Sales Training Ideas to Start Now

Salespeople are not born, they are made. As the business environment continues to evolve, your sales staff needs to keep pace in order to continue to help you grow your business and their own careers. Even the Ricky Roma (Al Pacino’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross) on your staff could use some professional development (ok, especially the Ricky Roma). The following five training tips can provide premium results without costing a premium price.

TIP #1: CURBSIDE COACHING.

Have a senior person or sales manager ride along with a junior salesperson and act as a coach for the day, offering helpful ideas for real-world situations and providing instant feedback. The secret to successfully implementing curbside coaching is for the coach to keep quiet during the sales call.

Then, when the meeting or call is finished, the coach can start by asking the salesperson what they did well and what they would like to work on. They will often be tougher on themselves than anyone else would be. The two can then work out a plan for how they can improve one or two things that might be getting in the way of their success. They can then revisit that plan in a couple of weeks to evaluate progress.

Consider expanding curbside coaching into a mentoring program for new hires. Have veterans and less experienced salespeople work together routinely for a set period of time. A couple of cautionary notes—choose the right mentors and make sure they are willing to perform the role. If they feel coerced into doing it, the mentoring relationship will probably not work. Another thing to think about when choosing mentors is to pick those who have the specific skills you want to be passed along, not the veterans who will transfer bad habits.

TIP #2: SALES BOOK CLUB.

Choose a current sales bestseller and ask all sales reps to read it by a certain date. Then, order in lunch one day and have a discussion about what each person learned. Ask your salespeople to bring in one discussion question provoked by the ideas in the book. Or, choose an idea from the book and have salespeople divide into two groups and debate the pros and cons with a prize for the winning team.

TIP #3: CASE STUDY PRESENTATIONS.

Ask a successful sales veteran to create a case study from one of their real customer situations and pose it as a challenge to the other salespeople. Divide the sales staff into small discussion groups and have them discuss the case study, and answer specific questions about the case study, bringing their best thinking to it.

TIP #4: PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE COMPETITIONS.

Create a product knowledge quiz or series of quizzes that can be taken online or in-person. Let salespeople review literature to find the answers, as it reinforces their knowledge. Include a tie-breaker essay question, possibly asking about a recent success story, judged by an outside resource. Make it fun— salespeople love competition! Award prizes to top achievers.

TIP #5: SHARE SUCCESS STORIES.

Everyone needs to hear good news these days. Not only does it strengthen the morale of the person who won the job, but focusing on success boosts the spirits of your whole company. Share successes at staff meetings or through a company-wide e-mail. If done at a staff meeting, have the successful salesperson give a five-minute overview of what led to success.

Then, ask others to describe how they plan to use the same approach with a specific customer. While there is value in formal sales training, you don’t have to spend a fortune to help your salespeople be more effective and motivated while selling in this tough time.