4 areas Sales Managers can focus on to train new Sales Development Representatives

The training period is crucial for any sales representatives for their continuous professional development within an organization. Training offers multiple benefits to them in which they get to know about the modern practices and strategies, improved messaging skills, new lead generating methods, usage of latest tools and technologies for sales process etc.

Sales managers play a vital role in building sales representatives. They are the ones who coach them to ace the role of a sales development representative. Mentoring new members in the team is not an easy task for managers. To simplify the task for managers I have listed down below some of the tricks that sales managers can follow to coach the new sales development representatives.

1. Peer competition

The job of an SDR is to fix meetings with qualified prospects for their sales representatives. SDRs generally have competitive nature which managers can use as an advantage. If an SDR notices that a team member has successfully booked multiple meetings when they have booked zero, it will encourage them to put some extra effort on their job. Managers can arrange contests where SDR who books the most qualified meetings within a given time period will be rewarded. These low cost contests can highly encourage SDRs to improve their work.

2. Group discussion

As a manager you can organize group discussions on weekly basis with your SDR team and a sales representative who was a star performer of his SDR team. Then listen to two or three of his call recordings and discuss about the good and bad moments of each call and review alternative strategies. Ask your SDRs to give analysis of each call. This is an effective way to introduce the team to a wide variety of perspective.

3. Weekly meetings

Meet your SDR team at least once in a week to check their sales pipeline and activities. Ask them to review their performance so that they could think critically. Based on the reviews you can give them some suggestions to improve their skills in this field.

4. Call assist

Providing call feedback does not always work in the best way. This is because during meeting with your sales representatives you can only provide feedbacks to the calls which had already happened and there is no scope to make any changes in it to influence the outcome. Take out some time to initiate calls with an SDR so that you can provide feedback instantly. You do not have to speak with a prospect directly, you need to listen and give instant suggestions for the betterment of the call. This will help SDRs learn important skills and add value to their prospects at the same time.

The initial stages of an SDR’s career are a formative experience. The first few months are important for a sales manager to ensure that SDRs do well in their roles and take their steps forward to become a successful sales person. Follow these five steps that will undoubtedly help you achieve your goal as sales manager.

The author writes for Exclusivecalls.com, contact center company that offers with employees on 3 different continents to meet client telemarketing, appointment setting requirements.