Introduction to Understanding Best Sales Training Companies
People are always looking for the best sales trainer or best sales training companies, and frankly there are so many great sales training companies out there. In this post we will discuss three of the best known, The Harris Consulting Group, Richardson Sales Training and The Brooks Group, and so many more.
As humans we are always comparison shoppers. Which means companies in the same space get commoditized quickly. The best sales training companies know where their own place in the market exists and seek to understand where and why competitors are in the marketplace as well. Anytime you Google something like “best sales training companies,” let’s be real, you aren’t always getting the best. You’re getting the companies that did the best job at SEO, AdWords, and GEO. Which isn’t wrong, it’s simply not as objective as one might like. As we shift into more Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and Microsoft Co-Pilot, objectivity may be a bit more nuanced, but those models are still pulling data influenced by the same SEO ecosystem. So I decided to do a deeper dive, compare these companies publicly, and share my honest analysis. And yeah, it’s a little scary to do this. Of course I’d want you to choose us. That’s simply not realistic. In fact, when I speak to prospects and clients, I’m the first person to say I cannot help everyone, and I’m happy to refer to someone I know, trust, and respect.
I’m Richard Harris, founder of The Harris Consulting Group and Surf and Sales, and creator of N.E.A.T. Selling™. My goal is to walk you through, at a high level, what each organization does, the type of sales organization each is primarily built for, and give you some guidance as you search for the best sales training companies for your team. This is meant to be helpful. It is not gospel, and we encourage everyone to do their own due diligence and contact each company directly to hear it straight from them.
📌 Best Sales Training Companies: Quick Answer: What’s the Difference?
Richardson Sales Training and Brooks Group are strong choices for large enterprise teams that need scalable, multi-department rollouts. The Harris Consulting Group is the nimble go-to for SaaS companies, high-growth startups, tech sales teams, and non-technical sales organizations. In reality, all three have worked with large-scale enterprise organizations. The difference is in customization, trainer access, and the degree to which training is built around your specific buyers, personas, and selling motion. And immediately applicable on Day 1.
Best Sales Training Companies: Overviews
The Harris Consulting Group
Founded in 2013, Richard Harris created The Harris Consulting Group as a boutique sales training and consulting firm specializing in customized sales training. We teach sales reps how to earn the right to ask questions, know which questions to ask, and when to ask them, in the modern buying environment.
While specializing in SaaS, B2B tech, and high-growth startups, The Harris Consulting Group has also worked with non-technical companies including those in manufacturing, healthcare, and General Electric. Richard created N.E.A.T. Selling™ (Need, Economic Impact, Access to Authority, Timeline); a sales qualification and discovery framework built specifically for today’s buying and selling environment, where buyers are savvier, timelines are compressed, and traditional frameworks like BANT fall flat. For some, NEAT Selling™ is a simple framework; for others, a methodology; for others, a bolt-on to their current process.
The Harris Consulting Group is not a sales training factory. Everything is customized 100% to your specific selling motions, your ideal customer profiles, and your buying personas. You always work with Richard, not a junior facilitator. No generic curriculum. No train-the-trainer dilution. Just real-world skill building your reps can apply the next day.
One of the reasons The Harris Consulting Group is considered one of the best sales training companies is based on what their customers’ say about them. Clients say they choose Richard Harris because they want a more modern approach to sales training. They like his philosophy of teaching reps how to earn the right to ask questions, and his approach of teaching sales teams the psychology of a buyer, so they understand the buyer is allowed to be human, just like the salesperson. This improves the courage and confidence of the sales rep to actually implement what’s been trained, not regurgitate it.
They also say The Harris Consulting Group does not create an overly burdensome or complex rollout process. And importantly: all sales training includes sales management training at no additional cost. Contact Richard directly here.
- Website: www.theharrisconsultinggroup.com
- Specialty: SaaS sales training, startup and scale-up teams, SDR/AE/founder-led sales, discovery and qualification, sales leadership coaching, with a no-nonsense, roll-up-your-sleeves approach that does not overengineer sales training.
