2020 has thrown a curve ball at many sales teams, but field sales teams have arguably made the most drastic changes due to the fact that most reps can no longer meet face-to-face with their prospects and clients.
Field Leaders are scrambling to figure out how their field reps can maintain relationships with existing customers without meeting in-person, while simultaneously training their team to sell over the phone to attract new business.
Ted Martin, CRO at Factor 8, recently sat down with some Friends of Factor 8 at Premier Safety, Lisa Hubbard, Vice President Digital Sales and Marketing, and Aaron Jacob, Great Lakes Regional Sales Manager, to talk about how they successfully transitioned a field sales team to a virtual selling environment.
During this interview, Lisa and Aaron shared their experiences and tips on:
1. How they made the initial transition from field to virtual
2. The challenges they mitigated during the transition
3. Their tips for other field teams making the transition
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In July, our Executive Open Bar topic was Remote Training Best Practices. This was a high-demand topic for obvious reasons with so many workforces now at home.
If you’re new to the “Open Bar,” this is a Leader-only sharing forum where friends of Factor 8 talk about what’s working, what’s not, and share challenges and best practices.
*Sorry you missed the discussion. Watch our webinar on virtual training best practices to learn what great virtual sales training looks like.
During this session, I got to put on the expert vs. facilitator hat on as most of our participants were Sales Leaders and not one on the call had a learning department helping with remote learning.
Say What!?
It’s a sad truth, but one we hear a lot. Sales Leaders are doubling as Enablement Leaders and their Sales Managers as Trainers. So let’s start here:
If you have more than25 people onboard, it’s time to start investing in an internal enablement department. And if you have 25 salespeople, you’ll need a dedicated sales trainer or coordinator and a budget of at least $1500 / rep per year.
Sales Leaders need new hire and ongoing learning for their sales reps and their sales managers. Their jobs are too busy to hire, train, coach, and manage these teams.
OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here are some tips we shared to help these busy folks:
1. Make New Hire Onboarding as Self-Paced as Possible.
A very common mistake is for leaders to assume we own 100% of the learning. We try to download everything a newbie needs in multiple video sessions and drive ourselves crazy with post-it note reminders of stuff to add between meetings. Here’s the deal: you’re working too hard and they won’t retain it.
Instead, try making a list of what a newbie needs to know and turn it into a research assignment. Have them use the website, intranet sites, knowledge centers, teammates, etc. to fill in your blanks and bring you questions for the rest. In fact, could their assignment be to create a presentation of this relevant information you could use next time? (See point 3)
Now your video hour together can be an interesting story you share, Q&A and you quizzing them on what they learned.
Expert tip: beware of boiling the ocean. Do they need to know the whole history of your product set or the three key differentiators?
2. Capture for Posterity.
Another common mistake is “Groundhog’s Day” with newbies. If you’re hiring one or two employees every few weeks or months, you may feel like you’re starting over every time. Once you’ve made your new hire assignment like above, capture a blank page as a Google doc or save it to a new hire drive so you’re set for next time. Take ten minutes now to write out instructions to go with each assignment – even save them in order like day 1, day 2, etc. Your future self will thank you.
3. Use Free Bandwidth.
Because most people retain more information by DOING vs. reading or listening to you explain something, take advantage of their bandwidth. After researching relevant company history, what if they create a five-slide PPT and present it to the rest of the newbies (and save it in Drive for the next hires). Rather than just researching your top five products, perhaps they could make a video introducing them to the market. Each assignment is a better-fit learning activity AND a future resource.
4. Make Freebies Better.
There are lots of free guru videos, live streams, webinars, etc., out there. Yeah, you’ll have to listen to some product pitches along the way, but we’re looking for free training, right? So here’s how you make what’s out there better:
If you attended and liked it, download / upload the video replay to your new hire training folder.
Make a list of gurus you align to. There are lots of self-proclaimed experts out there, and helping your peeps align with your culture can be as simple as telling them a few folks to follow (and who to avoid).
Surround the free events with pre and post-meetings. You can’t expect folks to attend a live webinar and then leave with changed behaviors or habits. In fact, your team will think it’s all optional unless you work with them afterward on what to apply, how to apply it, actual examples, and some role plays. Make it even better by setting expectations before the session and coaching on the key skills afterward.
5. Outsource What You Can.
Of COURSE, they love you, their fearless leader… but you’ll do well to mix it up. What internal experts can you leverage to teach topics? And what can be instantly outsourced to expert vendors?
Hint: There are five major areas where reps need training. Only two and a half are eligible for outsourcing:
Product. What are your products and services, when and why do customers need them, how are you different from the competition? Use product leaders, marketing folks, other reps, case studies, testimonials, customer training videos, and customer success…
Process. Think, “How a bill becomes a law.” What do reps need to know about getting orders processed, customers served, their timecards approved… you know, it’s how to get S#$* done at your company. Use operations leaders, support departments, other reps, the intranet, and the super-tenured folks who’ve been around forever.
