Successful Sales Bootcamps

Sales is the backbone of every B2B company. So, you want to ensure that your team’s sales approach is up to standard. Even if you have a rigorous induction process you may find that over time the discipline begins to decline. That’s where a sales bootcamp comes in. Whether it’s a one-day session, a week-long event, or an ongoing campaign, hosting a sales bootcamp can raise office morale, tighten selling protocol and increase revenue.

What is a sales bootcamp?

A sales bootcamp is an event designed to reinforce or train consultants on selling etiquette. They level-up your sales team, bolstering confidence, and drive greater profits. Sales bootcamps can be as flexible as required with a range of activities throughout the event to increase retention of the training objectives. Bootcamp activities can include meetings, presentations, games, competitions, physical and mental challenges and much more.

Why are sales bootcamps a benefit to businesses?

With the internet providing a wealth of information to consumers at a touch of a button, it’s no surprise the bar for good customer service is higher than ever before. That’s why businesses need to ensure that their consultants provide the best experience possible for clients and partners by investing in training and upskilling.

What makes a successful sales bootcamp?

It can be easy to invest time and money into a sales bootcamp and see little return on your efforts if it has been implemented poorly. So, what do you need to do to make a sales bootcamp successful?

The first step is to thoroughly plan your sales bootcamp. To start planning, you need to identify what the goal is. Is there a weakness you’ve identified in your client's sales journey? A lack of product knowledge in your consultants? Whatever your goal is, it will end up informing the rest of how you plan your sales bootcamp. You might not have a singular goal in mind, or your aim might be quite broad, if this is the case then you might want to consider running multiple days, either as a blocked out multi-day event, or as a campaign over several months.

Now that you have identified your goal and whether it is suitable for a one-day session or is best to be spread across multiple days, it’s time to start planning. You want to ensure that your goal is at the forefront of all choices you make, and that every part of your bootcamp is linked back to that goal. You’ll want a running order with a range of different sessions and activities to keep your consultants and partners engaged with the content through the event. Depending on the size of the event it might be worth splitting your guests into smaller groups to allow for more dialogue, making the event more memorable and stimulating.

With so many different sessions for consultants and partners to get involved in it can be easy for them to lose sight of the main aim. That is where prioritisation comes in to play. Not all activities are created equal and ensuring the proper focus goes towards the key takeaways is vital to ensure your sales bootcamp is as effective as possible. Part of planning your running order will be making sure that the main information sessions get the prime slots, whilst fun, energising activities are put in slots where attention is waning.

If your sales bootcamp will be a multiday event with multiple objectives that change each day, you’ll need to put your goals into an order. This is especially true if one goal relies on knowledge of a previous one. You can’t have an ‘introduction to’ come after your ‘become a product expert’ session. You need a cohesive roadmap of goals, with each day building on the foundations left by the previous one.

The final major hurdle that many companies face when organising a sales bootcamp is communication. Whether it’s setting up pre-event communication or having a designated communication channel for attendees, having the correct resources available for consultants and organisers to find and share information can transform your bootcamp from a chaotic waste of resources into a well-oiled machine.

What should be included in your sales bootcamp?

Introductions Session

You’ll want to begin your sales bootcamp by laying down the fundamentals. So, starting with a session centred on the objective of the bootcamp is the best way to introduce your staff or partners to the goal of the bootcamp and set the overall tone. This will likely be in the form of a presentation with details of what to expect throughout the day. This is the best time to split your attendees into groups, maybe run an ice breaker, if you think it’ll be applicable, and set down the running order for the day.

Training Presentations

From here on out the order becomes much more flexible and can be customised to suit your business goals. You might want another presentation where you do a deep dive into the goal, what you expect from your sales people, and learning materials to help them actualise this.

Games & Challenges

Alternatively, you might want to kick off with a game or some challenges, either mental or physical, to get your participants energised for the sessions to come. If you are to use games or challenges, ensuring that they link in with your goal is a great way to keep the theme of the bootcamp coherent throughout. For example, if you want to send a message about active listening you might run communication exercises, especially ones that focus on showcasing how easy it is to not be paying full attention.

Interactive Workshops

Once you have got your consultants prepared with the knowledge necessary you can broaden the scope of sessions for the sales bootcamp. Workshops are a great way to embed the information that’s been shared already during the bootcamp, especially as many people benefit from hands-on learning. This also provides the opportunity to swap around groups and experiment with different group sizes. Try pairing people to encourage all members to get involved or initiate a group discussion and create a dialogue between consultants. Different group dynamics will suit different goals more so than others, they also will suit different people to varying degrees, so having a range can be a benefit to increase engagement.

Practice Sessions

Including practice sessions with consultants in your sales bootcamp is a great way to ensure that everyone is taking away the right information from the sessions. This could be in the form of one-on-one sessions, although this could be intensive for mentors, or as a group where each member will input. Group work can also be a good way to ask different consultants what they thought of each other's pitches.

Competition

Depending on the goal of the sales bootcamp there may be the possibility of setting up a competition with incentives attached. An incentivised competition is one of the best ways to foster friendly competition and ensure that your teams are putting the maximum effort possible to take on board everything from the bootcamp to win the prize. If you are going to include a prize, make sure to highlight it at the beginning of your sales bootcamp.

Round-Up

You’ll want to make sure that when your bootcamp is coming to an end you dedicate some time to wrapping up. This would be in the form of a closing presentation to reiterate the focus of the sales bootcamp, but there are other elements that make a standout round-up. It’s a good idea to include a Q&A session to let your attendees find out further information or ask any questions they still have left.

Feedback Session

Utilising a feedback session is the perfect way to find out how your sales bootcamp was received by your guests and if there is room for improvement. This is vitally important if you found the bootcamp was effective in motivating your sales team and intend to run more, or if it is part of a series, it gives you improvements you can implement before the next event. Feedback sessions are also a great way to build up trust with staff and stakeholders by showing your care and commitment to ongoing improvement.

By carrying out a mixture of or all these steps you can ensure your staff are ready for anything the business day may throw at them or reenergise them for the next quarter. That way you are ensuring that you are giving your sales representatives everything they need to be product experts your clients can trust. Inconnection can offer support or create a fully-managed sales bootcamp to invigorate your employees. Contact us now to start planning.