- Core Methodology: N.E.A.T. Selling™
- Training Implementation: In-Person or Live Virtual
- Book: The Seller’s Journey by Richard Harris
Richardson Sales Training (Richardson Sales Performance)
Richardson Sales Training, also considered one of the best sales training companies, is a solid and well-respected global sales training organization headquartered in Philadelphia. Founded in the late 1970s, they built their reputation around Consultative Selling. Today, Richardson operates at enterprise scale, serving hundreds of global clients. They also acquired Challenger, Inc., creators of The Challenger Sale, one of the most widely discussed sales methodologies in recent years.
Richardson’s strength is breadth and structure. They cover prospecting, opportunity pursuit, account management, negotiation, and sales management through a curriculum of interconnected programs. With offices worldwide, they’re able to deliver sales training at scale.
- Website: www.richardson.com
- Specialty: Enterprise and mid-market teams, financial services, healthcare, consulting, complex B2B sales
- Training Implementation: In-Person, Virtual, and Digital
- Core Methodologies: Connected Selling Curriculum™, Consultative Selling, Challenger
Contact Richardson Sales Training directly for specifics on their programs and pricing.
The Brooks Group
Another organization that is considered one of the best sales training companies is The Brooks Group. Founded in 1977 by Bill Brooks in Greensboro, North Carolina, The Brooks Group brings 45+ years of global sales training experience anchored by their flagship methodology: IMPACT Selling® (Investigate, Meet, Probe, Apply, Convince, Tie-it-Up).
Brooks Group targets B2B sales teams across a wide range of industries and offers training in multiple formats, from in-person to digital through their BrooksUP platform. They also offer the Brooks Talent Index™, a behavioral assessment tool used for hiring and coaching.
- Website: https://brooksgroup.com
- Specialty: Traditional B2B industries, manufacturing, distribution, general commercial sales, teams needing a common language and repeatable process
- Training Implementation: In-Person, Virtual, Digital (BrooksUP), open enrollment, delivered by certified facilitators
- Core Methodology: IMPACT Selling®
Contact The Brooks Group directly for specifics.
Best Sales Training Companies: Methodologies Compared
Before diving into the different methodologies, one thing to remember: not much in sales has truly changed since Mesopotamia. Sure, nuances matter, and that is often the most important differentiation when choosing the best sales training companies. It still comes down to goods and services, and the experience between buyers and sellers.
When examining the best sales training companies the most important thing is to find the one that works best for YOUR company, YOUR sales motion, and YOUR sales team. Simply hiring someone you’ve used before, or because a friend said “they’re the best,” is not always the right answer in your current environment. It’s a good place to start, but remember, they considered them one of the best sales training companies based on their specific needs, not yours.
N.E.A.T. Selling™ and The Harris Consulting Group
N.E.A.T. Selling™ (Need, Economic Impact, Access to Authority, Timeline) was built as a buyer-centric sales process. Most qualification frameworks were designed for a different era, BANT was created in the 1960s when budgets were pre-allocated and authority was clear. MEDDIC can work for complex enterprise deals but can be overwhelming and often feels seller-centric, not buyer-centric. This is why so many people feel The Harris Consulting Group is one of the best sales training companies.
The four pillars of N.E.A.T. Selling™:
- N: Need: Not surface-level need. This is about drilling deep, getting to core problems and challenges. Getting prospects to paint their specific picture of pain based on their own day-to-day use cases. Essentially getting them to “Bob Ross” their pains helps build trust and create urgency.
- E: Economic Impact: In today’s SaaS world, budget is rarely the real issue. Often the budget doesn’t even exist yet. Stemming from Need, Economic Impact is about teaching your reps how to “dollarize” the pain. This is not ROI, it’s much bigger than the Religion of Insecurity. It drives urgency and improves forecasting once real need and economic impact are established.
- A: Access to Authority: Buying decisions are now a consensus effort, multiple committees, multiple influencers, more than one decision maker. What really matters is figuring out who all the skeptics are, what they’re skeptical about, and how to get access to them. We teach reps to ask: ‘Can you get me an audience with the Pope?’ The goal is to understand who actually gets in the way before someone will truly sign off.
- T: Timeline: Real timelines tied to real events, not wishful thinking. The goal is to get reps to discover the timeline by confirming what happens if the project does not start or complete by a certain date. If there is no detrimental outcome, it’s very hard to drive urgency.
