How Sales Call Training Capabilities Close More Deals

Mastering successful sales calls requires more than just confidence—it demands strategic preparation and effective communication skills. But more importantly, it requires agility to efficiently navigate a sales call.

We all know how difficult it can be to get in front of a buyer. So when the opportunity arrives, sellers need a plan to progress the conversation. With sales call training, sellers learn agile selling skills to turn potential leads into loyal customers. At Richardson, these sales skills stem from our Sales Capability Framework.

The Sales Capability Framework isolates the skills needed to improve results and reduce the duration of the sales cycle. Three key areas make up the framework: Sales Methods, Sales Motions, and Sales Meetings. Split into four capabilities and 16 selling behaviors, Sales Meetings highlights the skills needed for sellers to effectively engage their buyers.

Capabilities for Sales Meeting Execution

Mastering sales meetings starts with proper execution. This means building skills to ensure your sales team can lead effective meetings to explore and address customer needs and collaborate with colleagues to win sales opportunities. Doing this requires the following behaviors:

• Prepare for Sales Meetings: Preparing for customer calls to advance the sale
• Open Sales Meetings: Taking ownership and setting the tone and focus for the sales meeting
• Sell with Teams: Leading a selling team to successfully execute high-stakes customer meetings
• Close Sales Meetings: Closing each sales meeting with commitment

Capabilities to Demonstrate Conversational Agility

Conversational agility allows sellers to stay ahead to their sales call and adapt to the buyer's needs. With conversational agility, sales reps master the art of connecting with customers, understanding their messages, and presenting compelling information that resonates both intellectually and emotionally. Sales professionals need to develop this capability to ensure that they are actually addressing customer pain points and not just reading a script. To demonstrate conversation agility, sales call training requires sellers to execute the following behaviors:

• Authentically Question and Actively Listen: Using questioning and listening to foster openness and uncover valuable information needed to drive better outcomes for customers and sellers
• Position Persuasively and Check for Feedback: Tailoring messaging to be easy to follow and persuasive, and eliciting feedback to inform the next move
• Project Presence and Relate to Connect: Projecting confidence, establishing credibility, and fostering a connection and trust

Capabilities to Manage High-Stakes Conversations

When getting deeper into the sales cycle, sellers may face high-stakes conversations. In turn, they need to know how to lead critical conversations with the propensity for greater risk and reward. To navigate high-stakes Conversations, sellers must master the following behaviors:

• Address Misalignments: Aligning stakeholders by understanding and resolving areas of misalignment
• Assert a Point of View: Sharing a clear and compelling point of view in a way that creates openness and reframes the customer's thinking
• Navigate Challenging Conversations: Leading challenging discussions with prospects, customers, or colleagues about sensitive subjects
• Position a Price Increase: Leading a meeting to introduce a new pricing structure to a customer
• Resolve Objections: Understanding and resolving objections or concerns raised by prospects or customers

Capabilities for Stakeholder Management

Lastly, to move the sale forward, sellers need to manage stakeholders. Without buy-in from stakeholders, the sale is destined to falter. Sellers can avoid this by learning how to drive stakeholder engagement and expand their presence across the organization. This allows for more impactful and strategic outcomes. To navigate stakeholder management, sellers must master the following behaviors:

• Analyze Stakeholders: Analyzing stakeholder alignment with the solution and creating an action plan to increase win-odds
• Access Power: Gaining access to the stakeholders that represent power
• Engage Executive Decision Makers: Engaging with and influencing executives to create strategic relationships
• Align Stakeholders on Vision: Aligning stakeholders on a collective vision to address their different interests and needs

The Benefits of Sales Call Training

Sales call training elevates your team's performance to close more deals and create lasting relationships with customers. It enables sales professionals to stay agile and adaptable amidst market changes and increased customer demands. In the rapidly changing sales environment, harnessing these skills has never been more important. With less access to buyers, traditional cold-calling training doesn't cut it anymore.

By integrating agile sales call training, organizations see the following results:

• Improved ability to generate buyer receptivity through strategic targeting and relevant messaging
• Increased volume of qualified leads and/or opportunities in the sales pipeline
• Increased number of new contacts and meetings booked
• Increased number of leads from referral sources
• Increased revenue from improving close ratios for new customers and expanding business with existing ones
• Competitive advantage from building a sales culture that is tightly aligned to market needs
• New and larger opportunities from surfacing unrecognized needs
• Shortened sales cycle length from driving momentum and building buyer confidence to commit