don’t do it. They’re in the business of selling workbooks. Pre-printed, mass-produced workbooks. That’s why their idea of customization is a one-page role-play at the end of a chapter. Not bad, but not good. Kind of like comparing apples and beer. By the way, it IS super EFFECTIVE to customize each class. That’s why most of you came to us by referral.

EXPERT COACHING 

Here’s my last thought. Every Factor 8 Advisor has made the calls, coached the calls, and probably even run the team. My facilitators are ex-reps, ex-managers, ex Directors, and ex VP’s. ALL from Inside Sales. And in every class, we coach live calls and recorded calls. Don’t let an adjunct professor or HR employee teach your people how to sell! Anyone can read a facilitator’s guide, how many can add value to messaging and delivery right on the spot?

Bottom line 

Your sales training should get immediate results. By providing the right training with customized materials with live practice and expert coaching, we get SPIKES in performance. Account managers uncover millions in the pipeline. Hundreds of new buying contacts are added to the database. Triple the voicemails get returned. Close percentages double. These are pretty standard Factor 8 results. Check out the case studies!

Thanks, ya’ll. This has been a lot of fun. When I’m talking to prospects on the phone, it isn’t polite to throw up values and differentiators! It certainly isn’t helpful to LIST them all! (We teach your reps to never “stack” values, we teach them to ask questions and then pick the differentiator and value that best matches!). But man it’s fun when you just get to brag.

We’ve built something amazing over here. We’re not trying to be the biggest, just the best. That’s why each year over 50% of our business is from referrals. I hope you’ll use these differentiators to demand more from your own providers. And if they can’t deliver…we’ll be right here waiting for you. With a beer!

Looking for the best sales training company?

Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).


hiring sales managers

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How to Hire a Great Sales Manager

Hiring Sales Managers vs. Promoting Reps to Management

Raise your hand if you’ve promoted the wrong rep to sales manager before. Yeah, no sales leader in the world can keep both (or either of?) their hands down. And it’s so painful, right? Because they were SO GOOD at the job and so ambitious and all over you about it. Honestly, you kind of HAD to right? For risk of losing them? And how’d it end up?

I really hope you didn’t lose your top rep AND a manager within a year. But that’s how the story usually goes when I’m commiserating with my fellow sales leaders. It’s like the million-dollar elephant in the room…the right of passage every great leader endures.

So you’re in the club (welcome, leave your t-shirt size in the comments). Now, how on Earth do we stop making that mistake? I believe the key is to understand why your top reps are so darn good. Because it’s the same reason they’re terrible managers.

Top reps are in the winning business.

Doesn’t matter what industry. They’re in the “try harder” business. The “don’t give up until you get the “W” business.” They get up faster, they get up better. They make ten more calls. They do NOT take a no for an answer or a loss lying down. You might not let them date your daughter, but you want 10 more on your team.

Never put this guy (or gal) in charge.

Because management isn’t the winning business. Management is the people’s business. I love how Jack Welch said it:

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself.

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

— Jack Welch

If we can agree that the top reps are hard-wired for competitiveness and selfishness, and KILLING your number, then we can agree we need to go in a different direction for a top manager.

Hint: have this conversation immediately when these bulldogs ask about management because they will. They’re ambitious and they want more money and prestige like always. Try something like, “Why on EARTH would you want that crap job? I hire those guys to tend to my real superstars – you. The money is worse, the hours are longer, and you’ll always have to play by the rules.” That should hold them off for a while. If that doesn’t work, put them in charge of mentoring the newbies for a year or two and see if they get sick of it.

SALES TEAM RETENTION [INFOGRAPHIC]


Now, how do you find and hire the REAL management superstars? Here are my Factor 8 tips for hiring sales managers. Hope you’ll share yours as well!

  1. They’re a “B” level rep. These folks hit quota consistently but seldom outperform. If you had to guess, they have the effort and attitude and pretty good skills, they just lack the killer instinct to be an “A” level rep.
  2. They love to teach or mentor the newbies. Not sure if they’re a great mentor? Assign someone to them and see how they like it.
  3. They speak in KPIs. This means they know what really contributes to and indicates a win outside of dials. Try asking, “What trends have you found in your business?”
  4. They’ve got a process. Whether it’s how they attack leads, own their day, manage an account, or whatever. Try asking “How do you attack your account book/territory?”

These last two questions can help indicate a more strategic viewpoint. We’re looking for someone who sees the SCIENCE of sales vs. the ART. The science can be taught, but the art can not (your superstar reps were born to sell. It’s an art. They’re not really sure how they even do it, but it probably doesn’t include following the rules).

