Enhancing Sales Team Skills with Sales Training Programs
Sales training programs are designed to improve the skills of your sales personnel that contribute towards achieving success in sales. The quality of your sales training program shall determine how the future of your sales team will be shaped. Training programs need to be designed keeping in mind the tenure of the employees. A program designed for new hires is focused more on the product or services that the organization provides, and is quite different from a program designed for upskilling tenured sales teams. Having said that, both programs need to contribute towards improving the bottom line.
Enhancing sales team skills can vary from improving cold calling abilities to closing deals and retaining customers. A good sales training program deals with specifics, and is focused on improving a specific skill. Research has shown that companies that invest in a quality sales training program see at least a 34% improvement in their sales capability building, and see greater employee retention. Let’s take a look at some key aspects of a quality sales training program and how they enhance the skills of a sales team.
Building Sales Skill
A sales program that deals with the basics of being effective at sales, allows for newbie sales reps to learn the ropes of sales. These programs deal with topics such as finding leads, writing cold mails, making a cold call, recreating a sales pitch, drawing up effective proposals, and onboarding clients after the deal. Role plays have an important part to play in the effectiveness of these trainings, as recreating real-life situations bolster confidence in the sales teams. Although designed for freshers, these training programs help to refresh tenured sales reps.
The Customer Experience
Getting your customer to generate trust in you starts with your ability to show genuine empathy for the customer. A sales training program that deals with analyzing the customer experience allows the sales team to understand their clients, and this will help them in aligning the customers’ need with the service or product on offer. Sales exercises based on real-life situations allow sales reps to experience what the customer feels. One of the most effective tools is to pair up new hires with tenured sales reps, and make them sit in on sales calls or meetings.
What and Where?
A sales training program that deals with detailed information about the product or service being offered, and the prospective clients/markets being dealt with, ensures that your sales reps know exactly what they are dealing with, and where it needs to be sold. Getting members from other departments like engineering or IT, lets sales reps get an insight about little known details that will help them close that sale. The ability to have answers to difficult questions gives you greater power over your pitch, and builds confidence in clients.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is the most effective software available to the modern sales team. Choose one that is specific to your company’s processes, and customized to the needs of your clients. The vendor shall conduct the training for the software, however, building a specialized program helps to unleash the potential of both the software, and the sales teams. CRM training is best learnt by practice, and using the software firsthand is the only way to train the team. The sales reps should learn all details pertaining to the software, and to check the effectiveness of the training the sales reps can be put into teams and be given specific tasks pertaining to the software
Team Building
Sales as an activity is a solo adventure, however, having an effective sales team bolsters the sales rep on an individual level. Learning from each other is a key aspect in creating a well-balanced and effective sales pitch. Team building activities help in building trust, act as an anchor, and lets sales reps build work friendships that can be very handy in the long run. Rewards and recognitions play a big role in team building activities.
A good sales training program usually ends with a 360 degree assessment wherein the trainer assesses the sales rep, there is self-assessment, and an assessment of the trainer by the sales rep. This helps in improving the overall effectiveness of the sales training program.
These are but some of the key aspects to enhancing the skills of the sales team, and sales training is an ever evolving process thus the best teachings are the ones you get in real-time. Learn from them, incorporate them, and don’t be afraid to use them.
