The quality of your sales training matters. A survey by the Training Industry found that, organizations with sales training programs that exceeded expectations closed about 54% of their forecast deals. In contrast, those companies with training courses that needed improvement had 56% of their deals fall through the cracks.
So, let’s go over some of the best programs to include in your training that can help explode your sales and give you top-notch results.
Skills reinforcement
According to Ardent Learning, people forget 84-90% of what they learn in sales training within the first 90 days of the course.
As early as the 1800s the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus made it loud and clear that forgetting what you learn isn’t simply a result of foggy memory. Unless learning is reinforced, it will go in one ear and out the other just as quickly.
So, one of the most critical elements to include in your training calendar is reinforcement. Allow your salespeople to chew over what they learned through activities, such as:
- skill building exercises
- quizzes
- leaderboards
- group knowledge sharing
- role play
Sales negotiation
Closing the deal often comes down to how well you can persuade buyers, counter objections, and negotiate with customers.
So, sales negotiation training is one of the best ways to boost your training programs. Your team can breeze through deals when they get a hang of the negotiation process. Enhancing their negotiation skills can help your team shine by learning how to:
- Build rapport. Salespeople learn how to warm the other side up to make room for a fruitful long-term deal.
- Draw value. Winning the deal is one thing, but if the discount is too high you throw away value. So, negotiation training helps reps understand how and when to preserve value.
- Walk away. When the talks are dragging with no real value, it’s time to pump the brakes.
- Sales prospecting
Lead Squared highlights that 42% of salespeople find prospecting to be the hardest part of selling. Yet, a ripple-less prospecting process is critical for keeping your sales pipeline clear.
So, including programs that shed light on how to prospect and qualify leads helps to bring the rhythm back into your team’s selling outcomes.
Your sellers can become familiar with key concepts, such as:
- asking the right questions
- shutting out the deafening voices of doubt and fear
- screening and sifting through prospects to narrow down efforts
- digging into connections
With the right training, you can keep your sales pipeline flowing to sustain your business for the long haul.
Social selling
Global Media Statistics reveal that a mind-blowing 4.7 billion people use social media—that’s more than half of the world’s population. So, it’s critical for salespeople to learn how to leverage social media buzz to close more sales.
Including social selling in your regular programs can teach your team how to:
- craft a forceful brand to stand out in the crowded sales arena
- connect and grow the company’s networks
- research and qualify prospects
- cut through the noise to reach out to and engage with prospects
- Storytelling
Storytelling is a powerful tool that can make or break a sale. According to All Good Tales, a story has the power to invoke an emotional and physical response that can trigger the desired action. A story—told right—can be the fragrant aroma that attracts prospects and turns them into customers. So, it’s important for your courses to cover key elements, such as:
- how to create a compelling narrative
- ways to resonate with your audience
- how to keep your audience hooked
- making a robust presentation
Consultative and collaborative selling
Statistics compiled by Anaeo reveal that:
- 65% of business comes from existing customers
- loyal customers are 5 times more likely to buy again
- happy buyers are 4 times more likely to refer a friend to your business
One of the best ways to gain customer loyalty is ensuring that buyers feel heard and can trust that reps are looking out for them. So, consider teaching your reps to use collaborative selling as their guiding light. Your reps can learn how to:
- listen effectively
- read between the lines
- get to the heart of the customer’s needs
- build trust
- engage and support buyers
With collaborative selling, your buyers are more likely to rave about you and refer your business to others. Also, satisfied customers are more open to accepting upselling opportunities.
Enhancing your sales training programs
- Empower your sales team to stamp out poor performance. Start by reinforcing core skills, then add large servings of negotiation and prospecting techniques. Top up with social media and storytelling skills. Finally, combine with a collaborative approach and serve hot. With this training recipe for success, your business has a greater chance of soaring above competitors.
Apart from this, if you want to know about eClinicalWorks EMR Software then please visit our Business category