What is Sales Training?

Sales Training Defined

Sales training is formal instruction and education on the specific skills needed to sell effectively. However, this simplified definition leaves so much to unpack. It only takes a brief glance at the innumerable books, methodologies, and content produced on the subject to recognize that sales training and sales success are incredibly complex and nuanced. In addition, within companies, so many team members participate in the sales process with so many different roles and responsibilities that effective training cannot boil down to one or a few points but must be customized to each role’s unique contributions.

Benefits of Sales Training

Given countless market complexities, winning in sales is fraught with challenges. Sales training provides playbooks and structure to make the processes of selling repeatable and predictable. Investing in sales training is beneficial for businesses and their teams. Sales training bolsters:

• Corporate Culture: Sales training is an investment in your team that demonstrates a corporate commitment to professional development and fostering individual team members' success. By taking the initiative to enable your people to learn, develop skills, and be more personally profitable, your business is demonstrating the value that positive company culture and retention mean to it. In addition, sales training empowers team members and builds confidence. These experiences will bond the team and provide goodwill and loyalty to the brand.
• Communication: Much of sales training focuses on improving communication between the salesperson and the prospect. However, expert guidance in communication will extend far beyond that. The skills of persuasion, understanding how to convey specific points effectively, blueprints for the best word and phrase choices to elicit positive responses, etc., will all combine to improve internal communication as well, making your team more successful.
• Productivity: Team members who feel bonded to each other and their brand communicate well, and have a clear roadmap for sales process and success, are primed for happiness and increased productivity. Sales training provides a clear plan for sales processes, time management, and prioritization of tasks. With these tools in hand, your team will strategically accomplish more. Another productivity winner? Your sales pipeline! The more skilled your team members are, the more adeptly they will move deals from start to close.
• Team Members' Skills: Your team's skills will also benefit from sales training. Your team will learn everything from conversation starters to ideas for combatting objections, how to accelerate the sales process, as well as how to be an effective storyteller, appeal to buyers' emotions, and more. With all these best practices and "winning" examples available to them, your team will be more skilled to successfully close opportunities.
• Revenue: When it comes to the benefits and value of sales training, the rubber meets the road at sales: more of them. Your business will see a measurable return on investment with sales training as your team closes more deals in a faster timeframe. Your team members will be happy to earn more commissions, your CFO will be happy to see the business become more profitable. Sales training is an overall win.

What Makes an Effective Sales Training Program

Assuming all things are equal with the quality of the goods or services you’re selling, successful sales outcomes are a function of qualified prospecting, communication and storytelling, negotiation, and process management. Here at Richardson Sales Performance, we categorize our sales training programs as follows:

• Create Pipeline: A focus on targeting, messaging, and engaging prospects will teach your team to build a pipeline and develop new business opportunities.
• Win Opportunities: Our unique blend of Solution Selling and Consultative Selling is designed to teach your team how to close more deals in less time and increase sales outcomes and revenue.
• Grow Accounts: The program will train your client selling team on how to elevate and deepen client relationships to grow and expand existing engagements.
• Sales Coaching and Management: The best teams evaluate and pivot as they work - not after the fact. Learn how to create an atmosphere of incremental growth and improvements with our agile sales coaching program.

Through these sales training programs, sales professionals learn the fundamentals of selling, improve communication skills, receive guidance on progressing the sales process, and share in tangible examples of “what good looks like” relative to managing objections, closing and winning deals. What is sales training if not an optimal alignment of fostering your team and your business goals simultaneously? Discover how to get started on the road to greater sales success with our expert sales training programs.