Developing and training the sales team with targeted sales training is essential for companies that are looking for better and better results.
It is from the training that the sales team will learn the best techniques and approaches to achieve excellence in performance and beat the goals established for the business.
In addition, promoting training actions contributes to building a culture of learning and collaboration that favors the integration of the team and the performance of the company as a whole.
For this reason, we have listed here the three types of sales training that should be included in the development plan of companies that wish to work with a high performance sales team and stand out in the market. Check them out!
Essential sales training to form a high performance team
A high-performance sales team must know the business, the company's business process and master some essential skills to perform its role with excellence.
Thus, we can categorize sales training into three main types:
- Product and market
- Processes and tools
- Soft skills
1. Product and market training
Sales training on product and market consists of materials and learning actions related to explaining the product / service and the market in which it is inserted, including aspects such as:
- Features and benefits
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Value offer
- Mainly competitors
- Positioning
- Differentials
- Pricing policy
The purpose of this type of training is to ensure that salespeople have full mastery of the features and functionality of the product/service they need to sell.
The more the seller knows about the product/service, the more he will be able to understand how the solution applies to each prospect's reality. In this way, he can build an argument centered on the solution that the product / service represents for the potential customer's problem, instead of focusing superficially on the characteristics of the product/service itself.
Such capacity is an important competitive advantage, since prospects no longer need salespeople to find out about products and services. They need ideas and alternatives to make their companies evolve and perform better. Therefore, the seller needs to have authority on the subject and be able to conduct the sale in an advisory manner, proposing solutions that adhere to the context of the potential customer.
Product and market training is essential for new team professionals and, due to its intrinsic characteristics, must be given by the company itself.
It is also important to consider periodic updates to keep your speech in tune and to keep up with internal and market changes.
2. Operational sales training: processes and tools
In order for the sales team to work with a high level of productivity, it is essential that all professionals clearly understand what should happen from the lead entry to the closing of the sale.
For this reason, operational sales training aims precisely to make the sales team fully aware of all the processes and tools used in the department's day-to-day activities.
The idea is to make professionals experts in their roles. They are practical training, on what to do, and involve each step of the business process and the entire stack of tools involved, namely:
- Sales funnel
- Roles and responsibilities
- Interfaces with other areas
- Lead prospecting
- Lead Qualification
- Spin Selling
- Cold call
- Business proposal
- Negotiation
- Objection matrix
- Closing techniques
- CRM Update
- Register of sales made
- Sales reports
- Performance indicators
Operational training is essential for the exercise of the function. Therefore, they must be mandatorily offered to new employees and the entire team whenever there is a process or tool update or when a gap is identified.
These training can be developed by the company itself or in partnership with third party companies responsible for the tools or for some stage of the commercial process.
In consultancy projects for the implementation of Sales Machines, for example, Mkt4Sales conducts training so that the team learns to execute business processes according to the new methodology.
As a way to facilitate learning, it is important to contemplate practical actions in operational sales training, including simulations and role play.
Another tip for learning to consolidate is to document the company's business processes in a Sales Playbook, so that professionals have a guide to consult whenever they need to clear up any doubts on a daily basis.
3. Soft skills training for sales
Soft skills is the term used to define behavioral skills and subjective skills that are difficult to measure, but extremely important for professional performance.
Some fundamental soft skills to be developed by professionals working in the sales area are:
- Communication
- Resilience
- Flexibility
- Focus
- Active listening
- Empathy
- Coachability
- Analytical thinking
- Rapport
- NLP
- Motivation
- Collaboration
- Leadership
- Results oriented
As you can see, there are several soft skills important for the commercial area. Thus, the first step in creating a development plan adhering to the needs of the company and the team, is to define which of these competencies are strategic for each function of the sales team.
For prospects, for example, who spend much of the day capturing and analyzing data, focus and resilience are paramount skills.
Already SDRs, working in qualifying leads by telephone, must develop verbal communication, empathy and resilience as well.
Frontline professionals, both Inside Sales and Field Sales, in turn, require consistent communication, rapport, active listening and NLP skills. NLP is even more important for Field Sales, who are face to face with potential customers in negotiations.
Once strategic competencies are identified by function, it is necessary to analyze the skills that employees already have and understand where the biggest development gaps are.
From this diagnosis, it is possible to set up learning trails by function, choosing the sales training to be carried out according to an order of urgency and relevance to the team.
The planning must also consider the general calendar of the initiatives, the number of participants for training, those responsible for providing them, the content and format - online, in person, internal, external, etc. It is also important to establish clear learning objectives and ways to measure results.
This is a guest blog post by Fernanda Filgueiras, Business Consultant at MKT4Sales.