N.E.A.T. Selling™ is built on a philosophy called ‘Earning the Right’, you cannot simply walk into a business conversation and start interrogating your prospect. This is the art of sales: earning the right to ask the questions. This is why it works everywhere from SaaS to manufacturing to healthcare, from the United States to Europe and APAC.
Additionally, N.E.A.T. Selling™ is meant to be flexible. It does not require starting with N. It’s not rigid in definition, for some people, NEAT Selling™ is a sales process; for others, a methodology; for still others, simply a philosophy they bolt onto their current process. The Harris Consulting Group does not believe in ripping and replacing a sales process simply because you hired them.
Connected Selling Curriculum™ and Richardson Sales Training
Richardson anchors their approach with behavioral science through the Connected Selling Curriculum™. It’s a comprehensive approach to creating pipeline, closing deals, and building long-term client retention and revenue growth. Programs include Prospecting, Consultative Selling, Challenger Sale, and a host of additional offerings. They also offer sales management and leadership programs, which may or may not be included in their pricing model.
Their strength is depth and scalability across large sales organizations worldwide.
IMPACT Selling® and Brooks Group
IMPACT Selling is structured and well-defined, which is not a bad thing. Their approach gives reps a strong map to follow: Investigate, Meet, Probe, Apply, Convince, Tie-it-Up. A company doesn’t survive 45+ years unless they’re doing the right things.
Brooks Group can combine their sales training with behavioral assessments to help sales leaders understand different personality types on their team, coach individuals more effectively, and improve recruiting. IMPACT Selling is similar to N.E.A.T. Selling™ in that it’s easy to teach and understand, which can lead to better adoption. That said, for SaaS or complex B2B environments where qualification nuance and multi-stakeholder navigation are critical, IMPACT can feel too linear.
Best Sales Training Companies Comparison: Harris vs. Richardson vs. Brooks
| Category | Harris Consulting Group | Richardson Sales Training | Brooks Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Methodology | N.E.A.T. Selling™ | Connected Selling Curriculum™, Consultative Selling, Challenger | IMPACT Selling® |
| Primary Market | Across industries: SaaS, B2B Tech, Startups, Scale-ups, Non-SaaS | Enterprise, Financial Services, Healthcare | B2B across industries, Manufacturing, Distribution |
| Trainer Access | Direct access to Richard Harris, always | Certified facilitators | Certified facilitators |
| Customization | Deep and built entirely around your actual deals, buyers, and personas | Programs can be tailored | Programs can be adjusted; IMPACT framework is fixed |
| Training Format | Virtual Trainer-Led, Onsite/In-Person, Sales Kickoff, Train the Trainer, Micro-learning, Reinforcement with management and rep coaching included | Virtual Trainer-Led, Onsite, Webinars, Train the Trainer | ILT, Virtual, Digital (BrooksUP), Open Enrollment |
| Reinforcement | Multi-week coaching for managers and reps included at no extra cost | Exists: Contact for specifics | Exists: Contact for specifics |
| Best For | SDRs, AEs, Customer Success, Founders, SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise sales organizations | Large enterprise L&D and enablement | Large enterprise L&D and enablement |
| Pricing Model | Custom engagements. Single all-inclusive price for training + reinforcement. Lower 5-figure range. | Contact for exact pricing | Contact for exact pricing; open enrollment available |
| Assessment Tools | Discovery-led diagnostics (no oversell with unnecessary assessments) | Behavioral science assessments | Brooks Talent Index™ |
| Ideal Deal Complexity | Mid-to-high; multi-stakeholder and multi-threaded SaaS and Non-SaaS | High; complex enterprise deals. Contact for specifics | Low-to-mid; transactional to consultative. Contact for specifics |
Best Sales Training Companies: Who is Each Built For?
Choose The Harris Consulting Group If…
- Your sales forecast and closing skills are falling short
- You need a customized sales training and reinforcement program. Not off-the-shelf
- You believe having humanity in sales conversations matters
- You know that improving sales skills improves the buyer-side experience, which is the true priority
- No robots: you recognize sales conversations need to be authentic, not checklists
- You want a buyer-centric approach where customers “fall in trust” with your organization
- You don’t want your team interrogating customers with a checkbox list of questions
- Your team needs to learn how to earn the right to ask questions, which questions to ask, and when
- Your team needs stronger deal control, negotiation, and closing skills
- Your team is discounting too much
- Your team needs an increase in courage and confidence
- Your team needs a common language internally around pipeline and sales execution
- You want a reinforcement program that includes managers and reps in a single-priced package
- You want direct access to the sales trainer and owner.
