The sales profession is changing rapidly. Buyers are now more informed than in the past and have new expectations. Today’s competitive threats are evolving. Deals are more complicated and often take longer to close.
An investment in sales training is an essential part of doing business in today’s ultra-competitive environment. Sales training simply enables your sales team to perform at the highest level. More than ever, sales professionals need effective sales training programs that can help them keep pace with the demands of the modern sales process.
Sales training pays off in many ways. A recent study by Accenture found that every dollar spent on training got a $4.53 return, generating an ROI of 353%.
The challenge is there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for sales training. Every organization offers distinct products and/or services, has a specific go-to-market (GTM) strategy, and faces different competitors.
Your sales professionals may have the same job titles as teams at other companies—account executive, business development rep, sales manager—but have different role requirements and diverse professional and personal experiences.
The best sales training and development programs are tailored to the unique needs of your organization and sales force. But how can you deliver training at scale that leverages the strengths AND addresses the skill gaps of every seller on your team? By creating an approach customized for your organization. Here are tips for building an effective sales training program.
What Is Good Sales Training?
Good sales training gives sales professionals the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to meet sales targets and succeed in their roles. Training ensures sellers always have the most up-to-date competitor, customer, and product information. The overall goal is to improve sales performance. This, in turn, leads to increased revenue and profitability for your organization.
Sample Sales Training Topics
- Questioning and active listening
- Prospecting and qualifying techniques
- Building relationships with customers
- Delivering product messaging
- Creating proposals and quotes
- Presenting solutions to prospects and customers
- Overcoming objections
- Closing deals
- Managing client relationships and accounts
Sales training includes new hire onboarding. This is a systematic process designed to welcome, train, and engage new sales professionals into an organization. Ongoing sales training typically begins once new hires have completed the sales onboarding process.
An effective sales training and onboarding program includes a company overview as well as information on your industry, target market, ideal customer profile (ICP), the features and benefits of your products and/or services, and sales methodology. It also should cover hard and soft selling skills such as cold calls, discovery calls, and objection handling.
Sales training can be delivered in various formats, including in-person classroom-based instruction, instructor-led training, self-paced online courses, webinars, and one-on-one coaching.
6 Essential Factors of Effective Sales Training Programs
Successful sales training means more than just teaching your sales team the basics of your product or service. These six factors are crucial to the rollout of an effective sales training program.
1. Leadership Support
Sales professionals need to know that their leaders are invested in their development and success. Leaders who are actively involved in the sales training process signal to their team that they are committed to their development and want them to succeed.
2. Clear Expectations
Leadership support starts with a clear vision for the sales team and setting expectations for each member.
3. Ongoing Reinforcement
Success also involves ongoing support and resources such as regular formal and informal check-ins, one-on-one meetings, and performance reviews.
4. Role-Specific Training
Providing role-specific training in addition to general sales training helps each member of the team understand their unique position within the team and how they can best contribute to winning business.
5. Relevance
Sales training must be relevant and applicable to each seller’s day-to-day work. Nothing hurts engagement more than courses that are out of date or off topic. Sales professionals need to see the value in their learning and how it can help them close more deals.
6. Engagement
Effective sales training must motivate, engage, and challenge learners so they stay invested and retain information long after the initial training.
General vs. Role-Specific Sales Training
Most sales training programs tend to be designed for the “average” sales professional. They cover general topics, regardless of the learner’s role within your organization, industry expertise, or years of experience.
While this type of sales training can be beneficial, it is not always the most effective approach. A new hire will likely need different training than an experienced professional who wants to sharpen their skills.
This is where role-specific sales training comes in. Role-specific training is customized to the learner’s position within the organization. This type of sales training begins with a sales assessment to help identify core personality drivers, selling styles, and success factors of new hires and current team members.
- Sales leadership training is for sales leaders. It covers topics such as building a sales team, goal setting, developing top performers, tracking progress, and managing budgets.
- Sales management training is for hands-on sales managers. It includes topics such as building a sales plan, pipeline management, setting expectations, providing feedback, and managing difficult conversations.
- Inside sales professional training is for outward-facing business development reps. It covers prospecting, cold calling, and meeting scheduling.
5 Benefits of Effective Sales Training
Companies that invest in training are 57% more effective at sales than their competitors. With effective sales training, you ensure your sellers have the skills and knowledge they need to generate results—and improve your bottom line. Here are five benefits of sales training.
Increased Sales Productivity
When sellers are properly trained, they can work more effectively and close more deals. This leads to an increase in revenue for the organization.
Improved Buyer Insight
Trained sellers are equipped to handle buyer inquiries and provide an overall better experience. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Higher Margins
Sales training can directly impact the bottom line. By increasing productivity and improving customer service, sales training leads to higher profits for the organization.
Faster Growth
Sales training accelerates the organization’s growth by helping sellers close more deals and bring in new customers.
Increased Morale and Retention
When sellers are successful, they are more engaged and motivated. This leads to increased morale within the sales team, higher retention rates, and a more positive and stable work environment.
Outcomes of Effective Sales Training Programs
With the proper training, your sales team will accurately understand a customer’s needs and wants, present the value proposition of your product or service, build trust and credibility, engage prospects in meaningful dialogue that progresses the sale, improve the predictability of your sales funnel, and more. Read on for key outcomes of effective sales training.
Close More Sales
Well-trained sales teams are simply more effective. With the right program, sales professionals are better able to identify and qualify prospects, engage buyers, generate pipeline, and close new business.
Improve Communication Skills
Communication is one of the most critical skills for sales professionals. They need to be able to engage with prospects, customers, and teammates effectively.
Sales training can help your sellers become better communicators by teaching them how to listen attentively, build rapport, ask questions, and give dynamic presentations that advance the sale.
Adhere to Sales Process
Your sales process defines the steps your sales team uses to identify and qualify potential customers, build relationships, nurture prospects, overcome objections, and close deals.
By training on your organization’s sales process, you make sure your team is using a consistent approach, staying organized, working efficiently, and being as effective as possible throughout the sales cycle.
Overcome Objections
One of the biggest challenges sales professionals face is overcoming prospects’ fears, stalls, and roadblocks. Handling objections is an opportunity to address the buyer’s concerns, change their mindset, and move the sale forward. Sales training can show your team how to identify and address common objections.
Develop Presentation Skills
Sales professionals need to be able to clearly communicate the value of your product or service to potential customers wherever they are. Sales professionals today need both in-person and virtual presentation skills.
Teaching virtual selling skills and techniques will allow your sales team to nurture prospects, share information, conduct demos, and host meetings with prospects successfully from any location.
Leverage Sales Technology
The average sales professional now uses an average of 10 tools to close deals. Make sure your sales team is proficient with the latest technology and knows how and when to use tools and platforms effectively.
Understand Sales Analytics
Lastly, sales analytics training helps sales professionals understand important data and metrics for their role. They learn how to use data to make decisions, track progress, and identify areas for improvement.
Training for Sales Success
Are you training your sales professionals for success in today’s economic climate? Effective sales training will help your sellers reach their full potential and help you stay ahead of the competition.
Find out how The Brooks Group’s IMPACT Selling program helps sales professionals and sales leaders take their sales skills to the next level.
