Structuring Short Sales Training Modules

Your 20-hour training program has 12% completion rates. And you're trying to figure out what went wrong with the content. Actually, NOTHING went wrong with the content. You just designed an engineering curriculum for people who aren't engineers. :) Salespeople are not precept learners. They don't want three hours of foundational knowledge so they can access the thing they actually need in week four. They're just-in-time learners. They need the answer now. When the deal is stalling. When the prospect asks a question they can't answer. THAT'S when they learn. In the moment. Under pressure. With immediate application. But enablement keeps designing programs like we're teaching computer science. Module 1 builds to Module 2. Module 2 unlocks Module 3. Precept upon precept. Which works great for marketing teams. For engineers. For finance people. But salespeople? Most of them weren't straight-A students. I know for damned sure that I wasn't. 🕺 They didn't get technical degrees. They're not carving out three hours over the next 45 days to absorb information they might need eventually. They'll memorize enough to pass your assessment. Get their 80% completion certificate. And by Monday, they've forgotten everything because it was never presented in the context of actual need. I've seen companies require 22 hours of training after an acquisition. Everyone passes. Everyone gets certified. Three months later, nobody can actually sell the new product. Because they learned it the way you wanted to teach it, NOT the way they actually learn. Just-in-time content works instead. Searchable. Bite-sized. Delivered at the moment of need. - Stuck at discovery? Three questions that unstick it. - Pushback on price? The objection handling framework. - Need to explain a technical feature? Two-minute explainer. Not a 90-minute course on discovery methodology. Not a full certification program. The specific thing they need right now to move the deal forward. Your LMS should work like Google, not like graduate school. Low adoption rates might just mean you're asking folks to learn the way you learn instead of the way they actually work.

Not every sales rep needs a 90 minute workshop… Sometimes, they just need a kind of an espresso shot of insight. Strong, short, to get through the next call or presentation. A while back, I was rolling out a new sales training initiative and noticed something strange. The big workshops? Polished. Packed. Well received. But three weeks later, reps were still fumbling through product stories and dodging key objections. So I tried something smaller. Much smaller. I introduced Micro Tuesdays. Short, focused bursts of learning. One key insight, one tool, one example. Delivered in under 10 minutes. Sometimes it was a Slack voice note. Sometimes a quick video breakdown of a live call. Other times, just a one slide walkthrough on how to handle a common pricing objection. The difference? It stuck. Reps started asking for the next one. What I learned? In sales enablement, consistency beats complexity. Micro learnings don’t overwhelm. They meet people where they are, in the flow of their day and build momentum over time. Big training moments still matter, but let’s not underestimate the power of a well timed, well placed spark. Are you using micro learnings in your enablement strategy? I’d love to hear what’s working for you. #SalesEnablement #MicroLearning #L&D #CoachingInTheFlow #LearningThatSticks

My “new sales hire” training strategy for 2024. Hired a new salesperson for your agency? Here’s how you set them up for success. New salespeople have no idea what you think a good pitch looks like, or how to price it. Documenting is key to scaling sales. As a founder, your current sales process is likely in your head - or your sales lead's. To build a successful sales team, you need to: - Extract this - Put it into modules - Streamline it for consumption So that every salesperson you hire knows the exact process you use. The first 4 weeks are crucial. Each new salesperson should get hands-on experience from Day 1… or at least by the end of the first week. Having the right steps laid out for them will make this 100x smoother. Invest in an L&D platform (like Go1) or create a heavily documented wiki with bite-sized steps. This is what I recommend including on the platform of your choice: ----- Asset Templates: + Sales Deck + Cold Calling Email + Cold Calling Scripts + Discovery Call Questions + Outbound Prospecting Process + Sample pitch decks (various industries) + Pitch deck creation training (bite-sized videos). + Sample emails (for each stage of the sales process) ----- Week 1: → Setting up systems. Get them onboarded → Learning based on key assets → Sit in on 10 discovery calls → Make 10 outbound calls ----- Week 2 + 3: → Do 10 discovery calls for smaller leads (live manager feedback) → Create 2 pitch decks + manager feedback (for 2 live prospects) → Continue to work their way through assets ----- Week 4: → Pitch 2 small “real” pitches ($1-2k) + manager feedback → The manager asks them to re-pitch (internally) till they’re happy. → Sales rep does the follow-up, and keeps manager cc’d to get feedback. ----- Continue this process and - By month 3: ↪ Aim to have the sales rep closing a minimum of $10k MRR/month By month 6: ↪ Aim to have the sales rep closing minimum $15k MRR/month ----- Sounds like a lot of effort? It is, but 100% worth it. This is the only way you’ll scale and move the sales process away from you. Document the whole process. Make BETTER resources as you go. Focus on getting the first 4 weeks done. And then work towards the 6 months goal. Whilst you’re at it, always think about: If I had a new salesperson tomorrow... How can I make their learning experience easier? The more detail, the better. And as more salespeople go through the process, ask them for feedback. Over time, you’ll build a valuable resource that will be instrumental in scaling your sales team. The time and effort will be worth it. Trust me. — 👋 → Hey, I’m Wasif, an agency mentor & coach.  → Want to add another $1.5M ARR to your agency in a year? → Book a free 1:1 consultation on my profile. 