Systems. Don’t assume reps know how to use your tech stack. The average rep uses over 7 tools, do yourself a favor and buy the training from your vendor vs. teaching reps every step yourself. You’ll thank yourself later when you don’t have every person using the system in different ways. Best practice is when you have a professional training team that is utilizing a practice or sandbox system and incorporating timed system drills (e.g. end of day one, look up these customers in under five minutes, and end of day five we’re adding customers in under 2 minutes…)
Acumen. Customer, business, industry. The big 3 used to be assumed when we hired a college degree. No such luck anymore. Your reps need to understand your industry, your customers’ industries, trends, terminology, acronyms, and basic business. Want them to talk ROI with the CEO… got to teach it first. Try using videos using your own internal experts. Some vendors can help here as well (Factor 8 teaches basic business acumen and has developed custom industry acumen courses for clients to use for all posterity.)
Sales. I know, you hired for sales experience. Haven’t met a rep yet who can walk in ready to execute your sales process with your customers and your industry… have you? Even tenured reps need updates, brush-ups, reminders, best practices and help translating their sales experience to your situation. For example, did they ever sell virtually? Were they prospecting or managing existing accounts? A BDR skill set is vastly different from an AE and Account Manager skill set (check out how our certifications target different skills and outcomes). This is one you can outsource. I know a great company 😉
If you found this blog helpful and you HAVE or ARE the training department, watch our session on what good virtual sales training. The world has progressed FAR beyond the video and narrated PowerPoint, aim higher with us and let’s help eLearning suck no more.
Now more than ever the world needs good virtual employee development. Enablement leaders are scrambling to take face-to-face employee training programs online and sales leaders are stretching themselves thin plugging holes to engage their people, coach, and level up. But we’re all circling around a central problem:
Most e-learning sucks.
If you’ve ever let a recorded PowerPoint play in the background while doing email…
If you’ve ever clicked forward ten times to get to the quiz…
If you’ve wished that the “Fluff Narrator” could be set to 1.5x speed…
You get me.
For ten years I resisted moving Factor 8 curriculum online for these very reasons. It’s boring. It isn’t interactive. It doesn’t pertain to me and my job. And here’s why:
It isn’t how adults learn.
Even if you aren’t a training geek, you’ve probably heard of adult learning principles. In short, it means that as grown-ups we want to participate in our learning. We need to relate new information to past information and share our experiences. We want the Subway model (“more lettuce, no mayo”), not the Burger King model (“#1 please”).
If you are hunting for great virtual learning or building it yourself, allow me to share best practices I learned while converting our sales and sales leadership curriculum from face-to-face workshops to our virtual offering The Sales Bar.
#1 – Go Micro. “Microlearning” is a training geek term that means small bites or, “If I can’t participate in the learning, for God’s sake, keep it short.” Fifteen minutes should be the maximum time for any module (or learning chunk).
#2 – Vary the Modalities. The modality is the learning format. We use interactive e-learning (more below), video, activities, reading, cheat sheets, and actual skill demonstrations using audio or video. There are different types of learners out there and recorded PowerPoint and video don’t address them all. Kinesthetic learners need to touch it, type it, write it, sort it, and more. This is where most training fails. (BTW, everyone’s favorite feature is the real calls that show the good, bad, and ugly in real (redacted) sales calls.) Here’s a screenshot example of all the different modalities in just one module:
#3 – Make E-Learning Interactive. The reason we can let bad training play in the background is that it doesn’t require us to be present. Interactive training means the learner is choosing his own adventure and touching the content. At Factor 8 we never go more than five pages without interaction. For example, learners click to see more or hear a sample, drag and drop, slide the scale, make a choice, or type in an answer. Interactivity not only keeps learners present and engaged, it is the only way to achieve higher-level learning objectives (read on dear friend…).
#4 – Go Higher with Objectives. Bear with me and my training hat for a moment, but there’s a taxonomy or ranking of learning objectives called Bloom’s taxonomy. If you want learning to be applied on the job, you must get past “remembering and understanding” and get into analyzing, evaluating, and creating. This starts with good learning objectives/training goals and is achieved by getting learners to interact with the data. Don’t just recall it, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with it. (that last part may not be a technical term as much as my term). This is why a company selling you a series of videos as e-learning misses the mark.
#5 – Layer in Live Interaction. The interactive e-learning goes to the next level when you layer in live interaction. Here is where you customize, apply, practice, and role-play. We do this after every 1-2 online modules with a live virtual instructor course. We also do it by assigning activities before and after this live session. It might be to write their own sales messaging, record a good call, or count successful outcomes trying a new skill. It bridges the gap between theory and reality and it’s the only way to get learners to own applying and using the new skills – giving actual behavior change a real shot. Bonus note for trainers: this is how you can make your “generic” virtual training customized for different internal clients.
