Sales Training + Development

scheduling next steps in sales

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The Importance of Scheduling Next Steps in Sales

I can’t tell you the number of calls that I listen to (or receive) where salespeople do not schedule next steps before ending the call. It’s so basic, so fundamental, yet so often neglected.

READ: Call Bridging 101: Paving the Way for a Follow-up Sales Call

Whether it’s an initial cold call, a discovery session, a product demo, or (I shudder at the thought) a proposal review, the lack of direction is startling.

Below I’ll share the importance of next steps, why reps aren’t doing it, and how managers can ensure their reps are scheduling next steps.

The Importance of Concrete Next Steps in Sales
  1. Efficiency: A streamlined sales process is gold. According to CSO Insights, having a defined sales process can increase win rates by up to 15%. Concrete next steps are a cornerstone of this process.
  2. Commitment: When both parties agree on a specific next step, there’s a subtle commitment. This can increase the chances of a deal moving forward.
  3. Clarity: With clear next steps, there’s no ambiguity. Both the rep and the prospect know what’s coming next.
So, Why Aren’t Reps Doing It?
  1. Fear of Commitment: Some reps fear that setting a concrete next step might deter prospects. They think staying “open-ended” gives prospects breathing room.
  2. Lack of Confidence: A rep unsure of the call’s outcome might hesitate to suggest the next step, fearing rejection.
  3. Overlooking the Basics: Surprisingly, some reps get so engrossed in the conversation that they forget this fundamental step.
How to Ensure Reps Schedule Next Steps
  1. Sales Training: Make next-step training a part of your regular sessions. Emphasize its importance, backed by data. For instance, Hubspot reports that 40-50% of sales go to vendors that respond first. Concrete next steps ensure you’re always a step ahead.
  2. Role Play: Include the process of setting next steps in your role-playing exercises. Make it second nature.
  3. Call Monitoring & Feedback: Use call monitoring tools to track how often reps set concrete next steps. Provide feedback and reinforcement.
  4. Celebrate Wins: When a rep successfully moves a deal forward due to well-defined next steps, celebrate it. Let it be a lesson for the whole team.

READ: Tips for Mastering Call Coaching

The sales dance is a series of well-coordinated steps. Missing one can mean stumbling or even falling flat. As someone who’s been in the sales arena for years, I can’t stress enough the importance of clear next steps. It’s not just about closing the current call; it’s about paving the way for the next one. So, let’s get back to basics, prioritize efficiency, and drive our sales with precision.

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event-based-sales-training

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Why Event-Based Sales Training Falls Short

In the world of sales, the quest for effective training solutions is never-ending. For years, event-based sales training has been the norm, but is it actually effective? 

I’m here to tell you 7 reasons why event-based training won’t cut it, especially for leaders managing large teams.

  1. Lack of Sustained Learning

Concern: Event-based training is like cramming the night before a test. You get a bunch of info all at once, but will you remember it next week? Probably not.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders get that learning isn’t just a one-time thing; it’s an ongoing process. Sales teams require continuous skill development and reinforcement. Event-based training, with its one-off sessions, can’t provide the consistent support needed for long-term success.

  1. Limited Application to Real-World Scenarios

Concern: Event-based sales training can feel like it’s all talk and no action. It’s theory-based and detached from real-world sales situations.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders know that the sales landscape is dynamic and challenging. To thrive, teams need training that is directly applicable to their daily tasks. 

  1. Poor Skill Retention Rates

Concern: Sales reps can struggle to retain the vast amount of information taught in a single training event. (That’s why micro-learning over time is critical to ensuring skills stick!)

Reality Check: Enablement leaders recognize that skill retention is the key to performance improvement. Event-based training can overwhelm participants, leading to lower skill retention. This leads to less effective training that fails to drive tangible results.

  1. No Skill Reinforcement

Concern: Event-based training typically lacks ongoing skill reinforcement.

Reality Check: Just like learning a new language, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Skills deteriorate over time if they’re not regularly practiced and reinforced. Enablement leaders need training that includes coaching, mentoring, and opportunities for reps to apply what they’ve learned to their daily work life – something that’s missing in event-based learning.

  1. High Cost, Limited ROI

Concern: Event-based training can be expensive, and the ROI may not always justify the investment.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders are under pressure to deliver results and prove the value of their initiatives. Event-based training’s high costs and questionable long-term effectiveness can make it a tough sell when trying to show ROI.

