Sales team training must include a review of a specific mistake, practice of the required action and support for the first independent attempts. A skill sticks when a salesperson uses it in conversations with buyers, receives precise feedback and continues working this way without prompts from the head of sales.
If the team has returned to its old habits a month after a session, it is too soon to pay for the training again. First, distinguish between two causes: the employee never learnt the skill, or learnt it but their daily work demands something else. The second cause is particularly frustrating for the business owner: the company pays for a session, then its own requirements undo what people were taught.
You can see this when a discount is discussed. During the session, the salesperson is taught to find out what the buyer is comparing the price with. But if the team values the speed of issuing invoices above all else, clarifying questions start to get in the way of the usual routine. It is quicker to agree to a concession and send the paperwork. The head of sales approves this approach, and the salesperson repeats it. The knowledge remains, but there is no reason to use it.
I believe that before paying for the next course, the business owner needs to know what happened to the skill taught before: where people could not apply it and where they abandoned it to meet another company requirement. These situations call for money to be spent on different changes.
Training a sales team member
Start training a sales team member with one action they need in their current deals: explaining the terms, finding out the reason for a discount or discussing a comparison of proposals. The head of sales must establish what the person lacks — product knowledge, a way to conduct the conversation, practice or the opportunity to follow the rule they have learnt.
The task of working on objections is too broad. It mixes not knowing the terms, feeling lost when a buyer disagrees and the habit of giving in straight away. A programme covering everything at once leaves the business owner unable to say what change they are paying for.
To choose, it is enough to use the table to review one recurring difficulty with the head of sales. The head of sales prepares the facts for the discussion: recordings of situations from work, the result of a short practice session and the current requirements for the salesperson. The owner does not need to listen to the team's recordings themselves.
| What the head of sales found | What is getting in the way | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| The employee mixes up what is included in the proposal even without a buyer present | Has not learnt the product | Go through the terms and have them put together a proposal for a real request |
| Knows the terms but gets lost during practice when asked to lower the price | Has not learnt how to act in the conversation | Practise clarifying questions and choosing a response |
| Manages during practice but returns to offering a discount at work | A gap between practice and application | Review the first such conversation and the reason for reverting |
| Finds out the reason for bargaining, but the head of sales rushes them to give in straight away | Company requirements contradict the training session | Agree how negotiations will be handled and what the head of sales will do |
| Uses the technique, but the buyer still declines | The proposal and the reason for refusal need to be assessed | Separate the quality of the conversation from terms that do not suit the buyer |
The last row protects against endless extra training. If a buyer needs delivery sooner than the company can provide it, a confident voice from the salesperson will not change the delivery date. Train people in the action that actually influences the customer's choice within the terms the company can offer.
For a new employee, there is also learning the job itself: the product, how calculations are made and the paperwork. Their path is covered separately in the article “The new salesperson is busy all day. When will they start selling?”. For an existing salesperson, repeating the entire new starter programme because of one difficulty with bargaining is an unnecessary burden.
A sales team training system
A sales team training system connects a specific difficulty at work with practice, application and a decision by the head of sales based on the result. Each skill needs a clear sign that it has been learnt and a rule for how the head of sales helps the employee, reduces support or changes the training method.
You can start with one skill, without buying a training portal. Below is a ready-to-use sequence for discussing a discount. The business owner needs it to assess a proposed programme: does it include a path to independent action?
- Identify when to use it. The buyer asks for a lower price. Before discussing a concession, the salesperson finds out exactly what is being compared and which term is preventing agreement. A request for a discount does not explain this on its own.
- Work through possible responses. The buyer is comparing the total amount, what is included in the proposal or the payment arrangements. Each reason needs its own response. If the comparison involves different amounts of work, first bring what is included into line; if the payment schedule does not suit the buyer, discuss the permitted terms.
- Practise making the choice. The head of sales changes the reason for bargaining during the exercise. The salesperson clarifies it in their own words and explains why they chose the next question. A memorised line without responding to the buyer's answer does not complete the practice.
- Support application. After the first conversations involving a request for a discount, the head of sales reviews what the employee heard and how they used the answer. At first, support comes soon after the attempt; as the skill develops, reviewing selected conversations is enough.
Practice questions can be phrased like this: “Which proposal are you comparing our total with?”, “What is included in that calculation?”, “What payment terms do you need?”. These are options for different reasons for bargaining. There is no need to ask every buyer all three in a row: the salesperson chooses a question based on the content of the conversation.
A practical example of a skill record fits into a few lines:
Skill: find out the reason for a discount before discussing a concession.
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When it is needed: the buyer asks to change the price.
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Sign of use: the customer's answer makes clear what they are comparing; the salesperson's next proposal takes that answer into account.
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Limit: the employee discusses only permitted terms and refers exceptions to the head of sales.
