NorthernSalesGuru

Manager, Outbound Sales

Best Sales Trainers?

@GeneralCorp recently made a post about top sales influencers...if you saw it, well, it was the kind of post why we've come to love @GeneralCorp.

That said, I've been curious to hear perspective on SALES TRAINERS/TRAINING PROGRAMS.

I've worked closely with and talked to dozens of sales trainers/training programs.

For my professional dev lovers, who do you think is the best sales trainer/training program?

If I had to pick JUST ONE, I'm going with Guru Ganesh - Conscious Selling! Who you got?

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60 comments

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LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

Most sales trainers I've found have been saying the same shit since Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence...." just with a subtle "spin". "Challenger Selling" ...no silly it should be "Gap selling"....no...its should be "Spin selling".....no way... "Sandler selling" all the way. When push comes to shove, they all say the same shit. "Do a good job of identifying the why/need behind the want, leverage that why/need to win business". The only value anyone is getting out of sales books/training is padding the pockets of the trainer. If you want to make a serious impact on you or your teams performance, hire a TIME MANAGEMENT specialist, because 80% of sellers (and leaders) suck at managing their time, and it weighs down their performance.

Mikey

Politicker

Senior Regional Director

I will say that I went through Sandler training with my company a few years ago and found it to be so cheesy and unauthentic. I apologize if there are any Sandler trainers here, maybe it was just the one we had. I've heard their name thrown around quite often, but would never put a team of mine through the pain of that.

Savages

Executive

Product Expansion

As someone who is certified in Sandler + PSIS (achieveglobal), I agree 1000%, it's cheesy + inauthentic.

However, I will say both provide a baseline of asking open ended discovery questions to get your prospect to reveal info you can subsequently solve.

AnchorPoint

Politicker

Business Coach

I hear you and agree there is nothing new under the sun, however, few if any actually apply what they learn so repeated learning is important. And maybe someone new helps you finally get the concept or gives a twist that makes sense. As Zig Ziglar use to say, "Motivation is like bathing, it only lasts about 24 hours so we recommend it every day."

LoneMaverick

Executive

Strategic Account Leader

I can't stand sales trainers, influencers (corp aside), and “gurus.”

The old adage those that can’t do teach seems to be painfully applicable for this group.

After dozens of books, going through Sandler, Challenger, Command of Message, and more. I've learned they are all the same rehashed platitudes that have been circling around since Dale Carnegie and Napolean Hill.

In my experience the best trainers are internal, who know your product, customers and industry.

All these other guys (and gals) are selling snake oil.

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

@LoneMaverick 🏆

Yup. It’s also why I hate clubhouse. That’s like 99% of the people there.

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

I totally appreciate this response.

especially the references to Carnegie and Hill.

I don’t disagree with a lot of what you said.

You’re not wrong.

I do however things there are some “trainers” or whatever you want to call them who can offer value depending on what you’re hoping for

GDO

Politicker

BDM

Sales trainers always give of a bit of a marketing + huge ego vibe.

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

Google

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

And before you downvote me, this is literally how I trained myself.

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

That’s fair. Unfortunately google isnt the most scalable way to build and grow a corporate sales team.

it’s great for personal purposes but not everyone is willing to go out and google ways to better themselves

YoureMuted

Executive

Regional Sales Director

Google was how I trained up for the interview. I left a career to go into sales with no experience.

fuzzy

Notable Contributor

CMO (Chief Meme Officer)

10X YOUR LIFE MOTHERFUCKER

SADNESScounselor

Good Citizen

VP National Accounts

My personal take is if you need to train your sales team with outside sources, you hired the wrong people or have terrible in-house training. They all focus on what should be common sense and staying disciplined. Just my take. I learned more spending 30 minutes with peers than any 1-7 day course I’ve ever been on.

LoneMaverick

Executive

Strategic Account Leader

This 100%

thesalesguru

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Director

So true

Trinity

WR Officer

BusDev

Majority of sales training out there leads to sales debt.

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

This is an interesting perspective...

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Oh man, a former employer did a thing with Guru Ganesh and I was NOT a fan.

I've been through at least half a dozen sales trainings since actually becoming a seller and had a few internal people in essentially that role as well. I've found nearly the entirety of that time spent to be worthless. The best sales training is a) doing the job b) spending time with successful and unsuccessful sellers to see what to do and not to do c) spending time on shoring up your weak areas and learning how to maximize your strengths. None of that requires some outside trainer.

There is a company called Vorsight that kicks ass at training SDRs/BDRs though.

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

Awesome feedback!

thanks! I’ve never heard of vorsight but def going to check it out!

SADNESScounselor

Good Citizen

VP National Accounts

We’ve used vorsight, and I’d recommend them for junior types without hesitation.

if you balls to the wall-in your face customized training everyone will talk about go with Tom Black- boxcar millionaire is his box.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Also SPIN is great for newbies.

donjuandelasventas

Personal Narrative

Manager, Sales Development

Morgan Ingram is pretty solid - he works with John Barrows but he practices what he preaches and gave a lot of very tactical best practices during a session with us.

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

I do like some of JB’s stuff!

Kanyebut4sales

WR Lieutenant

Account Executive

I wish I could upvote this again, Morgan is a solid pick

fanatical_prospector

Good Citizen

Account Executive

Jeb Blount - guy is a straight sales savage.

Mainly love him because he fits my style of selling. Think there is a lot to learn from many different "influencers" but you have to piece things together and find what works best for you.

softwarebro

Politicker

Sales Director

I've been through a couple of "sales programs" - sandler and challenger. Outside of the IBM Summit Program, they are all about the same. In fact, I would argue that most of them are just consultants who ultimately want you to buy further and further into their program.

