The Value Of Sales Training For Businesses

Posted by Linda Hudson on November 10th, 2016

Whether a business is small or big, sales training makes a crucial contribution to its growth. It helps the sales team understand the product, grasp selling skills, and learn tactics to increase productivity which in turn increase revenue. Sales training drives the attention of the sales team on customers, their issues, and methods by which the product/service of a business can help customers to deal with those issues. Some companies use internal business sales training experts to design and deliver in-house sales training. Others choose to use outside sales training experts to improve sales skills, knowledge and abilities.

Drivers of sales training

Why does your organization/business need sales training? Do you want to improve the product knowledge of your sales team to increase win rates? Or, do you need to improve consultative selling skills to grow revenue and margin? There are a lot of factors that decide the success of your sales training program. You first need to identify these. If the performance of your current sales team is poor, you may need business sales training to rectify problems and infuse new sales skills aligned with your sales strategy, culture and methodology. Furthermore, if you are launching new products or entering a new market, you need a training course that focuses on the new product, competition and marketplace.

Understand the sales strategy

Before organizing sales training for your business, it is important to understand the overall sales strategy and sales culture. Our organizational alignment research shows that sales strategy and sales culture account for 71% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams. Make sure that any sales development efforts are aligned with your sales strategy and culture.

Induction Training

Make sure that the sales representatives have full knowledge of your product/services, value proposition, niche markets, competitors, customers, prices and policies before they start dealing with clients directly. Therefore, try to include important contacts of your organization in the induction program for the sales department, for example, marketing, finance, legal, technical support and customer service.

Develop required skills

Selling essentially requires analytical as well as creative skills. Therefore, sales should have good interpersonal and influence skills to develop a strong relationship with target customers. They should also be able to understand customers’ needs and always be ready with appropriate and value-added solutions. In sales training programs focus on team-building, leadership and communication skills.

Market knowledge

What makes your solutions different from that of your competitors? This is exactly what your sales representatives should know. They should have thorough knowledge not only of the solutions that you offer but also of those key features which set you apart from those of your competitors in the eyes of your target buyers. Furthermore, they should also be well aware of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses so that they position themselves accordingly.

Conclusion

Your sales team should always be fully prepared. Business sales training trains your employees about the nuances of sales and the various proven ways of improving sales revenue and margin. The process of sales is more about techniques than about targets. A well-experienced training partner will cultivate the critical few skills and attributes in your salesforce to achieve your sales goals.