Virtual sales training
When your salespeople work in different places, training them over video can work as well as training them together. The result depends on how the sessions are spaced and what happens between them.
By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers
- Updated 11 November 2026
Key takeaways
- Virtual sales training suits teams whose salespeople work in different places, where bringing them together costs too much time or money.
- Online and classroom delivery perform about equally when the teaching method is the same. The method decides the result.
- Four 90-minute sessions spread over several weeks give people time to try each topic on a live deal before the next one.
- Zoom fatigue is real. Design for it with 90-minute sessions, one a day, and self-view turned off.
When is virtual sales training the right choice?
Virtual sales training is the right choice when your salespeople work in different places. It suits teams with neither the budget nor the time to bring everyone to one location. For a team spread across regions or countries, a day together also means travel, hotels and more days away from customers. Often the real alternative to virtual training is no training at all.
There is a second reason. Your salespeople may already sell over video. McKinsey surveyed nearly 4,000 B2B decision makers in 2024. About a third of buyers preferred in-person contact, a third preferred remote contact, and a third preferred to buy online by themselves. The survey found the same split across every region, industry and company size. A team that sells over video can practise over video.
If the whole team already works in one place, a day together is still the simplest option.
Does virtual sales training work?
Yes, when the method is right. A meta-analysis by Sitzmann and colleagues, published in Personnel Psychology in 2006, compared web-based and classroom training. Web-based training was 6% more effective for teaching knowledge, and the two were about equally effective for teaching skills. When both used the same teaching methods, they were equally effective. In longer courses where online learners practised, received feedback and set their own pace, web-based training was 19% more effective for knowledge. The studies were of workplace and academic training, not sales training.
The finding is consistent with what we see. Training rarely fails because of where it happens. It fails because people go back to work and nothing changes. A recorded presentation fails online for the same reason a lecture fails in a room. Our article on why training fades without reinforcement covers this in more detail. Self-paced courses are a different product, covered in our guide to online sales training.
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Why split a one-day workshop into weekly sessions?
Because people learn a skill better when the practice is spread out. Our one-day workshop has four 90-minute topics. When we deliver it virtually, we split them into four separate sessions, run once or twice a week. Each session works on the participants’ own live deals. Between sessions, each salesperson tries the topic on a real account and reports back at the next one. One topic a week also takes the least time away from normal work: 90 minutes a week instead of a full day away from customers.
The closest evidence comes from surgery. In a randomised trial published in the Annals of Surgery, 38 junior surgeons learned the same technique with the same practice time. One group practised in a single day and the other in weekly sessions. A month later, the weekly group kept more of the skill and performed better in a live operation.
The wider research agrees. A review of 317 experiments found that spaced learning was consistently remembered better than learning in one block. Spacing alone helps less when a skill is complex. A review of 63 studies found the smallest benefit for the most complex tasks. Selling is complex. So most of the gain comes from what people do between sessions, not from the gap alone.
That is why each session starts with the participants, not the trainer. Each salesperson says what they tried on their deal, and what happened. In a study by Roediger and Karpicke, people who recalled material from memory remembered more a week later than people who reread it.
What is Zoom fatigue, and how do you design around it?
Zoom fatigue is the tiredness people feel after video calls. Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford proposed four causes. They are close-up eye contact for long periods, the effort of reading signals on a screen, seeing yourself all the time, and sitting still. He presents them as arguments, not tested findings. A survey of 9,787 people then found more fatigue among people who had more calls, longer calls and fewer breaks. Women reported more fatigue than men, mainly from anxiety about seeing themselves on screen.
Cameras matter too. In a four-week field experiment, days with cameras on caused more fatigue, and fatigue reduced how much people spoke and took part. We still keep cameras on for the whole session. It is a courtesy to everyone else on the call, and salespeople who sell over video need to be comfortable on camera. So we limit fatigue in other ways:
- 90 minutes at most, one topic per session.
- One session a day, never straight after another video call.
- Self-view off once people have checked their picture.
- Practice between sessions away from the screen, on the participant's own deal.
Teams that want to test how they handle a whole deal, not one topic at a time, can take a virtual sales simulation. For teams that want each topic built around their own accounts, we offer bespoke training on your team’s own deals.
Four tasks, one week, no supplier needed.
- List where each salesperson works, and the travel cost and selling days of bringing them together.
- Choose the four topics that matter most to your team this quarter.
- Reserve one 90-minute slot a week for four weeks, not straight after another call.
- Ask each manager to name one live deal per salesperson to work on between sessions.
Common questions about virtual sales training
How long should a virtual sales training session be?
Should cameras be on during virtual sales training?
Can a sales simulation run online?
Iain has trained and coached B2B sales teams since 2008. He was Lead Trainer and Coach at Microsoft Scotland. Before that he sold capital equipment and managed sales teams in the UK and North America. He served as an Associate at Strathclyde University Business School, where he delivered the sales content for the Masters in Entrepreneurship from 2015 to 2019.
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