  1. Challenging for High Attrition

Concern: High turnover is a common challenge for large sales teams, making it difficult to keep everyone up-to-date through periodic training events.

Reality Check: Enablement leaders understand that training should be agile and accessible. Event-based training struggles to accommodate the rapid onboarding of new hires or the need for ongoing training when turnover rates are high.

  1. Inadaptability to Change

Concern: The sales landscape evolves rapidly, and event-based training can’t keep pace with these changes.

Reality Check: For those at the helm, it’s crucial that our teams are prepped and ready to tackle the ever-shifting industry trends and customer needs. Relying solely on event-based training might not give us the flexibility and swift adaptation we genuinely need.

A More Effective Approach: Continuous, Virtual Training

Event-based sales training has its merits. However, for those leading large teams with a notable churn rate, it might not be the optimal choice. The better route? Ongoing, virtual sales training. It promises consistent, deep learning, techniques that align with real-world challenges, enhanced skill retention, ongoing skill reinforcement, cost efficiency, and the flexibility to adapt to the ever-evolving landscape.

READ: Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget

Ongoing learning fosters a culture of proactive growth which improves employee retention. This continuous approach ensures that every team member, whether a seasoned sales pro or a new rep, is armed with the most current strategies, insights, and best practices. In a landscape as competitive as sales, staying updated isn’t just recommended—it’s imperative.

Are you looking for virtual sales training?

Contact us today to request information on 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 training budget

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How to Budget for Sales Training

Sales Training Budget: Getting Started

Employee development is more critical than ever as our incoming sales reps have less experience and fewer skills, yet our customer expectations and the technology we’re required to master are on the rise. 

The best practice is to budget for sales training each year alongside your normal recruiting and tech line items. Now more than ever, “Training is something you do, not something you did.” 

Don’t be one of the sales leaders who wait for a budget surplus, a BHAG goal, or a massive GTM shift to train. Today’s generations prioritize career development ABOVE their paychecks. 

READ: Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget

So hats off, leader! You’re ahead of the game by searching for annual sales training budget amounts in this blog.

Why Budget for Sales Training?

Because many of us slashed or froze headcount and training budgets in 2023, we recommend that planning for 2024 should be based on 2022 budgets. Before the economic uncertainty, we saw organizations spending more on employee development. This was driven by increasing customer expectations, shrinking pools of available talent, and a resounding demand by the employee base.

In 2022, the average company budgeted approximately $1200/per employee for professional development annually – up about 14% over the previous year. Keep in mind, that this average number is for all employees – from forklift driver to CEO. Not a surprise, but services and manufacturing industries reported the largest budget increases, whereas government, education, and nonprofits largely stayed the same or decreased. 

Growing customer demands = growing training demands.

We expect to see these numbers come down in the 2023 Training Industry Report with the widespread layoffs, but we anticipate a resounding rebound in 2024 for two reasons:

  • Sales leaders saw the evidence of their untrained workforces in 2023. Our time to ramp to quota is still longer than pre-pandemic (or non-remote) days, and the majority of sellers missed quota – even after trimming the fat. The statistics vary by resource, but in 2023 approximately 50% of sellers hit quota vs. the normal average of approximately 70%. 
  • The pendulum is shifting back to quality conversations over a cadenced quantity of messages. Many believe we’ve come as far as we can with the written cadence, and all evidence now points to the need to refresh and improve the human interaction between prospect and seller. This is underlined by the overwhelming feedback that sellers today lack phone confidence and business conversation skills – two attributes we can’t solve with technology alone. 

How Much Does Sales Training Cost?

Average spend on annual training per FTE is 1-3% of the total annual budget or 2-5% of the salary budget. That’s about $50.00 per $1000 of salary. If your team is new, only remote, shifting, or hasn’t had hands-on sales development for six months, aim slightly above average:

Six percent of salary = $60.00 per $1000 of salary

$100K employee = $6000/year | $60K employee = $3600/year

Remember, the benchmark is an average across all industries and employee types – landscapers, fast food workers, and CPAs. If customer experience and loyalty are critical to you, go higher. And, if your industry is complex or your product is early in the lifecycle, go higher. If you’re competing like mad for talent, go higher.

