We asked hundreds of B2B sales leaders about their business goals, priorities, and plans to achieve sales excellence. They said their top priorities this year are to retain customers, increase profitability, win new business, and move into new markets.
Download your copy of the 2025 Sales Leader Report: Best Practices of Winning Teams.
The sales leaders we surveyed admit there are obstacles to accomplishing these business goals. Winning new business requires a different skillset from expanding existing accounts. Building relationships, qualifying opportunities, and differentiating against competitive offerings remain sales teams’ biggest sales challenges.
This post shows how you can align your sales training with your business goals to achieve long-term customer relationships and profitability.
Why You Need to Align Sales Training and Business Goals
Think of it this way: Sales training is a significant investment of time and money. Without clear alignment to business goals, you risk:
1. Training sellers on skills that don’t actually drive results for your objectives.
For example, if your goal is to protect margins, but you only train on closing techniques, sellers might close more deals but at lower prices.
2. Creating confusion about priorities.
When sellers face tough trade-offs—like whether to pursue a new logo or expand an existing account—they need clear direction backed by relevant skills training.
3. Wasting resources on generic training when you need specialized skills.
If customer retention is your top priority, investing in advanced prospecting training might not give you the best return compared to account management skills.
4. Making it harder to measure ROI.
When training is tied to specific business goals, you can better track whether the investment is paying off through relevant metrics like margin improvement or retention rates.
The Difference Between Winning New Business and Expanding Accounts
There are big differences in the skills your sellers need to close deals with new logos and upsell or cross-sell existing accounts. The main gap lies in the relationship and buying dynamics.
When winning new business, sellers are essentially starting from scratch.
They need to:
- Break through the noise to get initial attention, requiring strong prospecting and outreach skills.
- Build credibility quickly since they have no existing track record with the account.
- Map out the organization and buying process without inside knowledge.
- Often compete against an incumbent vendor who has established relationships.
- Navigate higher levels of buyer skepticism and risk aversion.
- Understand the full competitive landscape and other solutions under consideration.
With account expansion, sellers work from an established foundation.
Account managers have:
- Proven credibility and trust from successful implementations.
- Internal champions and referrals who can help open doors to new departments.
- Deeper understanding of the customer’s culture, priorities, and decision-making process.
- Fewer objections and lower risk for buyers who have seen results.
- Specific success metrics and ROI data from existing projects they can leverage.
- Knowledge of internal politics and relationships between departments.
This is why account managers who excel at growing existing relationships don’t always succeed in pure “new business” roles, and vice versa.
Critical Sales Skills to Achieve Business Goals
Here are the specific skills sellers need to achieve sales leaders’ top four goals and objectives.
1. Retain Customers
Sellers need active listening and relationship management techniques to better understand and address customer needs. This includes training on identifying early warning signs of customer dissatisfaction, conducting effective quarterly business reviews, and building strategic account plans.
Learn more about strategic account management.
2. Strengthen Margins and Profitability
Sellers need value-based consultative selling skills that help them articulate and quantify the unique value of your solutions. Training should cover negotiation skills, pricing strategies, and how to avoid discounting by focusing on value rather than competing on price. Sellers also need to understand your product’s cost structure and profit drivers.
Learn more about sales negotiation training.
3. Win New Accounts
Sellers need skills in prospecting and pipeline building, including using social selling tools, crafting compelling outreach messages, and conducting effective discovery calls. Training should also cover competitive positioning, handling objections, and understanding buyer personas and decision-making processes in target accounts.
Learn more about sales pipeline management.
4. Expand Existing Accounts
Sellers need account mapping skills to identify all potential buyers and influencers as well as training on cross-selling and upselling techniques and identifying expansion triggers. Sellers need to understand the full portfolio of your solutions and how they address different business challenges. They should also learn how to leverage success stories from existing implementations to build credibility for expansion opportunities.
Learn more about sales territory planning.
Best Sales Training Strategy to Achieve Business Goals
When sales training and business goals work in harmony, organizations create a powerful engine for growth. By ensuring that every training initiative directly supports broader company objectives, businesses not only enhance their sales performance but also build a more focused, motivated, and effective sales force.
The investment in aligned training pays dividends through improved customer relationships, increased market share, and sustainable revenue growth. As markets continue to evolve, maintaining this alignment will be crucial for staying competitive and achieving long-term success.
Find out how sales training from The Brooks Group can help your organization achieve its goals and objectives.
