The solution? Make your SKO presentations interactive, engaging, and focused on the needs of your sales team. Instead of a one-way lecture, encourage two-way communication, use storytelling, incorporate visuals, and provide real-world applications.
Specifically, here are five ways to make your new product training interactive, keep your sales team engaged, and ensures the training sticks:
1. Team Challenges
Divide your sales team into small groups to tackle real-world scenarios or sales simulations. Give them a challenge related to the new product, such as crafting an elevator pitch, writing probing questions, or brainstorming objections and how to overcome them.
2. Role-Plays
Nothing beats real-life practice. Role-playing exercises give your sales team the opportunity to practice selling the new product in a low-risk environment, building confidence and competence.
3. Success Stories from Sales Reps
Sharing success stories from your own sales team can be one of the most powerful tools for engaging the group and reinforcing the new product’s value. Sales reps are more likely to connect with real-life examples from their peers, especially if those stories reflect challenges they can relate to.
4. Panel Discussion
Panel discussions are a dynamic way to engage your sales team and dive deeper into the product’s features, selling strategies, and real-world applications. By bringing together key experts—whether from within your company, external subject-matter experts, or customers—you create a forum for open discussion, insight-sharing, and problem-solving.
5. Competition, Gamification
Introduce elements of competition or rewards to make the learning process fun and engaging. Salespeople are motivated by goals, so creating challenges, quizzes, or competitions with incentives can drive participation and reinforce key concepts.
Training isn’t a one-and-done proposition. Instead, offer multiple sessions over time. Start with brief pre-work, like a short video or article, to introduce key concepts. Then, focus on the must-know content at the SKO, giving your sales team a chance to internalize and practice. After the event, reinforce learning with a job aid (e.g. cheat sheet, summary card), coaching, and opportunities for the team to share success stories and challenges.
By keeping new product training engaging, you’ll boost team motivation, enhance retention, and equip sellers with the confidence to drive conversations that lead to conversions.