#6 – Involve Leaders. A Training Magazine study a few years ago researched deeply into what makes training stick or not. Answers #1 and #2 had nothing to do with the quality of the training and everything to do with what the learner’s boss said before the training (#1) and after the training (#2). “Forget what you learned, here’s how it really works…” is an example of this not going well. Involve the leaders not just by making them attend, but try having them partner to kick off the training, give input in the needs analysis to build the training, and by assigning them work after the training. We built Leader Toolkits to accompany every module that includes call coaching forms to grade the skill in real calls, a coaching cheat sheet to help them ask the right questions during call coaching, and even activities and an implementation guide to help them roll it out and keep skills alive afterward. Here’s a sample:
Ok, my top 3 tips turned into six, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. In the end, I’m enormously proud of what we built in The Sales Bar and I hope it’s helped you picture a new level of good for virtual instruction. If you’ve seen something here you like and you need virtual sales training for sales reps, sales managers, or sales leaders, click here to learn more about The Sales Bar for your team. It took us two years to build this and we’re not done yet. If you’re just starting, you can save time by outsourcing the sales curriculum to us and focus instead on getting your product, process, and new hire orientation curriculum online internally.
Ready to partner with a top virtual sales training provider?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs available for reps (and managers).
When I was in corporate America leading training organizations, my “white whale” was onboarding. I built programs, I improved programs, I chased the ever-elusive perfect new hire training experience. Pretty dorky, I guess. But MAN what a challenge.
I measured success by ramp time. Even that requires a special report of rep success by hiring cohorts (go ask for this now, it takes a while to build). And like the old game show “Name that Tune,” I challenged myself to get each group to quota in slightly fewer weeks.
I found great success, usually to the tune of about 50-100% decrease in unproductive time – or twice as fast to quota. I did it for an outsourced IBM hardware program hiring hundreds/year, for international launches of virtual SAP teams selling software, and even for small groups of reps selling waste management services (yes, I can tell you a lot about dumpsters now).
There are many keys to success – it’s a complex animal, isn’t it? Here are a few of my favorites:
Institute rigor. Most trainers and reps approach new hire training as a break time. Reps get lazy and trainers “fill time.” Instead, think of the final 2-3-week step of the job interview. I’m talking daily tests, on-time starts, and class stack-rankings. It fosters an achievement culture.
Self-guidance speeds learning over hand-holding. When onboarding a remote team, the go-to move is hours of Zoom calls with experts spewing data (sadly, this is called “teaching.”). Instead, put your newbies in charge of finding information, drawing conclusions, and completing tasks. You can use recordings of past “training” + your intranet and website to complete a quiz that invites decisions or conclusions and mirrors what the customer may ask. For example, after listening to your product person give the history of your solution set, they answer questions about product features of the most recent product and how it’s different from your competitor’s solution.
Include all key areas. Most programs go heavy on systems and products. But that is a fraction of the picture. Reps and Managers need knowledge and skills in:
Business, industry, & customer acumen: this gives us conversation confidence
Sales skills. Even if you hired for experience, they’ll need to flex new muscles with your services in your industry in your sales motion (e.g. the online demo, virtual selling vs. face-to-face presentations) This is the easiest to outsource.
Process. Remember Schoolhouse Rock? How a Bill Becomes a Law? Reps and especially managers need to know how a prospect becomes a renewal – the steps and departments and people involved in the business of your business.
Product. Make this better by teaching them how to SELL it, not it’s full history.
Systems. Make this better with scavenger hunts and timed drills. Can they talk and order entry and multi-task at once? It’s a key success factor.
Just in time training. Resist the temptation to deliver training for the whole job upfront. They’ll only retain about 10% of what they don’t apply immediately. And frankly, you’ll scare them more than you’ll help them. Focus onboarding on what they need their first month on the job. Drill it to build confidence and let them loose. They’ll come back for the rest. Confidence is the name of the game for new reps, so let them graduate not knowing what they don’t know.
Synthesis. Now that you know the five categories, mix them up and drive scenarios where they use them together. The key is to mimic the job. Have them use the CRM to look up customer data, in a sales role-play where the customer is talking about a product. You know, a typical call. Bonus: have them play along while listening to real recorded calls. Tip: if you’re assigning a single-thread task, re-think how to add a layer or how to add an assignment and/or rigor to it. Don’t just attend a session, write a report, create a video, answer ten questions. You get it.
Application. Remember, the goal isn’t a perfect quiz score, the goal should be a well-executed call. What we know and what we can do under pressure are different. Consider using a call coaching or QA form as your final test and have their manager play the customer and give them their grade.