One source says sales jobs average 20% higher than the industry average, meaning 6-7% of their salary. 

At Factor 8, our per-employee costs (for under 1000 employee companies) to outsource one year of sales development (onboarding to upskilling) comes in at the middle of this budget range – depending on services and other factors – again validating the research. 

How Often Should You Train Your Sales Team?

In 2022, the average organization provided about 5 hours of training per month or a total of 64 hours a year. If you haven’t trained since new hire onboarding, you’re lagging well behind average. This number is up since 2021 when we averaged 4 hours a month. 

We theorize that this increase is driven by two sources: Remote workers and ineffective remote training. 

With most of our teams still working remotely or hybrid, we are hit from two sides when it comes to learning: 

  1. We’re missing the “OTJ” passive shadowing opportunities of overhearing our peers.
  2. The ineffectiveness of remote training as compared to in-person. “Zoom fatigue” is real and an unengaged learner does not make big behavior changes (kind of like an unengaged buyer). 

Factor 8, provides sales training for virtual sellers and sales managers and we do so both in-person and virtually. I can tell you firsthand that it is taking us more remote sessions to get our normal increases in connection and conversion rate results we normally see in just a few hours when onsite. 

By the way, like the last ten years, most companies are increasing budgets for manager training the most (although this group still typically falls underneath “onboarding” as the training department’s top priority). 

If your enablement department isn’t prioritizing the development of your sales management team, consider allocating your budget to outsourcing this critical training. 

How Many Sales Trainers Do You Need?

Most companies under 1000 learners employ 1 trainer for every 80-100 learners. The exception to this rule is for start-ups where we recommend budgeting for the headcount at around 50 learners if you’re on the way up. 

When beginning an enablement effort, your team literally has everything to build. Digital selling skills can be outsourced, as can some systems training, but the product, services, process, and customer acumen training has to come from within. Remember, for every hour in the classroom, there’s someone spending between 3-10 hours creating that learning interaction (and please don’t get me started on the difference between training and telling! 😉)

If you’re in build mode, I recommend a management to director-level staffer and 1 year of time before your onboarding program begins to produce reps hitting quota in industry average timelines (around 6 months, depending on role). 

Why Invest in Sales Training?

Employee development and career advancement are 2 of the top 3 things millennials search for when accepting jobs. And only 50% of reps think their company provides them with the training they actually need to be successful.

More great news, the American Society for Training and Development cites companies who invest in training their people achieve a 24% higher profit margin compared to those who don’t invest.

It’s much more expensive to recruit and replace (on average 200% – 600% of salary vs. 6% – 7%).

virtual sales challenges

Justification and Benefits of Sales Training

Here’s some great research to help you justify the spend:

Both HR Magazine and ATD sites double the profit per employee that prioritizes training (priority = double the spend of not a priority). In fact, companies who invest a minimum of just $1500/employee will see 24% higher profits.

CSO Insights proved a 63% average improvement across teams where the manager was getting development (that’s average you guys…what would happen with an 85% increase on entire TEAMS?)

And great onboarding can cut a new hire’s time to quota in HALF. That could be 1-2 extra months of productivity on an already-shrinking rep lifespan. Worth it!

Again, I can validate these findings. Over twelve years of partnering with BDR, AE, AM, and management teams across thousands of companies, we’ve seen lifts from 30-300%, with a huge percent of teams paying for the training before it’s even over with increased leads, pipeline, close rate, etc.

If you need an ROI model to get the spend, I recommend showing a 15% lift over about 90 days post-training if you’re still doing event-based training.

READ: How to Measure Sales Training ROI

You can expect bigger spikes with face-to-face training, but longer-sustained skills with a long-term blended approach. Overall, if you can’t show at least a 5-10% lift, it probably isn’t worth the investment.

Not sure it will work? Do it anyway and measure the results. Remember this?

A recent Ambition study surveyed sales reps about training and 98% of them said they would stay with a company indefinitely if they got ongoing development.

IBM recently shared that employees who feel they cannot develop in the company and fulfill career goals are 12X more likely to leave.

Truth is, sales reps know less than they did 10 years ago and our customers expect more. If you haven’t added a development line item by now, you’re in trouble. If you haven’t increased it in the past five years, it’s time.