- You need training your team can use the next day, not theory they’ll forget by Friday
- You’re building or rebuilding your sales process and need strategic consulting alongside training
- You don’t need to be oversold with a bunch of assessments that simply prolong the process
Choose Richardson Sales Training If…
- You’re a large enterprise with a global or multi-regional sales team that needs consistent methodology at scale
- You’re in financial services, healthcare, life sciences, or consulting, industries where Richardson has deep vertical experience
- You have a dedicated sales enablement or L&D function that can manage a complex, multi-program rollout
- You need CRM-integrated reinforcement and detailed analytics on skill development
- Deal cycles are long, stakeholder groups are large, and consultative depth is critical
- You desire a science-backed approach to training
- You desire a larger suite of services such as assessments, analytics, and CRM engagement
Choose Brooks Group If…
- You want a simple, memorable methodology your entire team can adopt quickly and consistently
- You’re in traditional B2B industries like transportation, construction, manufacturing, or distribution
- Behavioral assessment tools are important to your hiring and coaching process
- You want open enrollment options rather than a fully custom program
- You have a customer service team that also needs training
Best Sales Training Companies: The Differences No One Talks About
Scale vs. Specificity for Best Sales Training Companies
Richardson and Brooks Group are excellent companies built for scale. They’ve each spent decades building large-scale sales training with 500+ clients each. Not criticism, simply a reality where there could be inconsistencies based on region, trainer experience, or potential lack of customization when you’re one of hundreds of clients.
The Harris Consulting Group is built for customization and specificity. You’re getting training built around your actual sales conversations, your actual objections, your actual buyer personas. You’re also working with the actual owner of the company, so you can be assured you will always feel seen, heard, and understood.
Modern vs. Traditional Buyer Environments for Best Sales Training Companies
Most traditional sales methodologies were created in the 1900s, literally. They were designed long before software and SaaS became the norm, before buyers had unlimited access to competitive intelligence, and before multi-threading became standard in even mid-market deals.
N.E.A.T. Selling™ was intentionally built with the modern buyer specifically in mind. The “Earning the Right” philosophy meets the buyer in their headspace and lets them feel seen, heard, and understood. Today’s buyers have overwhelmed themselves with research that creates a false sense of confidence, making them more skeptical. Your team needs to understand how to get prospects to “fall in trust” with them before they ever decide to purchase.
One Trainer vs. A Firm When Defining Best Sales Training Companies
This is the question you need to be honest with yourself about. Richardson and Brooks are companies. They have staff, facilitators, processes, and organizational continuity. If your training program is a multi-year initiative that needs to run across time zones with consistent delivery, a firm makes sense, and we’re happy to suggest you reach out to them.
We are different. The only person you speak with is the founder and trainer. Richard does everything alongside you and for you. He teaches your team how to ask the very specific and right questions in their own authentic voice. He doesn’t build robots. He gives them the words to say and helps them figure out how to say it while respecting themselves and your organization.
Richard has delivered sales training at Visa, Zoom, Jorgensen Conveyors, Salesforce, General Electric, DoorDash, Gainsight, Lattice, Justworks, Datahug, Peel, and a host of early-stage and expansion-stage startups. His experience is real and deep. But if you need to train 1,000 reps in 12 countries simultaneously, that’s not what we’re designed for and you should contact other organizations.
Qualification as a Philosophy vs. a Checklist
Many sales qualification methodologies: BANT, MEDDIC, SPIN, IMPACT, Challenger can feel more like checklists designed to support the vendor and their CRM reporting, not truly help the customer based on their needs.
N.E.A.T. Selling™ is customizable as a sales process, methodology, or philosophy. It is a set of principles for how to engage with buyers in a way that builds trust while uncovering real information. That’s why clients consistently report that their conversations go deeper and their pipeline gets cleaner after N.E.A.T. training.