Voice of the customer is key. Use recorded calls, case studies, even joint interviews of customers to get a feel for your ICP and why they chose you. Recorded calls are my favorite. Play the pause game where you listen to a sales call and pause every 5-10 seconds. Ask, “What is the customer thinking” and “What would you do next?” It’s the best way to get reps into the mind of the customer – making them better sellers.
Keep managers at about 20%. Here’s a double-edged sword. YES, we want managers involved in new hire training but they SHOULD. NOT. OWN. IT. Your managers are the busiest people in your company and by putting new hire onboarding on their plate, you’re asking that the rest of their team receive no more coaching. Managers should do a daily check-in, a few role-play tests, and expectation-setting meetings. Hire a trainer or a coach to manage the rest. Training is a professional skill and done right will triple the retention of your trainees.
BONUS: Get on the phones as soon as possible! Find the low-probability deals, the lost accounts, or data-cleansing lead projects to get reps outbounding and talking to prospects ASAP. They’ll learn more from their mistakes, they’ll find their fail points and fears and be able to address them.
Is training part of your sales rep onboarding plan? It should be!
Download our Overview Brochure to learn more about our virtual and inside sales training programs for both sales reps and sales managers.
If you’re a seller whose “office” is face to face with your customers, you may be experiencing tougher times than the rest of us. Your world was full of vibrant interactions, personal relationships, handshakes and live presentations. You carried your world in your passenger seat and you’ve built beautiful relationships over many meals, drinks, and outings.
Welcome to virtual selling my friends. So how the hell do you transition field sales to virtual sales? We’re here to help.
Today’s blog we’re talking about selling time. What I mean is the actual voice to voice connection where you get to do your job. In the past, great field sellers could meet with two to four, maybe five prospects/contacts in a day. You likely planned meetings based on geography and how you could hit buildings in a similar location, avoid traffic, or make the most of your plane trip to the other coast.
Great news, there are no boundaries now. Time Zones are your only constraint, and great phone sellers can talk with ten people a day. If you do it right, you just got much. more. efficient.
Bad news, it ain’t easy getting people to pick up their phones or call us back these days. Not because of a pandemic, but because we don’t answer calls from people we don’t know, because we all have competing priorities and because frankly, it’s easier to ignore someone ringing in than someone walking in.
That’s why in virtual sales, we focus on getting on first. Billy Bean will tell you (shameless Moneyball reference) “You can’t get to home if you can’t get on first.”. The first base is a conversation. It happens by:
Leaving great voicemails that people will actually return
Dialing 5-10x the number of conversations you want to have
Starting calls with a compelling introduction that won’t turn people off
Overcoming a brush-off and keeping contacts on the phone with you
These four basic skills can literally triple your first-base average. (Is that a thing? There must be a baseball stat focused on the number of times a player gets on first?). In virtual sales, this is often referred to as “talk time”. Talk time is a leading indicator of sales opportunities. And it’s a critical one.
One: Amp up the dials my friends and resist the urge to feel frustrated.
It’s easy to curse your old pal Joe for not picking up all ten times you call. Hey, he may not even know you are calling. Or he may be ignoring you. Don’t give up. It takes about 7 tries to get over 90% of your targets on the phone. The trick is not cursing at Joe when he finally does pick up. Your job is to be genuinely happy to talk with him and NOT hold it against him that he launched you a few times. Tough, but really critical.
Two: Make yourself a call list.
I recommend segmenting by industry/talk track so you know what you want to talk about with every contact on your list. That way when someone picks up after 15 misses and you’re a bit startled, it’s an easy recovery.
Three: Be sure to bookmark these resources for more tips on improving your intros.
Four: Be sure to sign up / subscribe to get notified of more phone sales tips like these.
If you’re serious about taking your remote selling to the next level and coming out ahead of your competition, check out our top-notch virtual training on all of these topics at The Sales Bar (the only bar actually open right now). Now may be the best time to invest in yourself and your teams.
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I’ve loved hearing about leaders using this time of unreturned calls and stalled deals to sharpen the saw with their teams. Sure we’re all apprehensive, but so much is out of our control. These leading-from-the-front heads of sales are looking at their to-do list saying, “NOW I have the time I’ve been craving. What can we finally get to doing?”
Cleaning out the pipeline?
Managing dupes and updating CRM?
Building case studies?
(And my favorite) Train the team!
We so seldom come off the game field to the practice field, but I invite you all to join me here in the coming weeks.
Now, how do you do it?
The goal here is team engagement, team learning, improvement, and team bonding. That means sending them a link to a (mostly) sales pitch webinar isn’t going to cut it. “Click, yawn, take the quiz, take it again” eLearning isn’t either. Don’t phone it in or give them housecleaning learning (you’ll finally pass the HR required learning!). Use this time to bond. Inspire. And practice for when it’s game time!