My advice is 3 parts.

Part 1: Read one or more of the following books: 1) How to win friends and influence people, 2. The new solution selling, 3. Selling to Veto.

Part 2: Identity what you want to improve. Want to be a better cold caller? Make more cold calls - it gets easier. Feel nervous giving a presentation to 20 strangers? Join Toastmasters international. Want to be a top rep at your company? Buy the top rep lunch and a few beers and ask them how they do it.

Part 3: This is important- Practice (as in do your job) and document what works and what doesn't.

I really want to stress part 3..Not exactly what you asked for but there is no substitute for experience.

Dollar

Executive

Enterprise AE

I've taken courses from John Barrows and Josh Braun. Both were super interesting.

wahmsales

WR Officer

SDR

What do you think was better?

MSPSales

Politicker

Partner Development Manager

Top performers if they are willingly to help

eatthefrog

Politicker

Sales Development Representative

Jeff Bajorek and Jason Bay routinely put out practical content and give very practical/tactical trainings.

MajorB

WR Lieutenant

Big fan of how practical and tactical Jason Bay is. He’s not pretending to be anything and is always helpful.

Mikey

Politicker

Senior Regional Director

I think the best sales training is experience. Make mistakes early, learn from them, and create a culture of sharing best practices and being a "team" instead of every man/woman out for themselves.

Panda4489

Politicker

Head of Some Shit

Mike Weinberg. No BS simple straight truth. Clean process. and just grind, he understands what the daily sales grind is for an individual contributor and frontline manager. There's no sales influencer who can give you a silver bullet and anyone that says so is not the right person for your org IMO.

chef

Fire Starter

Manager, Enterprise Sales

Guru Ganesha with Sandler

NorthernSalesGuru

Politicker

Manager, Outbound Sales

Love it

Rachet

Politicker

Account executive

Benjamin Dennehy is pretty solid. I like his format a lot and he does very well on prospecting. Overall he uses a lot of the Sandler method but there's enough of a spin that I like it. But most sales trainers preach the same thing or they are trying so hard to be different they lose some of their value doing that.

It's like reading a business book. You know something is solid or works because it's a different rendition of all the other books. It's the idea if you hear/read it long enough hopefully you will subconsciously do it. It's nice to see different takes on the same process but I wouldn't say a specific one has blown me away and did something so different and successful that its changed my career.

AnchorPoint

Politicker

Business Coach

I started my sales career 35+ years ago. Zig Ziglar was my mentor. And I have never stopped seeking out sales training, books, or videos. Constant learning is so important. We can all get better. Hey, if Carnegie does it for you, then keep reading that book because I guarantee you have not implemented everything.

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

I can't stand sales trainers, influencers (corp aside), and “gurus.”

SlanginSaaS

Opinionated

Strategic Account Executive

Family, Family Friends, Mentors. I love getting advice and tactics from those I know in other fields whether pharmaceuticals, medical device, real estate, tech, etc. and using the best of each to make myself better.

Money

Executive

Head of Sales

Only one I've really appreciate is Josh Braun - he's a little goofy, but provides specific examples and templates that I've found to be extremely effective.

Bandido

Politicker

Client Director

I think Sandler feels like I am peddling a used 2009 Honda Civic....Miller Heiman's methodology programs "Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, LAMP" I feel do the best in a complex selling environment. However, it requires the right company culture to implement and coach around properly to actually drive results.

I will say I puke going on LinkedIn these days because everyone is chasing Sales Influencer clout. "I was in line at an ice cream store and realized my options...this made me think of....." Its the worst.

SadnessEngine

Fire Starter

Account Executive

A lot of people feel differently, I still love Jakko at Winning By Design. Guy loves what he does and has a way of making you feel stupid and smart at the same time.

ossnaut

Enterprise AE

Best sales training I've completed: Force Management. We had Patrick McLoughlin. Definitely more enterprise sales-focused, and doesn't translate super well to less rigorous transactional/demo-driven SaaS sales that I've done in the past (I feel like Keenan's Gap Selling is better for these kinds of transactions). That being said, I learned a ton from a couple of days of sessions around champion-building, MEDDPICC, and deal strategy.

Worst sales training I've completed: Winning by Design. The training was a complete waste of time. At the time I received this training, I was a relatively new closer and even then I felt like there was absolutely nothing original in their content. Made simple concepts unnecessarily complicated, and our trainer talked way too much about the logos he worked with (we joked that he was the Walmart version of the Tres Commas guy).

Premium_User

Fire Starter

Sales Manager

Benjamin Dennehy. The UKs most hated sales trainer.

He has some great YouTube content where he goes to trade shows and sees how many questions he can get out of salespeople before they attempt to ask him one back.

Very interesting approach to getting past hostile gatekeepers. Watch his interviews with Mike Winnet for the best content.

KennaChristine73

Good Citizen

Account Executive

I loved Miller Heiman training and that is weird for me to say. I found it the most beneficial of all the sales trainings I have been through.

NoOneLoveSalesLikeGaston

Executive

Associate Consultant

Look for a sales method that covers every step of the buyer's journey, not just the early demand-gen / qualification. Check out Triangle Selling.

updateCRM

SR. Account Executive

Stephen Pia is great!!

vidalSaaSoon

Big Shot

Account Executive

We did a training with Cal Ripken’s old agent on negotiating. It was terrible and an enormous waste of money.

SalesSpectre

Opinionated

Anthony Iannarino. Love his content and training for value based consultative selling and competitor displacement.

Went through Sandler. Sorry but i found it to be trash

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NorthernSalesGuru

Best Sales Trainers?

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