  1. They prioritize well. Front-line management is nothing if not chaotic. Many fail their first year just under the weight of the constant barrage of questions and requests. Someone who can prioritize time and tasks has a much better survival rate. Try asking,
    “What do you do first each day and why?”
  2. They’re a tremendous listener. If 50% of us quit because of our boss (it’s a thing, Google it, Gallup cited it), then we want someone who can connect well with others. Listening is a critical engagement skill and one that’s REALLY hard to teach and change. If they have this naturally they’re ahead of the pack. At the end of the interview, give them a rating here – subtract a point every time they interrupt, break eye contact, or were clearly just waiting for their turn to talk.
  3. They play well with others. You don’t need all your other departments logging complaints about the bulldog manager who’s hounding the credit department. Look for evidence of sharing, learning, teaching, and relationship-building outside an immediate team member. Try asking, “Tell me 10 people you’ve met and like outside of your team.”
  4. They want to make things better. I ask every new manager I teach why they decided to get into management. The bad ones want the title or money, the good ones want to help others win, and the great ones see something and want to make it better. Try asking, “Tell me about your ideas for ______.”

I look forward to updating this blog annually with the ideas you share with me. Like a grocery bag “Take a bag and leave a bag” station in the park, together we will stop hiring bad managers!

Want to set your new sales managers up for success?

Contact us today to learn about our award-winning sales management training programs.


increase sales coaching

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Tips for Enablement Leaders to Increase Sales Coaching Focus

This one is for the enablement folks. Truth: I’m an enablement leader in my heart and soul.

I was just talking to an enablement leader friend who was really frustrated that they spent so many months building a robust training program – rolled it out beautifully – and had to hand their baby over to the sales manager to keep those skills alive. Which did not work…

I’m here to tell you why it’s not their fault.

READ: Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget

I’ve been both an enablement leader and sales manager and can tell you that sales management is the busiest job in the world. We spend the bulk of our day fighting fires and there’s never been a learning emergency.

So if you’re an enablement or training leader and you’d like some tips to get sales managers to coach more often and keep rep skills alive, keep reading.

WATCH: Creating A Coaching Culture

I’ve got 20 tips to help you increase the sales coaching focus at work. Below are my top 3 (get the rest at the bottom of this article).

#1 – Don’t expect them to do more work. As I said previously, sales management is the busiest job in the world. If you want them to coach, you’ve got to fit coaching into their jam-packed schedule. What meetings do sales managers have often? Rep performance 1:1s, pipeline meetings, team meetings, and sales huddles. You’ve got to find ways for your managers to keep rep skills alive during their existing meetings. 

At Factor 8, we’ve built manager toolkits that have activities a sales manager can run during a sales huddle to keep skills alive after training.

#2 – Make it easy. If they need to build a deck, it’s not going to happen. If they need to create a process, it’s not going to happen. If they need to go on a scavenger hunt to find different information for the coaching session, it’s not going to happen. You’ve got to make it fast and easy for managers. 

At Factor 8, we’ve created coaching guides for various rep skills that managers can easily use for skill reinforcement. They combine a cheat sheet of what “good” looks like, which questions to ask during coaching, and a ready-to-use worksheet that coaches both the will and the skill with an easy grading form.

#3 – Most managers don’t know what “coaching” means. Sure, they understand the definition, but they don’t know what it means to actually coach a rep and they definitely don’t know what “good” coaching looks like. That means you get a lot of things like this…

“Hey rep, let’s work on this deal.” You’ve been coached. ✔

“Hey team, what’s the forecast?” You’ve been coached. ✔

“Let me get on this call and help you close it.” You’ve been coached. ✔

Folks, this isn’t coaching. As enablement leaders, we know that.

READ: How to Increase Sales Coaching Frequency

So, in training hundreds of sales managers over the last few years, I’ve learned that it’s a tough skill, it’s not natural for sales managers, and they’re too nervous to do it (though they’ll never admit that last one out loud).

Just put yourself in their shoes. Imagine going to a top player and saying “Let me listen to your call and give you feedback on how to do it better.” Sounds terribly nerve-wracking, right?

That’s why we’ve got to address it and build confidence in their sales coaching, call coaching, and rep skill coaching skills.

If you haven’t taught your managers how to coach to build up their own confidence, it’s probably no surprise that you think they can be doing more coaching.

If you’d like to talk about more specific strategies or a particular issue you’re dealing with in making that connection with sales leadership so they really get behind enablement, I’m here to talk. Email me at LB@factor8.com. 


Want more tips to increase the coaching focus at work?
Download our guide on “20 Ways To Increase Sales Coaching Focus At Work.”

Are you looking for sales training?

Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs
available for reps (and managers).


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