We’ve been training virtually for a few years now and we’ve learned a lot about what works. Top tips:
Pick a topic and do it together.
Everyone attends. Meet fifteen minutes early and set expectations/goals for the training (what do you want to get out of it and why?) Open a private chat channel during the training if it isn’t interactive. Then meet for 30 minutes after to collect best practices and insights. Even better, set goals for how we’ll try and apply the new goods in the coming weeks. Want an A+? Issue a challenge (best-recorded call sent to me, cleanest pipe by Friday, best case study) and a contest!
Find interactive training.
Most content houses and webinars are sadly one-way (and a little snoozy). Harsh but fair. Good training is interactive, short, fun and easy to apply to your job. Even online. When I set out to move Factor 8’s content online, I vowed never to have five slides go by without some sort of engagement (sort it, pick it, classify it, choose it). We used real calls and gave script samples for every class. There should be activities to help apply on the job and a forum to share best practices (we call these Happy Hours). See what’s available to you from your company and associations, but preview first so you aren’t torturing the team instead of building them.
Blend team and on-your-own training.
If you don’t have access to good virtual training, try a book club. Assign some reading on their own and have each person lead a discussion / chapter or section. During the discussion be sure to cover how to apply concepts to your company/product/customers, give examples, and then an activity to go and do it. The best part of training is the application portion. Leaders own this.
Talk about it.
Make sure your team knows your intent and strategy here. Use the sports and playing field analogy if it helps, but resist the temptation to just assign and micromanage. Each of my recommendations includes team discussion and sharing for a reason. Working together to build the best messaging and sharing wins along the way will bring you all together and make life much more fun.
If you don’t have access to good eLearning, Factor 8 wants to share a free class in The Sales Bar for you and your team. We know that now more than ever, you need training for your team. Interested? Email “I need training!” to info@factor8.com and we’ll hook you up. Or, hit me up directly if you have a special circumstance at lb@factor8.com
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Should we be doing more or less sales training right now?
Let’s talk about why some companies are doubling down on training right now (and some aren’t).
We’re all in brand new situations today, but our companies, our people, and ourselves are affected differently. Some of us are:
Facing layoffs and massive business downturns
Ramping up amidst high demand
Slowing down but staying the course
And many of us are moving between these three as situations change daily and we plan for the best (and the worst). At Factor 8, we’re seeing some companies decide it’s time for more sales training and others are pausing. Here’s why:
Most of what we’re hearing is #3 – we’ve slowed down. Smart leaders here are focusing the teams on what is in our control and on positive production. It may NOT mean calling the list/book for the fourth time. It might mean writing case studies, cleaning out the pipeline, and spending time developing the team.
Not only are there some obvious team development needs right now, but we’re seeing some companies push beyond “WFH” topics to really improving call quality and efficiencies in preparation for the turnaround. Some no-brainer topics to consider starting with are:
Sales Managers:
Remote management – our front line managers may have it toughest right now
Remote call coaching – now is the time to better engage through coaching
Essential meetings – they can’t be ad-hoc anymore
Developing your team – do’s and don’ts of team development
Pipeline fundamentals – hey, we’re cleaning out the garage at home…you get it
Sales Reps:
Weaving empathy into messaging – we all wish every vendor was teaching this! 😉
Voicemails that get returned – now’s the time to leave better messages
Conducting remote meetings – enough said
Engaging customers – ditching the script and getting human
Pipeline fundamentals – yup.
What gets me excited are companies that are digging in even further. Working with teams on how to attack their books and leads when we’re back online. Capturing new decision makers, getting strategic, practicing messaging for their introductions, writing better questions, using stories, overcoming objections, asking for referrals…you get the idea. The blocking and tackling needs we all have skill gaps in but never have time to address.
Here’s the strange but apt analogy. Factor 8 does training inside women’s prisons for the hundred of women doing outsourced calls on behalf of clients who hire Televerde. Really amazing program that meets a business need while changing lives. In talking with these women we’ve learned that the women who make it when they are out are the ones who spend their time inside preparing for the outside. School, studying, physical and mental fitness. Quarantine is starting to feel a little like the inside, right?
Like sports, when we’re off the game field, we go straight to the practice field. Are college basketball teams all sitting on the couch right now because playoffs were canceled? Hell no. They’re doing drills. They’re staying fit. They’re doing all they can to come back stronger and their coaches are doing all they can to keep the team operating as a team and spirits high.
Leaders! Get your teams off the couch and focused on sales drills! Let’s prepare for the comeback and stay positively focused!!
OK, now the other side. We’re NOT training teams right now if:
We’re planning layoffs or cutbacks
Leadership is still heads-down on the transition (connectivity, remote management, etc.)
