Hi, I’m Alex! I’ve been working in sales for innovative startups like SoftBank Robotics and large corporations like NBC Universal for years. Now, I work as an industry mentor at Pathrise. I help people land great sales jobs through workshops and 1-on-1 mentorship. Check out my review of Richardson Sales Performance.
- What does Richardson Sales Performance do?
- Who is Richardson Sales Performance for?
- What does Richardson Sales Performance cost?
- Ratings and reviews of Richardson Sales Performance
- Alternatives to Richardson Sales Performance
- How does Richardson Sales Performance compare to Pathrise?
What does Richardson Sales Performance do?
Richardson Sales Performance is an online sales resource that offers training courses, coaching, and workshops to sales and marketing professionals. The more than 40 year old program teaches people the skills they need to land entry level sales jobs or advance their careers. In fact, they teach dozens of training courses and workshops on a variety of sales subjects including creating sales pipelines, growing accounts, sales management, and winning sales opportunities.
Individual courses last 1-2 days and consist of 4-5+ hour workshops with supplemental learning before and after live classes. The curriculum features a blend of live instructor led training, video based scenarios, and Zoom breakout groups for team drills and roleplays. In addition to getting printer-friendly workbooks, students also participate in polling, discussions, and on-the-job style assignments in between live sessions. Every training includes coaching and lots of personalized feedback for students. Their program is also customizable and the curriculum is tailored to the salespeople in their courses.
Pipeline creation courses
Currently, 5 pipeline creation courses are available for salespeople. Their Six Critical Skills training program teaches salespeople key skills for soft selling while their Consultative Inside Sales training program teaches students to build rapport, keep customers engaged, uncover customer needs, add value, and close effectively. The Solution Messaging training program helps marketing teams find solutions for customers’ problems and critical business issues rather than focusing exclusively on products and features. Students in the Sales Territory Management training program learn to segment a territory, analyze geography, and prioritize current customers and prospects. Finally, the Consultative Prospecting training program helps salespeople reach new customers and grow their network.
Winning opportunities
Students have access to 9 courses on winning opportunities. The Solution Selling® Training is longer than most courses, running for 2.5 days with five 4-hour workshops. Students learn to connect with customer’s pain points to keep the customer as the focus of every sales engagement. The 8 other courses cover consultative selling, virtual selling, consultative negotiations, channel partner management, high stakes consultative dialogues, storytelling in sales, team selling, and intentional pursuit strategy to increase the odds of a sale and shorten the sales cycle.
Growing accounts
3 courses on growing accounts are currently available. The Major Account Planning training program teaches team customer-centric approaches to identify priority accounts, analyze key information, and find white space within key accounts. The Enhanced Service through Consultative Sales program is for customer service representatives who want to lead customer calls, provide more value, increase product sales, and find more solutions. They also offer a course to retail banking professionals to help them add value to customers.
Sales management
The sales management track only includes 2 courses. The Developmental Sales Coaching training program is for sales managers who want to develop their coaching skills, improve their team’s performance, and sharpen their leadership skills. Sales managers who want to optimize their pipeline can take the Sales & Pipeline Management training program, which helps students accurately predict revenue and close the gaps in their pipelines.
Who is Richardson Sales Performance for?
Current salespeople and marketers who want to grow their careers or prepare for a new role could benefit from Richardson Sales Performance’s courses. The program is especially helpful for salespeople seeking brief online training with personalized feedback and hands-on exercises.
What does Richardson Sales Performance cost? How much work is involved?
While the cost varies greatly as Richardson often sells courses in bulk to big sales teams, individual salespeople can expect to pay $500 to $2,000+ for an individual course. A free demo of their digital platform is also available.
There is no formal admissions process. Although their training programs are recommended for current salespeople, anyone can register for any course.
Ratings and reviews
Although Richardson has trained 3,000,000+ salespeople with 900+ corporate clients, they do not have too many individual reviews. They hold a perfect 5 star rating on Gartner, where users described the curriculum as “very effective” and “easy to digest.” Although one user was frustrated that it was “difficult to get reporting” and performance metrics, they were satisfied overall.