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Reason to reduce support: the employee independently chooses a suitable response in several different conversations.
This record does not require the salesperson to hold the price at any cost. A justified concession remains an acceptable decision. Otherwise, negotiation training will quietly turn into a ban on discounts, and the salesperson will start arguing even where the company is willing to negotiate.
Training salespeople
Train salespeople as a whole team to address a common mistake or a new rule, and individually to address a difficulty faced by a particular employee. A shared topic is justified when several salespeople need to change the same action in comparable conversations.
If one salesperson does not know the instalment terms, a second forgets to clarify what is included in someone else's proposal, and a third does everything correctly, the same session for all three uses up time without a shared task. The head of sales needs to assign practice according to the difficulties. The business owner needs to see the reason for bringing the whole team together: which recurring mistake the session should eliminate.
When the proposal itself changes, a team session is needed. The team must have the same understanding of the new terms and the limits of what they can promise. After that, individual work will still differ: one person only needs clarification, while another will need to practise the conversation.
The head of sales is another participant in training. If, during a review, they insist on finding out the reason for a concession, but hand out discounts themselves without discussion at the end of the month, the team has two rules in force. The first is voiced during the session. The second helps meet the boss's demand today.
Adding another test for salespeople is pointless here. The head of sales needs to decide in advance how to act under pressure to meet the sales plan: when a concession is acceptable, what information about the customer's request is still needed and when the head of sales steps in personally. Even in an urgent deal, questions that help choose the terms still have a purpose.
At the same time, daily management does not mean a daily training session for everyone. The head of sales notices a difficulty during normal work and helps where it arises. If a salesperson is doing everything successfully, another lecture only takes time away from customers.
How do you know a skill has stuck?
A skill has stuck if the salesperson takes the required action in suitable situations without reminders and changes their response depending on what the buyer says. Assess several different conversations; a successful rehearsal shows readiness to try, but not yet independence at work.
Set a specific number for the first observations: the head of sales reviews three consecutive instances where the skill was needed. This is a starting sample for deciding what support comes next, not a standard for mastery. Taking them in sequence prevents the review from including only the best recordings.
Each instance must fall into one of three categories: the employee acted independently, acted after a prompt or skipped the required action. Record separately any conversations where the technique was not needed at all. The absence of a request for a discount cannot be counted as the salesperson's mistake or as their success in bargaining.
You can calculate use from your own data like this:
Share of independent use = conversations with the required action and no prompt / all reviewed conversations where it was needed × 100%.
Report line: “For the period from start date to end date: relevant conversations — number; independent actions — number; actions with help — number; missed actions — number”. Beside it, the head of sales writes the reason for the missed actions and their decision. If there were no relevant conversations, the line records no observations: you cannot divide by zero and declare the skill mastered.
Assess conversion rates and the size of concessions separately, using comparable deals. They answer the next question: does the chosen approach help sell on the terms the company needs? When the action has been learnt but buyers keep declining because of what is included in the proposal, repeating the session is pointless. You need to change the proposal or the buyers you target.
How much time does it take to make a skill stick?
Estimate the time needed to make a skill stick based on the number of employees, how often relevant conversations happen and how much support the head of sales provides. The same calendar period will not suit both a team that bargains daily and a team where such negotiations happen a few times a month.
To calculate the workload, use this line: “Number of salespeople × reviews per person × minutes per review + minutes for the group session = total minutes of the head of sales' time”. Add preparation of recordings separately: time spent finding an instance also takes up part of the working day.
If you have five salespeople and allocate two reviews of 15 minutes to each, that comes to 150 minutes. A group session of 20 minutes takes the total to 170 minutes, or two hours 50 minutes, without preparation. These numbers set the schedule you have chosen; they do not promise that the skill will be learnt in a week.
This calculation is needed before agreeing on the programme. If the head of sales does not have this time, training will have to be supported in another way: reduce the number of skills being learnt at once, take some tasks off their hands or assign an assistant to prepare materials. Adding sessions to a full workload leaves support for whatever is left of the day.
When does training become the business owner's job again?
Training falls back on the business owner when they are the only one who notices a return to old actions and organises a review. The reason to change how the team is managed is that this work has to be repeated after every session, while the head of sales does not take it on.
The owner only needs a brief overview: what the team is learning, how many relevant situations there were, where support is no longer needed and what obstacle the head of sales is removing. Pay particular attention to cancelled reviews. If urgent tasks constantly push them aside, first ensure that the head of sales has the time and responsibility to take training through to application.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management takes on this daily work so that the business owner stops being the main head of sales. RENTROP does not sell courses or training sessions.
The session will end, but the learning will continue — through what the head of sales praises the salesperson for in the next difficult conversation. If it is for a quick discount without finding out the reason, the team will learn a second lesson. And that lesson will undo the first.