We don’t have a rally strategy to get behind yet
All budgets are frozen and time is allocated in bridging the situation
All valid reasons my friends. But if you’re swamped, I invite you to investigate ways your team can still rally and drill without you. Delegate to a hopeful team lead. There are free resources, self-study, and programs available (we’ve offered shorter terms, discounts, and delayed payments at Factor 8). Employees stick with leaders and companies that help them develop, and now may be a critical time to engage our people (and may also offer us more time to do so).
And if you’re ramping up, it’s tempting to get them a log-on or a script, but I hope that you too will find time eventually to train these folks if you want to keep them. This rapid-ramp model works for a short period only. Can you weave in a schedule where they’re on the phones for a few weeks and then digging into skills training? Your customer experience and your employee retention numbers will thank you.
If you’re using the free webinars and resources on the web, check out my next post to help you get more out of these and better engage your team during training. And if you wish you had access to awesome sales and manager skill drills but your budget is frozen, we’ve got your back with assistance programs. Let us know you want to learn more and we’ll show you in a no-pressure meeting (info@factor 8.com).
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Congratulations! The decision to develop your sales reps and managers is a sound one. If you don’t already have battle wounds from our industry’s war for talent, the fight may be coming your direction as our hiring pool shrinks and the demand for digital sellers grows (at a rate of 10-14x traditional sales).
For most of us this means that our talent is harder to find, harder to keep, and coming to us with less and less experience. In other words, we can’t always count on “buying” the talent — especially at the top of the sales funnel — instead we have to prepare our companies to “build” it.
“We can’t count on buying talent, we must learn to build it.”
According to The Bridge Group, the average tenure of a BDR/SDR role in technology is under 15 months and shrinking. And although best practice is being at quota by month 2, the average is closer to month four to six. So we’re left with a year or less of productive sales talent and a lot of open reqs.
So how do we get them up to speed faster and staying longer? Glad you asked: You train them.
Forbes reported last year the #1 thing Millennials search for from an employer is development opportunity.
Sadly, only about half of Reps rate their companies as providing them with the training to be successful (American Association of Inside Sales 2019). That means half the folks working for you right now may be looking elsewhere as your read this.
AA-ISP also taught us that only half of us Inside Sales Leaders actually get the budget we need to provide ongoing development for our teams.
If our industry continues to think of training as something we do when there’s a budget surplus, we simply won’t have the tools and talent we need to attract, ramp, and retain our reps for the foreseeable future. We’ll literally lose the war for talent.
Here’s how to fix it:
Demand a per-employee training line item in your annual budget. Ten years ago we convinced the CFO we needed one for recruiting. Five years ago it was tools. Now it’s got to be training.
Sneak it from a spiff, travel, or tools budget. Hey, there are learning tools and training is a reward, right? Sneak it this year and budget for it next year.
Build an ROI case study. Grab results from your favorite vendor case studies and do the model for your team. Show seats filled faster, reps ramping sooner, and employees staying longer. Not to mention lifts in conversion, average deal size, and pipeline velocity. We’ve seen companies increase conversions by 300%. The average is closer to 75%. But try building an ROI model of even half that and plan to over-perform.
Not comfortable modeling your floor? Cite industry ROI statistics. Training Magazine re[prt that great sales onboarding can cut time to quota by half. CSO Insights tells us that management development improves their teams’ percent to quota by up to 107% (with a 63% average improvement). Where would your floor be if reps hit quota twice as fast or your floor increased quota attainment by 63%?
What do I budget?
Best practice line item per rep is about $1500 and $2500 per manager. If you haven’t trained in a while, have lack-luster onboarding, or a big hill to climb with a strategy shift or goal increase, double it. The average spend across all industries is just under $1000 per person, with IT industries and sales professions trending at or above best-practice spends.
A few more stats to feather your pitch:
On average, the Fortune 100 ‘Best Companies to Work For’ list provide 73 hours of training for full-time employees, compared to 38 hours delivered as standard practice by others.
The top organizations also had 65% less staff turnover than other organizations in the same sector – partly due to their employee development programs.
Sales Architects tells us that 85% of best in class companies use a professional sales curriculum and/or trainer. These companies see reps hit quota faster.
Aberdeen and The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals tell us that a lack of development is a top reason for reps leaving companies.
All preaching and pitching aside, the absolute differentiator for companies in the next five years will be our ability to develop and retain our current teams + our ability to recruit from diverse hiring pools. Now is the time to create an annual development line item in the budget. it’s up to leaders like us to fix the development gap with the generations we are hiring, or the scraping sound you hear today as we recruit from the bottom of the barrel will sound a lot more like a puncture as we blow out the barrel itself.
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First and foremost, kudos to you for investigating solutions to train your teams. More and more studies show us that reps and leaders want development and career opportunities more than nearly anything else! This is especially true in inside sales where we experience higher turnover. Now, how do we make sure that investment WORKS and delivers maximum ROI?