And, if it’s been more than a year since you provided training, increase your number.

Need help building your sales training & development plan?

Click here to watch our session on “How To Build Your Training & Development Plan” to learn what industry spend is for sales training, the critical skills you need for every sales role, how to partner with your sales training organization, and more!

Is sales training included in your budget?

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


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).


sales training and enablement budget

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Why You Need a Sales Training and Enablement Budget for 2024

Tons of amazing sales trainers and enablement folks fell victim to RIFs because of this year’s slow economy.

It’s unfortunate, but not surprising, right? We all know that when companies cut spending, training is one of the first things to go.

I’m here to talk to the progressive leaders who are seeing things turn around and planning for next year.

I beg you, please budget – or over budget – to bring your trainers and enablement people back so you can focus on reinvesting in your employees.

READ: How to Budget for Sales Training

Before the economy went south, we were fighting for talent (hello, Great Resignation). 

And what were these people looking for? Hint: Not just a paycheck.

  • They want career growth
  • They want learning opportunities 
  • They want a chance to do good
  • They want a boss they don’t hate
  • And, of course, they want more money 🙂

Then, we cut their learning.

Oh, and then we left them at home on an island with a swamped sales manager drowning in Slacks and emails and without the ability to listen to peers to learn how to do their jobs.

Folks, we have a crisis ahead of us.

DOWNLOAD: Sales Team Retention Survey

That’s why I’m here to offer you the chance to get ahead of the problems that are coming.

  • Plan ahead for 2024 training budgets
  • Bring back your trainers/enablement folks
  • Do more than buy video-based learning (it doesn’t work, trust me)
  • Buy reputable training content (check out The Sales Bar)
  • Train your managers (they’re the key to motivating reps)

Sellers are struggling. Our close rates are going down, our engagement rates are going down, and satisfaction rates are going down, this isn’t a coincidence. We quit training them and put them on an island with busy managers (who can also use some skills).

Do your future self a favor, and get back on track with enabling people to succeed. They need that investment so they can get these wins, be successful in sales faster, hit quota sooner, and stay longer.

Not sure what you should budget for sales training? Email me at LB@factor8.com and I’ll share some stats in the industry that will help you hit goal and be best-in-class. 

Are you looking for sales training?

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


sales training technique

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Associative Learning: Why It’s the Best Sales Training Technique

Last week, I soapboxed about how videos aren’t training sellers anything (read that post here).

So today, I’ll share a learning strategy that ACTUALLY works if you really want to use a new skill (or want your team to try it)…

“Associative Learning” – wait! Don’t go to sleep!

This theory is why everyone says, “Oh, you’re like Sandler” to me about my training company.

It’s also the reason your college lectures were SO BORING:

Adults learn by relating new knowledge to older knowledge and to experiences.

That’s it. The whole magic.

We’ve got to talk about it. We’ve got to know where to “file it” in our brains.

  • Early call rapport-building is like when you met your freshman roommate
  • Late call bridging to the next call is when you asked her out again before the first date was over
  • Getting a decision-maker on the phone is like getting to first base 😉

Your amazing new software with zero competitors – “OH, so it’s like Ambition had a baby with Gong.” Don’t be offended, at least they’ll remember what you do.

Here’s why it works (for my fellow training nerds):

The “Associative Learning Rule” is the theory behind the phrase “Synapses that fire together, wire together.” It explains that brain cells grow stronger by sending off impulses at the same time, therefore, connecting them and overall growing stronger. When connections grow stronger, learning has taken place.

It’s why your video-based “learning library” is a waste of money. I get it, they’re easy, cheap, repeatable, and scalable – but nearly worthless when it comes to helping your team retain knowledge – let alone use it on the job to pick up the phone and sell something.

Big takeaways:

  1. Don’t think that telling or showing a video will result in behavior change
  2. Create opportunities for your team to talk about what they’re learning and tell their stories
  3. Use your LinkedIn Learning budget to hire a trainer or a training company that can interact, workshop, and actually help sellers apply new skills on the job

(Now, if only I knew a great sales training company… Seriously, if you’re looking for sales training techniques that actually work, contact us here.)

Want to learn more sales training techniques?

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


video sales training

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Why Sales Training Videos Don’t Work

Calling All Leaders Training Sellers! 

