Joint Sales Training Program Ideas

Some of my hardest lessons as a sales leader came when figuring out how to setup and run training (learn from my mistakes!) Me as a new leader: "Great we have 10 topics we want to cover... let's do 1 a week. 2.5 months later we will have covered SO much ground!" 🙃 Training was more of a "box checking" exercise. Someone shared feedback on what they wanted to learn, and it got added to the list Having one 30 or 60 minute training on any topic is never sufficient, and I did the team a disservice So what was missing? And what did I seek to add later? 👉 Focus Instead of 10 topics, we might go into a quarter with 1-2 priority focus areas. The deeper engagement on a narrower topic is not unlike narrowing your focus on a smaller set of ICP accounts This creates room for practice, follow up sessions, different voices delivering the material, and ultimately makes the content stickier 👉 Engagement from other departments Where applicable, involvement from other departments can add incredible value to your training program. For instance, when you are training on a new product category, it is valuable to: - Hear firsthand from Product how it's built - Align your training timeline with Product Marketing so that materials are ready to go as the training commences - Work with Marketing so that messaging aligns to how you can sell it and everyone has the same talking points from day 1 - Work with Rev Ops to identify a market opportunity to apply your learnings - Have Sales Enablement help prepare uses cases in your sales tech stack 👉 A system to encourage accountability Once the trainings are delivered, how do you know that the sales team was paying attention? That can take many forms: - Group activity like pitch practice - Measuring adoption through tools like Gong - Contest/SPIF to encourage initial matching sales activity - Knowledge tests in your LMS (my least favorite) 👉 Repetition There's a reason Sesame Street used to repeat episodes during the week - once wasn't enough to get the message home! While your sales team isn't full of 3 year olds, similar principles apply Bottom line: instead of thinking about any topic as a single "training", think about creating "training programs" for your team 🎓 Tying it all together for a training on "New Product A" Week 1: Product & Product Marketing introduce the new offering Week 2: Outside expert/marketing/leadership deliver the industry POV Week 3: Team gets together to identify prospects and practice the pitch Week 4: Team provides feedback on material and prospecting plans are built incorporating the training Weeks 5-8: Measuring adoption through Gong. Shouting out strong adoption and privately helping laggards identify gaps in understanding Week 6: Short contest to encourage cross/up-sell opportunity creation Week 12: Revisit/Feedback #SalesEnablement #SalesTraining #LeadershipLessons #CorrCompetencies

Partner enablement is often thought of as how we are enabling our partners. But sales teams are the frontline of revenue, and their success often hinges on understanding the value partnerships bring. Many organizations fail to equip sales reps with the tools and training they need to make the most of partner-driven opportunities. If you want your partnerships to truly drive impact, you must tailor enablement for your sales team. Here’s how to get started: 1. Sales reps need clarity on how to integrate partnerships into their process. Make sure your training covers: * The Partner Pitch: What’s the unique value of a partner-driven lead, and how should they position it to the customer? * Co-Sell Opportunities: How do they collaborate with partners during the deal cycle? Define roles and responsibilities for seamless execution. * Engagement Process: What’s the step-by-step process for involving a partner? Whether it’s looping them in for a demo or escalating technical questions, clear guidelines prevent delays and confusion. 2. Provide Easy-to-Use Tools: Sales enablement shouldn’t feel like homework. Create resources that are quick to access and easy to use, like * Quick-Reference Guides: Summarize partner value propositions, key metrics, and FAQs in a single document. * Cheat Sheets for Objections: Offer pre-written responses to common challenges when selling partner-driven solutions. * CRM Templates: Use CRM workflows to automate the partner engagement process, keeping it simple and repeatable. 3. Integrate Training into Sales Routines Don’t overwhelm your sales team with one-off workshops. Instead, embed partnership enablement into their day-to-day routines: * Add partner updates to weekly sales meetings. * Offer bite-sized training videos or guides they can review on-demand. * Celebrate wins from partner-driven deals to reinforce the value of collaboration. 4. Pair new sales reps with a “partnership ambassador” on your team to provide hands-on guidance during their first partner-driven deals. When sales teams understand how partnerships drive value, they become powerful advocates for partner-driven growth.