Regardless of the solution or vendor you’re investigating, here are five smart questions to ask to ensure what is delivered won’t be a disappointment.
#1 – What percent of the content is customized?
Unless you’re sending employees to a public seminar for new skills (great entry-level & low-budget option, but you’ll see less than 10% being applied back on the job), vendors will talk about customization. It is what makes it faster and easier for attendees to apply the new skills to their world, and application is step one in getting better results.
Unfortunately, truly customized solutions don’t scale well and are hard to execute well. I once paid a vendor nearly $10,000 for customized training that turned out to be three additional pages of content with a custom role play. So, get specific in your questions, like:
What content is customized?
Can you give me five examples of what is customized?
How many pages are altered from the standard?
What percent is this?
What do you use to customize the training?
BONUS: have them explain exactly how 2 different packages differ. This will give you a feel for whether the same content is simply being marketed 2 different ways, or if they really get the difference between BDR, AE, and AM skills.
Net-net: More customization = more expense. So, if you’re shopping based on price and learn that only a few pages or role plays are custom, you’re probably in the right ballpark. If you have over 50 reps and are looking to make the custom training part of ongoing development or onboarding, on the other hand, I suggest spending the money to be sure every section references examples from your industry, your customers, and your product/service.
#2 – What is my facilitator’s background?
Truth is, some of the best classroom trainers are professional classroom trainers. That is their background. But this doesn’t fly in tactical sales training folks – you may as well let your HR team teach your reps to sell. If you want to see real results, you want a facilitator that has made the calls, coached the teams, and can deliver on-the-fly coaching on messaging and delivery.
It’s the training leader’s dilemma:
Do I hire sales people and make them trainers?
Do I hire training people and teach them sales?
In my 20+ years of building sales training teams in corporate America and Factor 8, the right answer is ALWAYS #1.
If you’re training reps or managers young in their careers, you should always pay for sales expertise. If you’re training senior executives, facilitating massive groups, or teaching more generic / softer skills, a professional facilitator is a better investment.
#3 – Please share results from similar companies / situations.
If your provider doesn’t have case studies showing results, that means they probably aren’t getting any – or they aren’t staying engaged long enough to care. There’s only one measurement when it comes to training sales teams and that’s sales results.
Remember, different training targets different outcomes, and different outcomes require different timelines. Look for:
Metrics – if your new skills will impact call volume, talk time, number of calls or longer calls, this can be measured the day after training (and again in coming weeks.) Training excitement will wear off from an initial high, but you still want to see a sustained lift if new habits were built well and your managers are engaged in keeping skills alive.
KPI’s – Between metrics and quota sit Key Performance Indicators. Perhaps you want to impact meetings booked, quotes sent, close rates within the funnel, pipeline built. Look for these results 2 weeks to 2 months after training depending on your sales cycle.
Results – One month to one quarter after training (sorry, sales-cycle dependent again) is when results should be pouring in. Absolutely this can happen faster (we’ve seen SDR/BDR results spike next day), but look for case studies that talk about actual revenue or quota impact.
#4 – Who was your audience for your last 5 gigs?
Because customization, experience, and application are so important (see earlier points), this question gives another look into where your vendor really plays.
We see a lot of “old school” curriculum companies now marketing to inside sales. Literally zero change in what they train, but a lot of ads targeting the now-fastest growing segment of sellers. There are also plenty of consulting companies touting training and vice versa. Try these follow-up questions:
Without company names, walk me backward through your last five clients. What industry were they in?
What were their sales cycles and average deal size?
What were the company sizes?
What type of sellers participated (field? BDR? Account Manager? Inbound?)
What else did you do for these clients?
The key here is fast answers. If they don’t know the difference between an SDR and an AE we have a problem, right? If sellers were largely face-to-face bag carriers, red flag number two. If the experiance was largely strategy design, consulting, or system implementation + some training it could again be a warning sign.
You want a company that specializes in exactly what kind of selling you do. And if it isn’t the bullseye of the dartboard, it should be no more than one ring outside.
#5 – How do you make it stick?
One out of every five gigs we have the honor of replacing another vendor. Number one reason for the change? “It was good info but nothing happened afterward.” You may have felt the same way after telling reps what to do and watching nothing change. Truth: There’s a big difference between edu-taining (like that? Entertaining education) and training, and it all comes down to the stickiness factor. Great training makes the learning stick. Here is my shortlist of what makes the difference:
Self discovery – Just like managing vs. coaching, the true Jedi masters get trainees to generate their own ideas while still arriving at the promised land. Look for white space in materials, lots of group work in the schedule, and no death by PowerPoint.
Hands on application – Once they GET it, they have to USE it to have even a shot at being sticky. This is covered in role plays or better, live selling time. Application in a real-world scenario is 10x more effective than a pretend one (again, why customization is a key).
