The right sales training techniques can boost retention and productivity rates
In most industries, businesses have more than doubled the number of hours they spend on employee training, and for good reason. Training aligns your employees with your organizational vision and ensures they know exactly how you want them to perform. It also boosts employee retention levels, saving you significant time and money on recruiting and onboarding.
Additionally, employees respond positively to training. They become better at their jobs, but they also become more engaged. This improves your bottom line.
Despite the clear advantages that training has to offer, however, many employers don’t bother to train their sales team. This amplifies the already poor retention rates and high turnover in the sales industry.
If you want to minimize these risks, you need to train your sales team – and not just once. You need to commit to constant and consistent training. Looking for ideas? Check out these sales training trends.
Remote sales techniques
During COVID, sales training like countless other activities shifted from in-person to virtual. In the wake of the pandemic, this trend continued for many reasons, including personal preferences and convenience.
When you’re looking for the top sales training programs, don't be surprised if you find more virtual options than you did in the past. Many training programs now include a blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction that allows trainees to move through the program at their own pace.
In this same vein, salespeople are now much more likely to engage with prospective leads over remote channels, and this requires additional training. Engaging with a prospect on Zoom or Google Meet, for example, is a lot different than talking with someone in person. To ensure your team knows how to make this shift, you may need to provide training that specifically addresses remote communication methods.
Leveraging data to improve sales team performance
Across all industries, businesses are leveraging data to improve their processes, so of course, this trend has also affected sales training. In particular, businesses can now use data to identify training opportunities and ensure that they’re making the most of their training resources.
The right data can help you analyze where deals are going wrong. Are you using the wrong strategy? Is your team struggling with your technology? Does your crew have the right sales tools? Data about sales team performance can help you answer these questions and pinpoint training opportunities for the team as a whole as well as individual team members.
More emphasis on tech training
Of course, you can’t collect data if you’re not using the right technology. As businesses embrace tech tools to enhance their sales processes, they’re also increasing training on how to use those tools. This includes training for new hires, micro-training sessions on niche functions, and extra training around system updates.
Cross-training with customer service teams
Sales don’t happen in a vacuum, and the more silos you have in your organization, the more redundancies, communication gaps, and productivity lapses will follow. To address this concern, cross-training is a growing trend in sales.
Your sales team needs to understand how to provide quality customer service. They will often play a customer service role in addition to a sales role, and to that end, they need to be ready to answer questions and provide customers with the support they need while making purchases.
On the flip side, your customer service team will also perform sales in some cases. By training customer service reps how to upsell and cross-sell, you stand to increase your revenue.
Personality training
Sales training programs have focused on buyer personas and personalities for a long time. When salespeople understand the psychological motives of their prospects, they can adjust their pitch accordingly and increase their chances of closing the deal. However, most modern sales training goes beyond the personality of the buyer and also takes the personality of the seller into account.
If you want to maximize your sales team’s potential, you need to understand what makes them tick. What motivates them? Do they rely on intuition or their senses? Do they think or feel when making decisions? The more you know about the people on your sales team, the more effectively you can train them.
You can also use personality tests to improve your recruitment process and ensure that you identify the right people for internal promotions.
Curiosity training
The most effective sales teams don’t sell. Instead, they solve problems for their buyers. Unfortunately, while this is an easy concept to grasp, it’s tricky to figure out how to get there.
Curiosity selling is leading the charge in many ways. This approach to sales involves asking creative questions to get the seller to reveal their problems and concerns. Armed with this information, the sales rep knows exactly how to pitch the product.
This strategy relies partially on a sales script, but the rep must know when to introduce different components of the script. They also must know how to adjust their approach in real time. This requires training focused on consultation and value-building.
Modern sales training trends can help you determine where to focus your efforts, but the important thing is to provide your team with continuing education above and beyond the training you give to new hires. This will help ensure that they’re ready to sell new products and services and meet new challenges in the marketplace.
Of course, you don’t have to handle the training yourself. Let MetaGrowth help. We’re experts in training and coaching sales teams. Our professional staff will ensure that your team has all the tools they need to help you achieve your goals. Want to learn more? Then contact us today.
Written by
Joe Arioto