Make Sales Training More Effective By Making It Harder

These four changes in internal training methods resulted in a 70% sales increase in two months.

- Jeff Winters

Not long ago, my company was the king of ineffective sales training. We’d hire and on board reps and then train them in a hurried few weeks dedicated to shadowing sales calls, reading call scripts and learning how to handle objections.

As the company grew, however, I found that individual sales approaches were wildly different. Our reps answered questions inconsistently, and prospects underwent entirely divergent experiences.

It became increasingly obvious that our haphazard training model would lead to inconsistent rep ramp-up time, continued customer expectation problems, customer churn, and employee turnover.

But last year, we adopted the following four training methods, and since then, we’ve vastly improved our performance: After two months of my team’s updated practice-based model, we increased our new sales by nearly 70%.

1 Include Leaders in Practice Sessions

Sales people need their leaders to model success for them. Research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology shows that when employees view their leaders as empowering and capable, they work more proactively.

Our team adopted a strict practice regimen. Each sales rep began role-playing calls individually, using an AI tool that simulated a potential customer, and role playing in a face-to-face group weekly. Newer and lower-performing sales reps began practising daily.