In order to keep pace with the ever-changing fields of production, management, operations and technology, companies must continually update their employees' training. Personnel who handle these areas are essential, and function as the back-end of a company. Sales personnel, however, are at least as important, as they make up the front-end of the organization.

In order to prepare the employees for leaderships roles they are encouraged to take part is management training in a big way. This helps them in their career growth and further promotion. So it is common to find that most of the participants attending training programs are from office and production functions. Numbers of sales managers who participate in such management training are very less.

These training programs are not usually open to sales personnel. However, other types of training are provided to an organization's sales personnel. These types of training are specifically geared towards sales careers, and include sessions on topics such as customer relations, sales management, interpersonal relationships and ethical selling.

The reason for such selectivity is that sales personnel are the breadwinners for an organization. Sales is the very reason for its existence and an organization can be reluctant to spare this crucial resource for an extended training period if it lacks adequate backup. Sales personnel are out on the field, meeting and interacting with customers allotted to their geographic areas and having backup personnel who also know these customers often proves difficult. Thus, the strengths of a successful sales person sometimes turn out to be a hindrance to his participation in management training.

An organization can avoid this problem in a number of way. It can design sales training in modules so that personnel can access a module one at a time, instead of having to complete the entire program all at once. Sales trainees can be assigned to work with mentors from senior management so that training takes place on a more flexible if less formal timetable. Sales trainees should be urged to work with employees in other departments who are in the same program, to help trainees become part of the overall corporate culture.

Thanks to advances in modern technology, there's been development in interactive online lessons and training, as well as distance learning. These platforms are an effective way to provide training to salespeople. They can receive excerpts from management books via email, or even given access to an online library where they can choose from a range of management books.

Sales personnel know the customers intimately, know the products and are good at interpersonal relationships. They are also used to the way of thinking on their feet and acting quickly. Such strengths are too valuable to be kept isolated in sales functions alone. Many organizations need to recognize this fact and promote more of their sales people to managerial functions.