Sales rep development never happens in a silo.
Salespeople who invest in their own learning can improve specific skills and address weaknesses. But the best results happen when sales executives take charge of coaching and training their team members instead of expecting them to figure it out on their own.
So how can both sides work together to help reps grow professionally and, by extension, increase revenue?
By working together. Sales reps can adopt specific tactics that have helped other SDRs improve their close rates and advance their careers. And sales managers can make supporting, training, and empowering their teams a priority. Here’s how.
5 habits sales reps should adopt to boost their professional development
Manager-led training only works when reps actively engage with their own development.
While passive learning, like reading through notes or watching slideshows, provides some value, sales development reps typically see the most improvement from actively learning and practicing new tactics.
As a sales development rep, how can you improve your skills and advance your career? Start by adopting these five habits.
1. Proactively identify gaps in your knowledge
Start by identifying your strengths and weaknesses:
Areas where you can improve
Any professional knowledge gaps you may have
You can also talk to your manager to understand which skills will help you get better at lead generation, cold calling, writing outreach messages, social media selling, closing deals, and other day-to-day tasks.
Additionally, listen to your call recordings with prospects to identify the soft skills (such as communication skills, active listening, empathy, and confidence) you need to refine.
Then read books, listen to podcasts, and attend webinars on those topics. Read books, listen to podcasts, and attend webinars on the topic. You can also listen to your peers’ sales call recordings to learn from them.
Pro tip: Focus on 1-3 skills at a time rather than trying to improve everything at once. This way, you can strategically budget your attention and learn better.
2. Synthesize the information you consume
The best way to internalize what you learn is to make notes on it, a process UserGems’ Sales Strategist, Krysten Conner calls “synthesis.” It involves “creating something new so we can remember that later.”
Most people highlight and copy/paste notes into a document. This passive approach makes it harder to understand and remember what you’ve learned.
By writing what you learn in your own words, you can make the information relevant to the way you work within your organization. This makes it easier to remember and practice it in your daily routine.
3. Systemize everything you learn
After synthesizing information, systemize it—decide when and where to use it in your sales process.
It involves deciding when and where to use the knowledge you acquire within the sales cycle.
To systemize information, add a succinct reminder on a note or flashcard. Krysten uses this method to improve her communication skills in discovery calls.
The process:
Make notes on a new tactic you learn and the way you want to use it (synthesis)
Identify where you what to use the tactic in your sales process
Add the tactic to a flash card and keep it around you during sales calls so you can use it as a reminder
For example, in her discovery calls, Krysten noted that potential customers aren’t only interested in using UserGems for pipeline generation but also preventing churn. So to be able to speak to these people’s pain points, Krysten created a card titled ‘churn prevention story,’ to remind herself of sharing a customer story where her team helped their customer save 53 at-risk deals in just ten months.
In doing so, Kyrsten systemized the information she wanted to share in her discovery calls. From there, she practiced making her story as succinct as possible.
After you systemize a tactic, practice it until it becomes part of your routine. Then replace it with a new one to master.
4. Take ownership of your mistakes
Kyle Asay, the Regional Vice President at MongoDB, notes ownership is the most common skill that separates top-performing sales professionals from bottom performers. It’s also the trait Kyle shares he looks for when interviewing new hires.
Instead of blaming external factors, take ownership of your learning, development, and performance—both mistakes and wins.
Work with the tools and resources you have to attract and convert leads.
5. Stay in a mental neutral
A “mental neutral” is a state of mind that prevents you from being at extreme odds for extended periods of time.
For example, you allow the excitement of closing new customers to impact you for only a day. Similarly, you limit how much the disappointment of missed opportunities affects you.
Instead, focus on one thing each day: doing better than yesterday.
Braxton Carr, UserGems’ Director of Revenue Enablement notes staying in a mental neutral is an effective way for reps to grow their mental resilience — all while learning daily. Braxton comments:
How can managers help with sales rep development?
Reps who own their development build stronger skills. They improve even faster when managers support them.
Sales managers and team leads can help to develop sales reps’ skills by:
Building their confidence by giving them easy deals to close in the beginning
Arming them with essential resources on buyer personas and a map to career progress in their organization
Three ways managers can support rep development:
1. Break down the best rep profile by skills
Instead of taking an ad hoc approach to training sales teams, UserGems’ Braxton Carr advises creating a list of specific skills that are important to your organization’s selling approach.
At UserGems, for example, we take a relationship-building focus, which is why we value the following skills, according to Braxton:
Pre-call research
Storytelling
Active listening and selling
Give to get
Forecasting
Nurturing
To create such a list, Braxton recommends you ask yourself the following question: “what are the types of abilities that we want our reps to have?”
Grade each rep on these skills to identify specific areas for development.
Braxton uses a 0-2 grading system for the UserGems team. “We grade these out on a zero to a two. Two is amazing. One means you could be improved and a zero means this is our area of focus,” Braxton explains.
This method lets you provide tailored coaching that focuses each rep on their specific skill gaps.
2. Train your reps on what to do and how to do it
“Rather than simply giving reps the resources to use at each stage, give them easy deals to close early on. From there, review and coach them on what to do and who to involve to move qualified leads through different stages of the sales funnel,” advises Braxton.
One way to do this is to leverage UserGems for pipeline generation. UserGems tracks customer job changes — alerting you when an alumni customer switches to a new company.
Ask reps to reach out to them about using your tool in their new organization as well. Since these customers already know your product, reps close these deals faster than cold outreach, which builds confidence.
3. Give them a career progress map
Show reps exactly how they can advance their careers in your organization. You can do this by providing them with a career progress map that reflects the role they’re currently in and potential promotions from there.
“Reps will focus on improving rather than wondering what to do next,” observes MongoDB's Kyle Asay.
Kyle suggests your aim should be to create “A place where [reps] understand the next steps in their career, and how to actually get better. Their promotion path isn’t too ambiguous […] And they know how they can continue to progress their career. They’re not constantly wondering, what do I [do to] get promoted? What’s the next step? How do I make that happen? If you can put those things together, you’re going to have a fairly positive environment for reps to feel like they can have a successful career.”
This improves your team's focus and motivation while creating a more engaging work environment.
If reps feel their manager doesn't care about their long-term career, they'll struggle to stay engaged and will feel like they're just chasing quarterly numbers," Kyle explains."
Show your commitment to reps' professional development and career growth. The best part? “You can always coach them and give them support to grow within a funnel of what is good for the team overall,” adds Braxton.
Sales rep development requires focus from both reps and managers.
Remember, sales rep development requires collaboration between account executives, SDRs, and sales managers.
Managers and reps working together drive the most meaningful results for the sales pipeline.
On a sales development representative’s part, it is important they:
Proactively learn
Take ownership of their mistakes
And, stay in a mental neutral
As for managers, it’s essential they:
Regularly educate reps about the ideal customer and their pain points
Create coaching programs tailored to individuals’ needs
Be transparent about what reps need to do to get promoted
Give them proven templates for attracting potential customers and closing deals
And, build their teams’ confidence
UserGems tracks buyer job changes, giving your reps warm leads that build pipeline and confidence.
Book a UserGems demo to see how job change tracking converts into pipeline.
