Developing a high-performing sales team is essential for any business looking to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace. But how do you train your salespeople to become more effective? The answer lies in a structured approach that considers the unique needs and challenges of your team. In this blog post, we’ll outline the four key steps to better train your salespeople and equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
Step 1: Assess Your Sales Team’s Needs
The first step in training your salespeople is to assess their needs. This involves identifying the areas where your team needs the most support and development. Some of the key areas to consider include product knowledge, sales techniques, customer relationship building, and good discovery questions. Here at The Sales Collective, we take your data and marry it to a 37-point assessment that highlights different core competencies and development areas to ensure we cover every possible base when starting this process.
To assess your sales team’s needs, you should start by analyzing their performance data. Conversion rates, sales volume, and client-facing calls are just a few examples to evaluate how they are performing compared to your expectations. You can also conduct surveys or interviews with your sales team to gather their input on the areas in which they feel they need the most assistance.
The reason traditional sales training doesn’t work is because salespeople aren’t trained to fix their specific challenge areas. Imagine a doctor who gives two aspirin to every patient that walks in her door. She asks no questions, does no physical exam, just gives them all two aspirin because they’re all human beings. That’s what cookie-cutter, “magic” selling system training does. It’s generic, it won’t fix a thing, and people don’t improve. You have got to know every little detail about your salespeople’s DNA, what limiting beliefs they have, what skill sets they possess, what skill sets they lack, and then, and only then, can you begin to address them.
Step 2: Develop a Training Program
Once you’ve identified the areas in which your sales team needs improvement, you can start to design a training program that meets those specific needs. The biggest challenge that companies face is the time investment it takes to get this done right. This process takes a concerted effort, intention, and deep work to build a targeted and effective training program, built specifically for your team. You can’t build a one-day or one-week training session filled with rah-rah quotes and motivational theory. They don’t work!
This is why most sales training fails because you’re trying to go to the gym once a month, for six hours, thinking that’s going to get you in tip top shape. Sales training is not about choosing some antiquated topic to rehash, drilling your people on it in a short time, and expecting that to check off the box for your sales training requirement. This method will simply cause information overload, which leads to limited retention of knowledge, and it won’t move the needle one bit.
Your training program can take a variety of forms, from classroom-style training sessions to online courses and workshops. Some of the key elements to consider when designing your training program include:
- Goals and objectives: Set clear goals and objectives for your training program to ensure they align with your overall business objectives.
- Training methods: Choose training methods that are most effective for your team, like role-playing, case studies, or online courses.
- Timing and frequency: Determine the timing and frequency of your training program and ensure it fits within your team’s schedule and workload.
- Measurement and evaluation: Establish metrics to measure the success of your training program and regularly evaluate its effectiveness to make improvements as needed.
Step 3: Deliver the Training
There are a few key obstacles when delivering a training program. The first challenge revolves around content creation. It will take time to build every deck, talk track, roleplay, and learning exercise. You then need to deliver it effectively across weeks and months of microlearning. This involves communicating the objectives and expectations of the training program and ensuring that your team has the necessary resources and support to participate fully. You’ll want to put together a course catalog, a calendar of training, and ways to reinforce it in the field every week.You’ll need to first train on the topic, then role play with consistency, and finally, hold your team accountable for doing it through positive reinforcement.
When delivering your training, it’s important to keep your team engaged and motivated. Use a variety of techniques to keep your team involved, such as interactive activities, group discussions, and hands-on training. It’s also important to provide ongoing support and feedback throughout the training process. This can include regular coaching sessions, progress reviews, and opportunities for your sales team to provide feedback on the training program. You will also want to create videos and supporting materials for your team to look back on after training. Without seeing it multiple times in multiple different ways you won’t drive the retention of knowledge you are looking for.
Another key to delivering an effective training program is to have 100% buy in from your sales leaders. They need to be highly involved and part of the process if you want it to be effective for all parties. Your leaders need to understand how to teach, coach, and observe their people when they’re outside the training environment to ensure the correct behaviors are being monitored. As you can imagine, this can be quite a lift and makes sense if you are hiring and training lots of people across multiple years, but if you aren’t, that is where people turn to us for turnkey options.
Step 4: Measure the Results
The final step in building an effective, lasting, and comprehensive training process is to measure the results. You need to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and whether it has achieved the desired outcomes. You can evaluate metrics like revenue generation, increase in conversions, shortening of sales cycles, customer feedback, and employee engagement surveys. You can also conduct a post-training evaluation to gather feedback from your sales team on the effectiveness of the program.
Based on your evaluation, you can adjust your training program to ensure it continues to evolve and meet the specific needs of your sales team and your business.
Conclusion
Training and coaching your sales team is a necessary requirement if you truly want to build a high-performing sales team. Untrained salespeople aren’t typically the catalyst to driving double-digit growth and increased scalability. By following the four key steps we covered earlier – assessing your team’s needs, develop a training program, deliver the training, and measure the results – you can position your sales team for success and maximize their ability and potential.
One final point. Sales skill development is a critical component of any successful sales training strategy. Too many companies assume their salespeople are already highly skilled and don’t need ongoing coaching and development. Wrong. Did Michael Jordan still show up to practice? Did Tom Brady work on his skills in the off season? Of course. Companies that invest in a well-thought out and specifically built sales training program generate substantially more revenue than those who don’t. Here are a few stats:
- Every dollar invested in sales training returns $15 – $29 in incremental revenues (studies vary).
- Improper training leads to turnover and costs companies 6-9 months of an employee’s salary.
- According to a recent report, sales training will improve performance by an average by 20%.
- Firms where salespeople use methodology & get consistent coaching see 73% quota attainment.
Implementing an effective sales training program is an ongoing process that requires continuous assessment, evaluation, and refinement. By staying committed to the development of your sales team and providing them with the resources and support they need to succeed, you can build a high-performing sales team that drives success and growth for your business beyond your wildest dreams.
At The Sales Collective, our team of experts has a wealth of knowledge and decades of experience helping companies of all types and sizes become more effective. We build turnkey onboarding and training programs to accomplish the objectives we shared in this blog. Many of our clients have seen dramatic increases in their sales teams’ performance after implementing these processes and we’d be happy to share more with you when and if the time is right. If you’d like more information, please visit us at: TheSalesCollective.com.