Sales leaders love to tell their reps “hope is not a strategy”. And good sales leaders should expect their reps to know things like: - what potential risks are in a deal - if their rep is dealing with a coach or a champ - who the Economy Buyer is, etc. What they're doing here is helping their sales rep take "hope" out of winning. But the same leaders turn around and are "hoping" their reps know exactly HOW to get these answers from buyers. They're expecting them to get all these answers naturally throughout their buyer conversations. I was guilty of assuming this too before realizing... Some reps would naturally ask the right questions, in right way at the right time, ...many would make very poor attempts at getting the right information...but most wouldn't even make an attempt. Let's assume all sales leaders themselves know how to coach this particular skill, which is a big assumption, but let's assume they do... They still don't have the bandwidth to coach every rep consistently. When I was a sales leader, I'd coach when the opportunity presented itself and would "hope" the rep would take it upon themselves to keep working on it. This is common because there's only so much time sales leaders have to properly coach their team. All that said, there are sales leaders who have figured it out. They are having short coaching sessions being run for them and their entire sales team works on the same micro topic together. During their 1:1s with the reps, they're up to speed on the coaching progress and can provide additional coaching to that week's lesson if they wanted to. And that should take only a few minutes of their time and pick up where the coaching left off. Having short coaching sessions in this way will allow reps to compare how they sound against their peers and get more personalized coaching during 1:1s. They will hear what great should sound like when someone on their team aces the session. Have the team master that one topic before going onto the next. Sessions should be done weekly without taking much time away from the field. This is just one page in the TOP Academy playbook where companies we work with are leveraging this approach in 3 different ways: 1) onboarding new reps 2) up-leveling existing reps 3) transitioning BDRs to Sales Roles These are the companies that are building a true sales coaching culture and are running laps around their competitors. #CRO #sales #coaching

For the last 14 years, I’ve worked with early-stage founders transitioning from founder-led sales to bringing on their first SDR or partnering with an outbound agency. Here’s the pattern I see over & over 👇 You’re obsessed with your product (which is great!) But that passion often makes it really hard to explain what you do in a way that resonates with someone who’s never heard of you. So when you finally bring in an outbound partner, it’s rarely plug & play — because most teams don’t have a sales playbook (or anything close to it). Which means you spend the first 30+ days scrambling to answer basic questions like: ❓ Who exactly are we targeting? ❓ What problems do we solve for them? ❓ What do we say in a cold email vs. cold call vs. LinkedIn DM? ❓ What objections should we expect — & how do we handle them? ❓ What success stories can we lean on for credibility? Instead of giving your SDR a map, you hand them a machete & point toward the jungle. Not ideal. Here’s my go-to framework for fixing that 👇 ✅ Start a Google Doc — this is your playbook. Break it into sections: ideal customer profiles, core messaging, pain points, channel-specific talk tracks, objection handling, social proof, etc. 🎥 Then add video — record short explainers using a tool like Sendspark. Show how you sell. Reps learn faster when they can hear tone, see delivery, & understand the flow. 📹 If you’re running discovery or sales calls on Zoom, invest in a tool like Sybill It automatically records, summarizes, & analyzes your calls — building a library of real conversations for your SDR to review. It’s a goldmine for: • Learning common objections • Picking up phrasing & tone that lands • Understanding how real buyers talk about their pain This combo — a structured playbook + video content + real call recordings — is the fastest way to get your reps up to speed & delivering results. So now I’m curious — do you have a sales playbook? If so, what does it include? If not… what’s your plan to ramp reps quickly? Drop your thoughts 👇 I’d love to hear how others are approaching this. #FounderLeadSales #SalesDevelopment #OutboundSales #SalesEnablement #SalesPlaybook #TheOutboundSalesGuy

💡 3 training formats that actually fix the most common sales problems. Generic sales training doesn’t fix specific sales problems. What you should do instead: Train based on the actual problems in your pipeline. Below I'm sharing 3 common problems we see in sales teams we train at hyrise - and training formats we have used to fix them. 1️⃣ Shallow discovery calls → Problem: Reps ask about “challenges” but never dig beyond the surface of symptoms → Training format: Call listening sprints + structured debriefs. Give your team 3 real discovery calls from top reps. Assign one task: Write down the follow-up questions they used. Then roleplay with focus on these follow-up questions - no pitching allowed. You’ll be shocked how much deeper they go next time. p.s. "Tell me more" is a great way to start 😉 2️⃣ Weak stakeholder management in complex deals → Problem: Reps rely on one contact and deals stall / fall through. → Training format: Multi-threading deal reviews. Pick 3 stuck deals for a team meeting. Ask: – Who’s involved? – Who’s missing? – What’s the internal alignment strategy? Let peers challenge each other’s mapping. Then craft a stakeholder map / engagement plan together. Repeat bi-weekly. 3️⃣ Poor objection handling under pressure → Problem: Reps freeze, give generic answers or start pitching. → Training format: Objection hot seats Create a doc of your top X (5, 10, 15) objections. Through these at your reps, one at a time, them answering on the spot. Round robin feedback by reps, manager goes last. Coach, iterate, repeat. Sales isn’t taught via videos in pure theory. It’s built in pressure, feedback, and repetition. Pls share, which training format has made the biggest difference in your team?👇 #sales #salestraining #salespeople