Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023 - 48

Leaders can start an environment of
feedback by modeling it themselves.
CREATE FORMAL AND
INFORMAL ONLINE SPACES
For decades, businesses have invested
in offices
that allowed for
sales
" bullpens, " where reps sit next to each
other and their managers. The traditional
bullpen allows reps to hear each other's
calls, ask each other questions in the
moment, lean over to see each other's
screens, and to get in-the-moment
coaching from their direct managers.
Supporting a hybrid sales workforce
requires
the same intentionality as
creating a bullpen in the physical
office. For a close approximation, David
Dulany, founder and CEO of Tenbound,
recommends hosting a Zoom room
that stays open for a standard set of
hours. This could be for each manager
and their direct reports, or it could be
for a larger group of reps. Either way,
set an expectation that everyone joins
with their cameras on and their mics
unmuted (to a reasonable degree).
This allows managers and peers
to overhear each other's calls, ask
questions as soon as they come up and
also build camaraderie so they trust
each other enough to give feedback.
Peer-to-peer learning
is crucial to successful
sales teams. Not only does
it help with knowledge
transfer, but it also builds
team morale and gives
young reps a glimpse of
future career paths.
For another, more targeted approach,
Leslie Douglas, vice president of
sponsor sales at Sell Better, suggests
setting up regular meetings between
reps for peer-to-peer feedback. These
could be one-on-one or small groups.
The important thing is to put them on the
calendar, keep them regular and give
parameters for what kind of feedback
they should give each other. This way,
you set the expectation that reps should
rely on each other for help, even when
they aren't physically together.
48
ENCOURAGE REPS TO
SHARE STORIES
In the traditional bullpen environment,
reps start sharing stories with each other
naturally. It is a way to blow off steam,
bond with deskmates and maybe even kill
time before their next round of cold calls.
In a hybrid workforce, it takes further
encouragement. From his vantage
point helping start and run business
development teams for tech companies,
David Dulany recommends requiring
reps to share stories in daily stand-ups.
Depending on the size of your team,
this might not be every rep every day.
However, many reps you can include,
be sure to encourage both success and
failure stories. They can be as small as
an anecdote on building rapport over the
phone or as big as tracing a deal win from
the first cold call through to the contract
signing. The point is to help reps break
the ice with each other, so they continue
to talk after the meeting ends.
For Jen Allen-Knuth, head of community
growth at Lavender, it is important to keep
the focus on how reps are beating their
own personal goals, rather than creating
an overly competitive environment. She
sees success when salespeople are in

https://trainingindustry.com/articles/content-development/successful-training-in-a-hybrid-setting/ https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/mar-apr-2020/driving-sales-training-results-through-manager-coaching-cptm/ https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/mar-apr-2020/driving-sales-training-results-through-manager-coaching-cptm/ https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/winter-2022/the-trust-crisis-the-skills-every-leader-needs-to-rebuild-trust-in-the-post-pandemic-workplace/ https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/winter-2022/the-trust-crisis-the-skills-every-leader-needs-to-rebuild-trust-in-the-post-pandemic-workplace/

Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023

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