Sales leaders in enterprise organizations face high demands, high expectations, and the pressure to get results. They have to be trained to achieve at that level. 

If you fall into this camp, here’s what you should expect from an enterprise sales management training program.

At ASLAN, we support the success of enterprise organizations by empowering and equipping sales leaders. This means addressing your ability to lead, manage, and coach (the trifecta). To learn more about our programs, head here.

Basic Components of an Enterprise Sales Management Training Program

Enterprise sales management training will probably include all of these elements:

Preparation — The company providing the sales training will probably have its people sit down with your leaders for some assessment, alignment, and to get them bought into the process. Then, you as a sales manager may be looped in for some pre-work or prep.

Workshops — You’ll be invited to attend either in-person or virtual workshops. These trainings are instructor-led and have all of the big ideas. Hopefully it’s a good mix of different kinds of content delivery and full of opportunities to participate and collaborate.

Breakouts or Coaching — Enterprise sales managers should get some above-and-beyond attention, which may take the form of breakout sessions, small groups, or coaching.

Certification — Once you go through enterprise sales manager training, what does it mean? It should mean that you qualify for some kind of certification, a symbol to the world that you possess shiny new capabilities and can prove it.

Follow Up — All of the processes you’ll learn (more on that in a minute) need implementation. The secret sauce has to be slathered on and baked in, which is to say everything you learned must integrate with your systems. That will be part of follow up and long-term impact, enabling leadership to check, measure, correct, and stay on top of things.

What Sales Managers Can Expect From Training

If you’re a sales manager at an enterprise level organization, sales training should benefit you immensely. It should teach you how to think in new ways, how to treat your team, and how to evaluate progress. 

You should emerge with a fresh understanding of what’s holding you back, and immediate applications for how to address the situations that are challenging you today.

I think it’s reasonable to expect these three things from training:

1. Expect to Have Your Paradigm Challenged

Everyone needs training. And everyone needs their paradigm to evolve. Conditions change. That’s reality, and if you’re doing things like you’ve always done them, I can say with confidence they aren’t as effective as they could be.

Part of the role of any good sales training company is to come in and challenge your paradigms. Challenge your assumptions. Unravel some faulty belief systems. Kick the legs out and see what holds. 

This may feel abstract, but leaders in a good sales training organization have tons of experience and will dedicate time on the front end to working with your leadership to assess, diagnose, and chart a roadmap for how to get your organization to the next level.

Don’t shy away from this. It’s fuel for your personal and professional growth.

2. Expect to Learn a Process

Knowing what you should be able to do and being taught how to do it are two different things. In any enterprise organization, there will be complexities around compliance, unique products or offerings, adaptation to market changes, and a race toward industry dominance. You’re juggling all of those things in your head while also trying to get your reps to close more. It’s a lot of pressure. And you need a process to prioritize the efforts that matter most.

Just like sales is a process, so is managing salespeople. You want to work with a sales training organization that has road-tested experts: people who have been there and done it. People who can show you how to do your job better, not just as a one-time course-correction but as an ongoing practice that will get results.

3. Expect to be Coached

Passive sales management training programs are a wash. If you sit back and just receive information, your retention will be low and your ability to put ideas into action will start diminishing the second you walk away.

Enterprise sales management training should include coaching. These sales programs are often custom solutions, purpose-built for your organization, and they should come with some 1:1s. 

That coaching shouldn’t be another kind of lecture, either. You should be invited to share real world examples, then get guidance that moves you from being shown how to coach (modeling) to coaching in front of your coach (with feedback). It’s the best way to apply what you learn and gain the highest quality insights into how you grow.

Find an Enterprise Sales Management Training Program

You may be a sales leader looking to shore up your own skills, or an executive who’s struggling to address a performance gap. Either way, sales managers need training. They need that training to challenge old habits and ways of thinking, outline a process, and provide real world feedback on their skills.

To learn more about ASLAN enterprise sales management training programs, connect with us.

Up next: Read Sales Management Leaders: This Is How You Effectively Lead a Sales Team