In order for the business to continue growing, every entrepreneur will, at some point, face the need to increase their sales Training. To do this, he may choose to start a promotions campaign, increase his marketing investments, or take a long-term measure such as training the sales team.
Naturally, the last alternative is the one that will bring more results to the enterprise, as it will specialize employees in order to make them more secure, assertive and efficient in the sales process. However, for training to have the desired effect, it is necessary to know how to do it correctly.
Have you ever thought about how good it would be if all the sales training and development actions you carry out were perceived by the sales area as something that really made a difference, that actually contributed to achieving goals?
What Is Sales Training?
Sales training is the training action that aims at the technical and behavioral development of the sales team , in order to provide practical knowledge about methodologies, techniques and tools that will enhance the assertiveness of professionals at each stage of the service, until the closing of the sale .
On the technical side, sales training should focus on the competencies that the individual needs to develop to effectively perform the activity on a day-to-day basis, providing clear instructions on what to do and how to do it according to the company’s existing sales processes. .
In the behavioral aspect, sales training should develop attitudinal competencies, such as optimism, focus, persistence, discipline and resilience, among others.After all, it’s no use for a sales executive to have good technical arguments if he can’t greet his customer with enthusiasm, even if it’s over the phone.
How To Prepare A Sales Training?
A complete and effective sales training covers everything from Inbound Marketing attraction strategies and Outbound prospecting , to driving the customer through all stages of the sales funnel to closing and post-sales.
In this way, the team acquires a macro view of the sales processes and understands its activities as a link.It is important that the content is practical and adjusted to the company’s business model and to the particularities that involve the performance of sales professionals.
In order to work on technical aspects of service, sales and behavioral aspects, the coach must, in addition to understanding all sales processes, have a clear knowledge of the technical and attitudinal skills necessary for the good performance of the function.
Operational point
In short, he must know and understand, from an operational point of view, what an individual needs to know (knowledge), have (attitudes) and do ( sales techniques ) to “ ramp ” as quickly as possible and exceed his goals, in the short term. in the case of novices, or to obtain consistency in the high sales performance, in the case of the more experienced ones.
People have different learning styles; therefore, effective training needs to be guided by an andragogical methodology (referring to adult-oriented learning), having a good conceptual content connected to the participant’s daily practices.
It needs to have good support artifacts, practical exercises, group discussion, simulations, analogies, storytelling , cases, evaluations, dynamics and, above all, a clear and tangible objective to be achieved, highlighting the pains that are preventing better results from being achieved and how they will be resolved.
What are the difficulties of putting together a good sales training?
Before we go into the solutions, we will highlight here some very common failures and that – believe me! – can and should be avoided.Do not involve leadership in the training planning and design process. This makes the managers not perceive value in the action and they are left with the perception that the training interfered with the work routine.
HR and T&D do not know in detail the strategies defined by the top leadership for the marketing and sales areas , especially the main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators, that is, Key Performance Indicators) used to analyze the daily sales results and other correlated actions.
HR and T&D
HR and T&D do not communicate with the sales area to understand their real pain from managers and teams and seek with them the best solutions in methodologies, techniques and tools.
Some training courses cover subjects that sales executives already master or that are outside the practical context of the team’s routine; in this case, the focus of the participants is on their cell phones, exchanging messages with their clients, no matter how charismatic the instructor is.
The metrics used to assess the quality of the training consist of the percentage of people trained and the Reaction Assessment at the end of the activity, and if the team found the instructor charismatic, the grades are always the best possible; however, there are not always positive effects on the team’s sales results.
The instructor works in the expository format, covering a lot of the conceptual aspects of a service; however, it does not provide a practical experiential learning experience and still does not have a good understanding of the company ‘s sales processes , thus wasting the opportunity to use language, cases and analogies adjusted to the daily reality of sales professionals.
Get training approval from top leadership by showing results!
One day I was in a meeting with the C-Level of a company and I witnessed the HR manager trying to approve training for the team of sales team managers.
When the CEO asked if the previous training was effective for the team so that it was worth repeating the investment, the manager replied, “Yes, the training was amazing! In the end, it was gratifying to see that some managers even cried.”
The CEO opened up the previous year’s sales results and said, “They may have enjoyed the training, but I didn’t see the return on investment reflected in the sales results.”
And, of course, he did not approve the event. The training previously carried out had been punctual, without carrying out a diagnosis to understand the business strategies, in order to connect them to the content, without the involvement of commercial leadership and commitments to the results to be achieved. There was also no post-work to adjust the route.
How to negotiate a sales training
Thus, the best way to trade is with the following argument:
“We analyzed the indicators of the last 12 months and saw that our sales conversion rate dropped a lot, reflecting loss of revenue and customers to the competition. When analyzing the stages of the sales funnel with the head of the commercial, we saw that more than X% of sales are lost in the negotiation stage.”