Richardson’s sales training also holds a 4/5 star rating on Cupsera. Users were impressed that courses were “flexible” yet very “interactive” with a personalized experience despite being remote. The program was included on Selling Power’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies 2020 and listed on Hubspot’s top selling programs.
Alternatives to Richardson Sales Performance
If you choose not to enroll in a Richardson Sales Performance course, there are a number of alternative bootcamps and resources that can help you launch a career in sales.
- People seeking deferred payment options can check out Flockjay. Their 10-week program teaches people the skills they need to launch a new career in B2B software sales, with lots of personalized feedback for students. They offer an income share agreement (ISA) so students don’t pay until they land a sales job. Read more about Flockjay in our review.
- The online bootcamp GrowthX Academy offers courses in sales, business development, product management, UX design, and growth marketing. Likewise, School16 and GreenFig teach marketing, sales, and product management.
- People seeking a remote program can also check out Uvaro, a 12-week bootcamp that helps students launch a career in tech sales. Starting at week 4 of the bootcamp, students can join their internship program to put their new sales skills to use as they learn.
- Another bootcamp that gives students a chance to work for real companies is Vendition. Their program is designed to teach people the skills they need to land entry-level account executive positions. Their “apprenticeship” program finds students a tech sales job first then trains them for it, offsetting tuition costs.
- Similarly, the sales bootcamps Always Hired and SV Academy pair students with companies so they don’t have to pay tuition. However, students who pay upfront do not have to go to work for a partner company.
- In the same vein, students at Fuel Sales Academy work while learning and actually get paid during the program.
- Merit America is a nonprofit that teaches tech sales and software engineering to people without college degrees.
- Similarly, Software Sales Gurus offers online courses for aspiring salespeople.
More alternatives
- Other sales bootcamp options are Headstart Academy and The Brooks Group, which are online and self-paced.
- Women who want to learn sales skills quickly can check out TalentMinded Women in Tech Sales Bootcamp, which lasts 5 days.
- Another immersive tech bootcamp is Tradecraft. They offer courses in sales, product design, growth marketing, and more. Their 12-week program is designed for people looking to land a job at a high-growth startup.
- The remote sales program Prehired helps people launch a career in software sales. If grads don’t land a job after 12 months, they get a full refund.
- You can also consider TechPoint Sales Bootcamp, which has short internship opportunities throughout the course.
- The online learning platform Udacity offers both free and paid courses on a wide variety of tech subjects, including business analytics, digital marketing, and growth product management. Students in their “nanodegree” programs work 1-on-1 with both a technical mentor and a career coach as they build polished portfolio projects. Read more about Udacity in our review.
- People on a budget can check out Aspireship, a bootcamp that helps people become account executives at SaaS companies. Their program is remote, self-paced, and totally free.
- Another low-cost and self-paced option is Udemy. They offer 100,000+ courses in tech sales, digital marketing, and more. Their courses consist mostly of recorded video lectures and only cost about $10 each. Students get lifetime access to any course they buy.
- Students seeking university courses on a budget can look into Coursera. Their platform hosts both free and paid sales courses taught by professors at accredited universities.
- Similarly, edX is a massive learning platform that offers sales courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT as well as big tech companies like Microsoft. Learn more about edX in our review.
How does Richardson Sales Performance compare to Pathrise?
Richardson Sales Performance offers training courses and coaching to help salespeople accelerate their careers. While they teach professional skills that students can apply to the job search, their program does not include job support. Pathrise is a full service organization that helps people with each phase of their job search. Fellows in our program work 1-on-1 with experienced mentors to optimize their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, build their portfolios, find recruiters, send cold emails, prepare for technical and behavioral interviews, negotiate salaries, and much more. Our experienced mentors have already helped 1,000+ students and professionals land great tech jobs.
Richardson’s courses are flexible but short, usually only running 1-2 days live a few live sessions that last 4-5+ hours. Our flexible program helps people for as long as they need to land a job, which usually only takes 3-5 months. Fellows in our program only have 2-4 hours of group sessions per week and 1-on-1s they can schedule as needed. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that fellows don’t pay anything until they land a job they love and start working. We never require upfront payments or deposits.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that helps people land their dream job in tech. With our tips and guidance, fellows in our program have seen their application responses triple. If you are interested in working with any of our mentors to optimize your job search, join Pathrise.