There’s something wild happening in the sales training industry right under our noses, and it’s severely impacting the skill level of your front-line sellers. Truth: Sometimes I’m part of the problem.

Riddle me this, my friends:

If it takes 8 meaningful interactions for a buyer to take action (Salesforce) or 900 digital touches before a major purchase decision (Google), then…

Why do we expect sales reps to try a new skill after watching one video? 

Video learning is as passive as it gets (not that anyone ever checked email while playing a training video) and yet we’re “training” sellers with this single touch (not even eight touches like SFDC says we need. Video alone should take hundreds, right?)

Getting a seller to try a new skill = getting a buyer to make a purchase. 

And a 30-minute training video = a single commercial.

In other words, sales training videos alone don’t work – they’re not effective in teaching skills. In fact, I’m going to climb up a little higher on my soapbox and say… 

Video-based sales training is NOT ACTUALLY TRAINING.

It’s entertainment. “Edu-tainment” at best. In our marketing vs. sales analogy, training videos would be the equivalent of content marketing. Its purpose is to brand, to “passive touch”, and to warm a prospect. 

READ: 10 Signs Your Sales Team Needs Sales Training

Unfortunately, not a lot of leads convert from content alone. Especially from a single blog or ad. This is where marketers share the stat that it takes eight “meaningful interactions” before someone will take action. And sales leaders get that “meaningful interactions” are best driven by the sales team – things like asking the right questions, qualifying, customizing the pitch, applying the solution to their world, showing value, etc.

Training works the same way. What we’re selling is a behavior change – the breaking of one habit and the installation of another. Let’s say the goal is to stop sellers from prematurely pitching as an example. We want to replace the habit with a new one like asking prospects 5 questions before delivering a custom pitch.

A great webinar or video on the subject will at best introduce this concept or maybe passively gain some attention or buy-in to the idea. Great first step!

READ: What Makes Good Inside Sales Training?

But as leaders, it is irresponsible of us to leave it there. We left off the entire rest of the learning cycle!  If your training is only (or primarily) video-based, then your learners are missing:

  1. If and how the idea applies to them
  2. When in the sales cycle it’s happening
  3. Which behaviors they do today that they need to stop
  4. How to write better questions
  5. When to ask new questions
  6. What to do when they get the answer
  7. How to ask the questions confidently
  8. How to bring up the pitch
  9. When to bring up the pitch
  10. Practice and support doing this over and over until it’s a habit

The most important parts of training to gain behavior change are missing. Don’t even get me started on maintaining that behavior (heard of the forgetting curve?)

Here’s the hard truth: If your training does not include an opportunity to try the skill, customize the application of the skill, share examples of the skill being done in different situations, practice using the skill, or feedback on the execution of the practice, then I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not training. You’re entertaining.

READ: How to Level Up Your Team with Sales Training

It’s gotten harder to influence buyers to take action with all the “noise” out there, right? Your sales teams are right in the middle of all that noise, and the younger generation is accepting video training as complete. It’s up to us to do it better. It will be a competitive differentiator for those who do.

Please do yourself, your managers, and your salesforce the favor of checking. Here are some questions to ask your training/new hire/enablement team:

  1. What percent of our new hire (or ongoing/career path) training lessons are video-based? 
  2. What do we do after the video?
  3. When do they customize and practice the skill?
  4. Who gives feedback on the execution of the skill?
  5. What actions are being done to keep it alive?

Sales enablement leaders and trainers, I know you feel me. You’ve been preaching this for years, and you could chart out where video lands on Bloom’s taxonomy and how much real estate is between a video and the confident application of the skill. Need some buy-in? Send this blog, and then go ask your sales leaders these five questions:

  1. What are you doing to teach new hires basic selling skills?
  2. How much of their training is video or webinar/zoom-based (aka a “talking head”?)
  3. What percent of their time in training is spent listening to live calls or practicing the skill?
  4. What tools do the managers use to reinforce the training?
  5. Have you taught managers how to coach and reinforce the skills?

READ: How to Find the Best Inside Sales Training Company

Let’s all do this better. There are too many young salespeople failing out of sales. Very few get to sit next to a rockstar to soak in how it’s done. It’s up to the sales and enablement leaders to demand better skills training! I’d LOVE to share how we built 10-15 interactive touches into our training at Factor 8. If you have teams of front-line digital sellers or managers, please let us show you our methodology and our results.

