Of the myriad responsibilities that Product Managers take on, probably the most challenging one is training the sales force. It’s like teaching at a troubled inner city school. You have to create all your own learning materials. You get no support from the people who run things. The class is disobedient and out of control.

Then, just when it looks like you’re starting to get somewhere, time’s up and the students have forgotten most of what you taught them by the time the next term rolls around. As the teacher, you are left alone to figure out how to deal with frustration and unrewarding results.

Teachers at inner city schools would find a sympathetic audience among Product Managers who have tried to provide software product training to the sales force. By its nature, software is a technical product. Successful sales reps, on the other hand, are people who are great with people, but not necessarily good with technical subjects. What’s more, they make their money by spending time with people, not spending time learning software.

Yet it’s critical that the entire sales force master the product to the point where they can talk knowledgeably about some of the details when they get asked hard questions by prospects. Most software sales include a thorough review by IT or technical individuals. The best way to answer questions so that you lay doubts to rest is to provide facts, and that means that sales reps need to have a lot of facts at their disposal. That means training with a certain level of detail is necessary.

And the most appropriate individuals at your company to provide this training are usually Product Managers. They understand the product technically, and can translate that understanding into a discussion of benefits and business issues that the sales force needs when speaking with prospects. You can’t expect the sales reps to take technical information and translate it themselves. They won’t.

Read on for tips to make product training of the sales force more effective and less of an uphill battle.