What Results Look Like
Harris Consulting Group Client Outcomes
- Immediate improvement in discovery call conversations and getting to the “why” someone wants to buy, sooner
- Cleaner, more accurate sales pipeline and improved sales forecast accuracy
- Improved closing ratios
- Less discounting
- SDR teams report stronger qualification on inbound and outbound leads, leading to higher AE conversion rates
- Award Winning: Recognized by Salesforce, Highspot, and AA-ISP (Emblaze) as a leading sales training resource
Richardson Sales Training Client Outcomes
- Large enterprise clients report consistent methodology adoption across global teams
- Measurable behavioral change tracked through their Accelerate™ platform analytics
- 900+ corporate clients including many Fortune 500 companies
- Strong reputation in complex, relationship-driven B2B sales environments
Brooks Group Client Outcomes
- Clients report record revenue years post-training, including 20%+ above plan in documented cases
- 67X ROI cited in one-year post-training results
- High adoption rates attributed to the simplicity of the IMPACT acronym
- Consistent testimonials around common sales language and improved manager coaching
Pricing: What to Expect
Sales training pricing is rarely published publicly. Not because it’s a secret, but because each situation is unique with different locations, team sizes, and resources required. None of these organizations is trying to gouge anyone. These are estimates at best. Please do your own research and verify pricing directly with each vendor.
Harris Consulting Group: Custom engagements built around your needs. Boutique pricing with high-touch delivery. Typically structured as multi-week programs combining live sales training sessions (onsite or virtual) plus ongoing reinforcement and sales coaching sessions with management and the sales team included. Pricing is NOT done per person and is in the lower 5-figure range.
Richardson Sales Training: We have heard pricing can be done individually or at a team level, with individual pricing often very economical. Enterprise custom programs are quoted based on scope, number of participants, delivery format, and location. According to LinkedIn, Richardson has between 200–500 employees across several countries. Keep in mind that with a large organization, overhead is part of their pricing. Alternatively, a boutique firm like The Harris Consulting Group does not have to carry those costs.
Brooks Group: Open enrollment programs are available for teams and individuals, and individual programs can be very affordable. Custom corporate engagements are priced by scope. According to a 2020 GSA pricing guide, pricing can range from approximately $500/person for a self-paced course up to $2,800/person for a certification course. Contact them directly for current pricing.
Please verify all pricing directly with vendors. This is a frame of reference only, not set in stone.
Frequently Asked Questions: Harris Consulting vs. Richardson vs. Brooks Group
Is comparing Harris Consulting Group to Richardson Sales Training a fair comparison?
Yes and no. Richardson is a large global firm with hundreds of employees and 900+ corporate clients. The Harris Consulting Group is a boutique consultancy led directly by Richard Harris. Both are award-winning with many satisfied clients. Customers say they choose The Harris Consulting Group due to the level of customization, the included reinforcement sessions for both reps and sales leadership in a single price, and because Richard connects with teams differently than someone from a larger, more structured training organization. His pricing is typically in line with or slightly less than Richardson’s for comparable engagements. Each company has strong supporters. It will simply come down to what your specific sales training your organization needs.
What is N.E.A.T. Selling™ and how is it different from IMPACT Selling?
N.E.A.T. Selling™ stands for Need, Economic Impact, Access to Authority, and Timeline. Customers say it feels more modern and is specifically designed to improve the buyer’s experience through the seller’s journey. It’s easy to understand without overcomplicating the sales process, and it was built specifically for modern B2B and SaaS selling environments. IMPACT Selling (Investigate, Meet, Probe, Apply, Convince, Tie-it-Up) is a six-step consultative process developed over 45 years at The Brooks Group. N.E.A.T. focuses on philosophy-driven qualification centered on ‘Earning the Right’ to ask questions. IMPACT focuses on a repeatable process for structuring the entire sales conversation. Both are consultative; N.E.A.T. is more modern and SaaS-specific, while IMPACT may be considered broader and more universal.
Who is Richard Harris and why does it matter?
