Sales Training

Less than one quarter of buyers see sellers as an important resource to help them solve their business problems, which is why sellers need to not just meet, but exceed buyer expectations. To exceed expectations, sellers need to execute top-notch interactions, focus on business success, come highly prepared and provide insights that educate the buyer. But the reality is that most salespeople lack the skills to do this, resulting in a need for training.

Sales training can help sellers:

• Own the conversation - learn key conversational skills, enabling sellers to engage customers and accurately identify buyer pain points, developing stronger buyer-seller relationships
• Ask the right questions - use thoughtful questions to develop a clear understanding of buyer needs allowing for compelling, customer-centric interactions
• Resolve customer concerns - recognize and resolve customer concerns, openly addressing any skepticism buyers have about your solutions or message
• Close the deal - practice and perfect the three-step process for securing customer commitment

The best sales training programs focus on both the what and the how of successful selling; knowing what needs to be done is very different from possessing the skills to do it.

• What to do focuses on instilling a framework for a robust, effective sales process and looks at planning and executing client interactions, managing opportunities and growing accounts.  This includes the ability to initiate opportunities, manage opportunities and grow relationships.
• How to do it focuses on areas such as building credibility, negotiation, securing meetings, asking effective questions and gaining commitment.

Talent gaps in sales teams are the number one internal challenge cited by many sales organizations.  And the reason for this is these organizations often lack the sales training programs they need to enable sellers to reach their full potential.  Leading organizations leverage four key practices to get the most out of their sales training:

1. Have a clear definition of a top seller

It’s extremely difficult to replicate winning behaviors in other sellers if the true reasons behind top sellers’ success isn’t clear. Rather than equating quota attainment with success or using their gut instinct to make training decisions, sales organizations need to take a deeper dive into their sellers’ capabilities. They should avoid lagging indicators of success like quota attainment and win rates and focus instead on selling behaviors, including what sellers say and do that helps them close deals.

Data-driven assessments are crucial to help sales leaders isolate key competencies and skills—such as learning agility, curiosity and connectedness— that drive top sellers, and start closing the gaps in performance for their less successful sellers by creating targeted, individualized sales training programs to develop those skills.

2. Personalize sales training programs for each individual

Many sales organizations offer training, because they know they should. But they don’t offer differentiated training that caters to the individual; instead, they treat everyone the same. While this may seem like a fair approach, it’s not an effective one. Not all sellers need the same skills development, nor do they prefer to learn in the same way, whether that’s in a group or individual setting, online or in person, or in a scheduled way versus in their own time.

3. Treat sales training programs as ongoing development

Many sales organizations train on a skill once, often at employee onboarding. But effective learning doesn’t take place at a single point in time; it’s a journey. Organizations that supplement the sales training program with formal coaching have win rates that are 32% higher than those who take a random approach that leaves the coaching process up to sales managers’ discretion.

4. Continually reinforce learning

Even the best sales training program won’t stick if it’s not reinforced. Our tendency to rapidly forget what we’ve learned is explained by the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, which suggests that people forget an average of half of what they learn within an hour, 70% of new information within a day, and 90% within a week. Research also shows that the best way to beat this forgetfulness is to repeat the information learned at spaced intervals. That’s why reinforcement is so important for sales professionals. The key is to make learning, or relearning, convenient. One way to do that is to offer sellers information at the point of work, through your CRM for example.