Want more information on why sales training videos don’t work?

Contact us today to request information on 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).


scale inside sales team

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How to Scale Your Inside Sales Team

In the past decade, inside sales has been out-pacing field sales by a 10-15x ratio. Scalability is a challenge inside sales leaders will continue to face for years to come.

While I normally focus on building your process, today my job is to talk about the people angle. Although, a good half of my people’s suggestions are process suggestions! Allow me to highlight the top 3 common pitfalls we have all faced when trying to scale your inside sales team and a few outside resources that can help.

Pitfall #1: The success of a massive growth number will live or die in a rep’s ramp time.

Ramp time means something different to each company. It could be time to quota, paying for their overhead, or something unique to you. Whatever your ramp goal, you’ll be creating projections to hit a 1.5x, 3x, or even 5x number and you’ll be doing it with a new headcount.

That means your success hinges on the ability of your headcount to:

  • Be hired on time
  • Be trained on time
  • Hit goal on time

Really dig into your new hire training program, and start doing it six months before your first hiring wave. If you haven’t onboarded recently, check out our sales rep onboarding best practices. And if your offices are still remote, brush up on virtually onboarding new sales reps

Pro Tip: Hire a sales-focused training leader NOW. Most new hire training programs need a LOT of work, and the good ones can cut your ramp time by HALF.

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Pitfall #2: We don’t change our hiring process.

Even if you previously onboarded an awesome team that is still with you today, your process likely needs a few tweaks before being pressure-tested during scaling. We usually see breakdowns in two key places:

  • The pool isn’t as deep any longer. We are in a hiring crisis, folks. Many companies stole great talent when they were new on the scene, but now they’re competing for headcount like everyone else. So even if the number of candidates and job postings are similar, you may find the depth of talent more shallow.
  • The hiring and onboarding process wasn’t built for volume and is probably too dependent on your managers (but the slew of new hires on the floor will need them more too!) At launch, these managers had all kinds of time to hire. If you triple your model (then double it for the shallow talent pool), think of how many hours per day they will be in interviews. Ouch!

Pro Tip: Pull hiring out of HR and to a recruiter – even if you need to re-appropriate a sales headcount. You need someone doing passive recruiting on the front end, AND who can handle a phone screen for sales. It’s the only way to free up your managers’ time. Make sure you tie the recruiter’s compensation to the RIGHT hires that align with your goals, instead of fighting a recruiting company’s goal of straight-up bodies. I’ve seen way too many new hire classes filled with “live bodies” by recruiters only to have to rehire a replacement class a month later. Sales leaders make no mistake, the need to retrain or rehire is how your hiring goals will be perceived in a culture of scale.

Also, check your hiring process. It should look like your pipeline, with your managers involved only toward the final stages. Oh, and let them hire their own team, OK? (Managers, you can send your cash directly to the Factor 8 HQ for that tip).

Pitfall #3: Develop your managers, NOW.

I’m watching a friend’s floor triple in size right now. They’re super successful and swimming in leads. They need a headcount to maximize the revenue. What they’re missing is strong leadership, definitions of what ‘good’ looks like, and consistency among the management team. And folks, it’s being held together with duct tape and rainbows right now. These managers are SO (say it like a teenage girl) green. Everyone runs different reports, they all manage a different sales process, there are seven disparate call methodologies, no one can forecast because pipelines are atrocious, teams are mixed and matched constantly (because managers are leaving the chaos!) and no two are managed the same. I’d say they’re all marching to a different beat, but no one remembered to hire the drummer.

Pro Tip: Hire a drummer…as long as that drummer is a series of documented processes (management cadence, performance improvement, sales handoffs, sales process to name a few). Then, TEACH your managers how to execute against them. You and I both know these people were reps five minutes ago. They need training. They need help being better leaders (or you’ll quickly wind up back at #1 hiring even more bodies). Reps join companies and quit bosses, right? New managers are going to FLAIL in a rapid-growth environment, and your reps will be confused, frustrated, and complain about a lack of development (which also happens to be the number one reason reps leave).

So, save yourself some time and a headache by updating your training program, and getting the professionals to help you with hiring, and developing those managers! I promise, the work now will be worth it once your sales floor is full (and stays that way!).

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