Manager integration – Years ago, Training Magazine taught us that a trainee’s direct manager holds all the power in application with their attitude, communication, and involvement in the training. Look for your vendor to include managers in pre-work, roll-outs, the class itself, and ongoing support. We learned at Factor 8 that just attending the training wasn’t enough. So, Managers now have required companion classes for every Rep class. It’s that important.
Ongoing leadership support – Is your vendor willing to be involved in post-training certification, results collection, Manager Q&A, best practice sharing? Are there tools, contest, follow up calls, or online support? If you want reps to stay focused, keep their boss focused.
Fun – If you want learners to buy-in, remember you’ll increase the odds dramatically if they are having fun. Surely there are dozens of scientific studies about how positive emotions morph the hippocampus into longer recall…but let’s just trust logic instead. Look for contests, activities, facilitator personality, and company culture fit. We purposely talk about drinking beer on our website so companies with a rigid culture won’t call us first…believe me it won’t be a fit!
Stay armed with this guide during your next vendor selection process and you’ll be ten steps ahead of the training “forgetting curve” and well on your way to guaranteeing more buy-in, more application, and bigger results.
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If you’re thinking about investing in training your sales staff, you’re on the right track. 85% of best-in-class companies use a professional sales trainer or curriculum (Aberdeen). To get the most out of your investment, there are 5 actions we recommend you do first.
Tip: If you don’t do #3 you should probably not even spend the money. If you do #2 and #5 you’re in the top 10 percent.
#1 – Do an onsite needs analysis that involves your team
Uncovering the root needs and gaps is the first step of any professional training program. Not only will it help your vendor pick the right training modules and tailor them to your situation, but it builds buy-in to the solution.
If possible, involve your trainer in the process by bringing them onsite to observe, ask questions, and get to know the team and form their own conclusions. Not all managers are expert and diagnosing skill gaps yet. So instead of just ordering your prescription from the doctor, do a visit.
Bonus: this will build credibility and excitement for the training, thereby ensuring a higher show rate, buy-in, and waste less time “getting to know you” during training.
#2 – Collect baselines
Decide what metrics, KPI’s and results you’d like to shift (be sure to include all three categories, ask your Factor 8 advisor for help here if you need it). Metrics move quickly, KPI’s a bit faster, and results at end of month. The key is to move all three, but be specific about where and how.
Focusing on the numbers before you start helps target the training to the right phase in the funnel and the right skills in the classroom. For example, a class targeted at filling the top of the funnel won’t focus on closing and overcoming objections, but might impact talk time, number of conversations, conversion rate, and leads passed. Grab these numbers by rep and team over the past 3-6 months and discuss where you’d like them to go by looking at averages and top performers. Now post-training collection and measurement is ready to go!
#3 – Get manager buy-in
An old study by Training Magazine taught us that the two most important factors to get behavior change after training are
What the trainee’s boss said before the training.
What he or she said after the training.
Seriously, all your vendor due-diligence and the front-line supervisor holds all the power. If your management team is on board, your reps will be on board and you have a running start.
To get buy-in, involve managers along the way – collecting needs, baselines, and vendor selection. Over-communicate the goals and be crystal clear on expectations (will they be attending? Participating? Can they do email from the back of the room?) Show them the investment and importance at multiple levels.
Bonus: Be sure managers get their own development. If they haven’t learned how to do coaching yet, your rep training might be better done after a class for managers.
#4 – Do a leadership kickoff
Get the highest honcho you can find, all the leaders, managers and reps on one or several kickoff events. It can be in person or remote and last 30 minutes tops. This act alone will indicate the seriousness of your investment and how much you expect from them.
Talk about the importance of investing in our skills, how important employees are to the company, results you hope to achieve and the impact it will make on the company. Include your vendor, build their credibility and layout specific expectations about start times, participation, making live calls, etc.
Bonus: announce a contest between divisions, teams, or reps based on expected results (see baselines, #2). Talk up the prize, give an outline of how it will be decided, and set a date it is awarded. This is great fodder for follow up emails and announcements to keep the buzz alive after training!
#5 – Pre-book your follow up with leadership
Your vendor may offer post-training follow-up sessions (Factor 8 has three). We answer questions, check results, even listen to calls and certify reps. Get these on calendars BEFORE training and let managers know they are required. .
Also, book results follow-up sessions. I suggest 1 week after training, end of month 1 after training, and also end of month 2, 4, and 6. If you’ve already pulled baselines, an ongoing focus on the results from training will keep focus sharp and coaching new skills top of mind for leaders at all levels. That’s key for sustained behavior change.
Short on bandwidth but have the budget? Do #1 – onsite needs analysis. While your Factor 8 Advisor is onsite, do the kickoff meeting and collect the baselines.
