Sales training is a key part of improving sales results. Refreshing sales skills and improving sales techniques helps to close more deals and generate more revenue. Not only that, sales training means your organisation is presented professionally and remembered professionally. To be remembered professionally, you must sell professionally.
There are generally two types of sales training, training for sales communication and behaviours and strategic sales strategy training for sales strategy. Some providers focus on the person training and other sales training providers focus on the planning and strategy.
Training can in strategic and planning areas as well as communication and techniques. Some sales training providers also provide sales training in both these dimensions.
When rolling out sales training, this can be internal via sharing your expertise with team members, and team members sharing their own experience and expertise with other colleagues. Collaboration and sharing ideas is really important. Despite what some may say, it’s good that we all sell in slightly different ways, it helps to build a good relationship with a client and come across naturally.
Always remember the saying, people buy from people they like.
Different sales training methods work in different environments and with different people. Knowing when to apply different techniques is a key part of sales training and ensuring it’s applicable to the real world. In the real world, prospects don’t always act as expected or anticipated. Having flexible sales training methodologies that can be utilised when applicable ensures a modern and effective selling approach.
The best sales training views things continually from the perspective of the buyer. As you know yourself, you don’t like being sold to! Neither does your potential client! Gone are the days of the hard sell!
Sales today is about understanding,
empathy, knowledge, expertise and help. Ultimately, it’s about helping the client with a solution to their problem, it’s about reassuring them that you’re best placed to help and support them.
Sales training should also not be regarded as a quick fix. Put some people in a sales training workshop and you’re not going to get different results immediately. It takes time to engrain behavioural change and it takes time for results to take effect. After all, in B2B sales. the sales cycle is often long too. Sales training sessions are the start, and they should be part of a continued learning and development programme.
Having a decided sales training approach helps to drive consistency, and from that, measurement of results and continual improvement can be obtained. Consistent quality helps to ensure consistent sales results.
There are generally a few different types of sales training.
- Classroom sales training, presentations and group activities.
- Virtual sales training, online via video call.
- Sales training conferences & events.
- Sales training webinars.
- Sales training e-learning, self-serve learning content.
- Role-play sales training, sessions and scenarios.
- Observation & peer-review, watching each other sell and sharing tips.
- Customer review of your sales process, research customer sales experience.
When choosing a sales training provider, it’s tricky to decide and there are lots and lots of companies providing sales training. As with any industry though, there are key established providers who can be a great starting point. After choosing a provider as a starting point, other providers could be chosen later to bring different perspectives and widen the knowledge and techniques of your sales team.
Before thinking about sales training providers, it’s vital to think about the sales experience of your training recipients. Training needs to be of value to the audience receiving it. There are different levels of sales training that are designed for basic, intermediate and advanced levels. When evaluating providers, ask questions about who the training is designed for. If they say everyone, question them further, as good training needs to be a good fit for the level of your participants.
There are lots of different sales training methodologies and different sales training providers have their own methods, techniques, and frameworks too. Sales training techniques generally fall into 6 sales training areas: prospecting, discovery, presentation, discussion, negotiation and closing. In simple terms they cover who, what, why, when and how.
Some sales training methodologies & terminology include the following. Research them to learn more about them, buy their books, sign up to their sales training courses, upskill yourself and your sales team.
SPICED – situation, pain, impact, critical event, decision criteria.
SPIN selling - situation, problem, implication, need-payoff.
MEDDIC – metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, champion,
MEDDPICC – metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, paper process, implication of pain, champion, competition.
BANT – Budget, authority, need, timeline.
SPICE – Safety, passion, interest, car, empathy.
SOSTAC – Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Action, Control.
MAYA – most advanced yet acceptable/attainable.
Feel, Felt, Found – empathetic objection handling.
GAP Selling - dig deep into the root cause of the clients problems and sell the benefits.
Challenger Sale – educating the clients, being purposefully different for the client, changing their perspective.
Active Listening – listening attentively to clients and showing them you’ve listened by reiterating what they’ve said. Listening and asking question to understand deeply.
Objection handling – in short, overcoming prospects and clients initially saying no, not interested, an argument against going with you as their supplier.
Cold Calling – how to best to phone people and generate business, of vital importance is to remember it should be about them before it’s about you.
Cold Email – reaching out to prospects via email, what should be written?
3 Whys – why me? why this? why now? – a presentation technique that can also be a sales technique.
URAC – understanding, reframing, action, confidence – a way of overcoming objections
NEAT selling - Need, Economic impact, Access to authority and Timeline
SNAP selling – Keep it simple, Be i(n)valuable, Always align. Raise priorities.
Introducer selling – utilising contact in companies to be introduced.
Referral selling – referring business to others to help each other.
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