🚀 Partner Onboarding for Speed-to-Revenue You don’t need a 90-slide welcome deck. You need your partner driving pipeline in 30–60–90. The best onboarding isn’t about education. It’s about activation. 🚫 Where onboarding usually fails: • Generic partner portal access… with no follow-up • No clear path from training to deal involvement • Partners go 90 days without touching a live account • Sales doesn’t even know they’re onboarded Sound familiar? 💡 Here’s how high-performing partner teams onboard for execution: 🔥 1. Customize Onboarding by Partner Type One-size onboarding doesn’t work. Examples: • 🛠️ Tech / ISVs → Focus on integrations, “better together” decks, solution mapping • 📈 GSIs → Joint solutions, field mapping, co-sell rituals • 🧳 Resellers → SKU readiness, quoting workflows, deal reg systems • 🧠 PE firms → Portfolio targeting, intro processes, enablement briefings Start with: “What does this partner need to influence or close their first deal?” 🔥 2. Run a 30-60-90 Onboarding Framework Day 0–30: ✅ Access granted ✅ Kickoff call ✅ Sales enablement complete ✅ Shared GTM targets identified Day 31–60: ✅ Live co-sell motion launched ✅ AE <> partner reps mapped ✅ Mutual success plan in progress Day 61–90: ✅ First deal influenced ✅ QBR scheduled ✅ Joint marketing or expansion motion queued Fast activation = faster ROI = faster belief. 🔥 3. Track Onboarding Like You Track Sales If a partner isn’t deal-ready, they’re not onboarded. Score progress by: • Live deals influenced • Sales team awareness • Enablement completion • Co-sell win story created Onboarding is a revenue program, not an email sequence. 📈 Quick Win for This Week: Pick one partner you onboarded last quarter. Ask: • Have they touched a deal? • Do AEs know them by name? • Can you point to pipeline impact? If not, re-onboard, this time with execution in mind. Most partner programs stall in onboarding. Top teams use it as a GTM launchpad. 📩 Final post next: Modern Org Design for Partner-Led GTM #partneronboarding #ecosystemgtm #revenueenablement #cosell #gtmexecution #partnerships

early in my career, I ran the classic 𝘉𝘪𝘨 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨™. the reps were nodding, the energy was electric… and a week later? crickets. nothing had stuck🤦♂️ so, I decided to take a big swing. I scrapped the "BST" model and built a new 4‑step system I still use today: 𝟭. 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 we started with the end in mind. I asked sales reps what would actually help them win. they wanted to know: - what top reps **actually** do (not what PMM says works) - the product details reps have to know - real buyer objections 𝟮. 𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 + 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 I pulled in two influential sales reps (the ones everyone copies) for a pilot. for 3 months, they gave raw, weekly feedback and together we co‑built the no-fluff sales playbook in real time. it included: 👉 positioning & messaging distilled into 2-3 lines each 👉 30‑second pitch 👉 full pitch 👉 top 5 prospect objections 👉 recorded sample pitches (from reps in the pilot) zero 40‑page decks. 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 what’s usable in the middle of a call. 𝟯. 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 we trained reps in three focused sessions: - product + market context - roleplaying - objection handling 𝟰. 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 and lastly, every rep had to pitch their manager and score 80%+ on a simple rubric. this ensures we're baking coaching in from the get-go 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀? ✅ reps actually used the playbook ✅ top reps + managers amplified it ✅ new hires ramped way faster p.s. what’s your go-to sales training process? p.p.s. of course we refined the playbook over the next few months as we got more feedback too! 𝘱𝘳𝘰 𝘵𝘪𝘱: record every training session & save them your LMS/Google Drive to make new sales rep onboarding much faster

Creativity and genuine passion when hosting a partner training can make a huge difference. When I worked at VMware, I started a weekly partner training program that quickly grew from 20 attendees to over 150 sales reps at its peak. What differentiated the trainings at the time: 1. Being different: I used a virtual whiteboarding software (you can see the tool in the photo) to explain complex topics with simple visual diagrams. When everyone else was presenting with Powerpoints, I was drawing whiteboards. This made the trainings more interesting to follow. The good news? Today it's even easier to do this. You can use Miro. 2. High energy + quality bar: The key was bringing a lot of energy and having a really high quality bar on the value of the training. As long we did that on every call each week, partners would come back. 3. Leaning in together: After the training, if it was in person, I would sit with the reps and work on outbound campaigns with them. It wasn't enough to just do a training, I wanted to do the actual steps with them. Leaning in was important. We ended up generating $1.6M in pipeline by hosting those trainings. One partner closed a single deal for $800,000 from it. Passion makes a difference.