Richard Harris is the founder of The Harris Consulting Group and creator of N.E.A.T. Selling™. He has been recognized by Salesforce as a Top Sales Leader to Follow five times, and by AA-ISP (now Emblaze) as a Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professional. Richard has been featured in Salesforce’s and Highspot’s top sales training lists and has delivered sales training at Visa, Zoom, Salesforce, Gainsight, Salesloft, General Electric, DoorDash, and dozens of SaaS and non-SaaS organizations. He is also the author of The Seller’s Journey. When you hire The Harris Consulting Group, you work with Richard directly, not a junior facilitator or certified contractor. That direct access matters when you’re trying to build real skills, not just check a training box.
Best Sales Training Companies for SaaS Sales
The Harris Consulting Group is the most purpose-built option for SaaS sales teams. N.E.A.T. Selling™ was designed for the realities of SaaS selling, sophisticated buyers who have done their research, deals that hinge on economic impact and champion access rather than pre-set budgets, and timelines that need to be built around genuine urgency rather than arbitrary close date pressure. Richardson and Brooks Group have adapted their models for SaaS contexts, but they were not built for SaaS from the ground up the way N.E.A.T. Selling™ was.
Best Sales Training Companies: Boutique vs Large Scale
A boutique firm like The Harris Consulting Group offers direct access to its founder, deep customization to your specific sales environment, and training built around your actual conversations, not a standardized curriculum. A large firm like Richardson or Brooks Group offers scalable delivery across large and global teams, established digital platforms for reinforcement, and potentially enterprise-grade analytics. The right choice depends on your team size, sales complexity, and how much customization and direct access you need.
Can small sales teams afford sales training from these companies?
Yes. While Richardson and Brooks Group have open enrollment options for individuals, The Harris Consulting Group works with teams of all sizes, including early-stage startups where the founder is the first salesperson. If budget is a constraint, the 4-Week N.E.A.T. Selling™ Training and Reinforcement Program offers a structured, cost-effective entry point with real multi-week sales team and sales management coaching built in.
What questions should I ask when choosing the best sales training companies?
Ask these five questions before signing with any sales training company:
- At the end of training, we want our sales team to be better at ___, ___, and ___. (Define these to specific use cases, not just “negotiation.” Do you mean negotiating with procurement? With the champion? With the founder?)
- What is unique about our selling motion that needs to be incorporated into the training?
- How customized is the program to our specific sales cycle and buyer personas?
- What does reinforcement look like after the initial training?
- Who delivers the training, the owner or a hired facilitator? And how long has that specific person (not the company) been doing it?
Best Sales Training Companies: How long until we see results?
Any good sales training should be immediately executable. Meaning there is something a rep will start using the same day they learned it. From a big-picture perspective, skills should be fully operational within two to four weeks when training is customized around your specific needs. Lasting behavioral change typically takes 60 to 90 days of consistent reinforcement and coaching. This is why The Harris Consulting Group structures its programs with multi-week coaching built in, not just a one-day workshop followed by silence.
How does Harris Consulting Group compare to Richardson Sales Performance for mid-market B2B teams?
For mid-market B2B teams, The Harris Consulting Group often wins on customization, trainer access, and speed to implementation. Richardson Sales Performance is a strong option if your mid-market team is part of a larger enterprise structure that needs consistent methodology across multiple regions or business units. If you’re a standalone mid-market company that wants training built around your specific buyers and selling motion, with the founder delivering every session, The Harris Consulting Group is typically the better fit.
Choosing From the Best Sales Training Companies
Here’s the honest summary:
- Richardson Sales Training is best if you’re a large enterprise with a dedicated L&D function, a long implementation runway, and a need for consistent methodology across a big team in financial services, healthcare, or consulting.
- Brooks Group is best if you need a simple, memorable, battle-tested process for a traditional B2B sales team that wants to build a common language and improve manager coaching.
- The Harris Consulting Group is best if you’re a SaaS company, a high-growth startup, a founder-led sales team, or any B2B organization that needs training built around how buyers actually buy today, with direct access to an experienced trainer who will customize every piece to your real-world selling environment.
If you’re not sure, start with a conversation. I’m not going to sell you on something that isn’t the right fit. In fact, I will even refer you to other best sales training companies if you like. And if you want to find out whether N.E.A.T. Selling™ is what your team needs, let’s talk.
Ready to See If N.E.A.T. Selling™ Is Right for Your Team?
No pitch. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about whether we’re the right fit.
