Companies with the best sales talent demonstrate An agribusiness company is introducing a tool that four to five times higher market growth. For most integrates sales training into Salesforce. This allows established organizations, the fastest way to build sales reps to access training simply by switching to the best sales talent is through strong learning the landing page in their Salesforce window. When and development programs. This means reskilling they need support in managing opportunities, roughly half their salesforce and plugging gaps in Salesforce provides refreshers and micro-training core commercial roles to drive success (Exhibit 9). sessions that take just a few minutes and are tailored to what reps need, when they need it. Leading sales organizations make learning personalized, serve it in small bites, and reinforce Data and analytics are at the heart of personalized it regularly. And it works—our analysis finds that training. A digital-solutions provider grew its companies that tailor learning programs to the business by double-digit percentages every quarter observed needs of sales reps are 1.3 times more predominantly by hiring more sales staff. But when 11 growth slowed, the company turned to analytics likely to be outperformers. to understand its reps’ skills. It discovered large Integrating micro-learning—what one sales leader variations between reps—the consequence of referred to as “snackable content”—in the sales investing less time in training after onboarding while curriculum overcomes the challenges of lengthy it scaled at pace, and not assessing performance (virtual or in-person) training sessions. Reps are management often enough. By comparing reps’ more engaged and retain knowledge, and it takes skills proficiency with outcomes, the company found less time. Training can be delivered through virtual it could achieve better results by refreshing reps’ platforms and integrated into reps’ customer product knowledge, equipping them with proven relationship management so that it’s delivered when tactics for negotiating prices, and improving their needed. handling of customers’ concerns. By personalizing Exhibit 9 B2B sales organizations need to reskill frontline reps and add leadership roles. Sales leaders see reskilling as their … as less than half of sales leaders immediate priority… believe most of their reps have the right capabilities to succeed. Which best describes how your company What percentage of your company’s sales force thinks about upskilling your sales force? currently has the right capabilities to be successful? % of respondents % of respondents¹  1 1 <1% % „op priority 97  %  ­€% ‚ƒ%  Low /not a priority  1…igures may not sum to 1%† because of rounding‡ ˆource‰ Šc‹insey insights McKinsey & Company 11 Boudewijn Driedonks, Sinem Hosletter, and Ryan Paulowsky, “By the numbers: What drives sales-growth outperformance,” McKinsey, April 13, 2022. 30 Future of B2B sales: The big reframe