In the beginning when the team is small, the stages of structuring a sales team, a new hire will get a chance to work alongside and learn in the actual sales process as well as how to do the best prospect on leads.
But if the fact is that the sales team is growing from a few people to dozens, it can be difficult to keep the focus on how everyone works as individuals. As more members are incorporating to any sales teams, they will need to get training in order to start delivering as soon as possible and perform better.
Meanwhile, as your sales team grows, as a manager you need to train every single new hire that steps onboard. As a leader, your job is to provide training, support, and the tools the team needs to be successful. Before you dive into the actual caviar of the training, some pre-training is necessary for the new salespeople to get everyone on the same page.
Before you dive into the actual caviar of the training, some pre-training is necessary for the new salespeople to get everyone on the same page.
Tips for sales team pre-training.
- Asses your teams' strengths and weaknesses
- Align training with your company’s goals and strategy.
- Choose the training format that makes sense for the company.
Without a good base and pre-training, the actual training is not going to be that effective as it can be. The relevant training is necessary because, without it, your team will struggle to keep the quality and growth of the business.
Here are the techniques you can use to train your sales team to perform better.
Why is sales training important?
Every new wave of new hires that will join the team will need a group of mentors to help them get acclimated to the company’s sales process. This training period will give both the new employee and their manager a look into how they work and how they may impact the success of the company down the line. The raining can cover anything from basic onboarding, skill development, and setting expectations for the future.
Sales team pre-training
To maximize the results of the training, pre-training can be done to make things easier for everyone.
Align training with your company’s goals and strategy.
As a sales manager, you need to be on time, what is going on in the company and what strategies they are keeping up and running. Training through strategies helps new people to support the company’s goals.
Before any training happens, you must determine the behavior you want your sales hires to possess. How do you want your reps to push the company forward and improve upon set processes? What do you see them doing in order to achieve the desired outcome?
Knowing the answers, the questions will connect the sales training straight to the company. If you have a realistic vision of how the employees will impact the company, It will keep both parties focused on the actual meaning of the training.
Define your team’s strengths and weaknesses
In the beginning, is important to define the weaknesses and strengths of your team. Doing so helps to define the main highlight areas where is something to improve and going forward.
To figure out the current situation here are some questions you can ask to dig details.
Do you have a focused sales process in place?
What is your value proposition?
Which KPIs are you using to track sales effectiveness?
What are you actively doing to increase your sales funnel?
Are you taking advantage of changes in the market?
Does the sales team work well together?
You might find out that maybe your sales team was losing deals because of a lack of product understanding. Talking with the salespeople will give you more information than following just paragraphs.
Speaking with the team will give you perspective and insights about what you can’t find from just following the data.
Choose a format that will match the company’s needs.
When you start to brainstorm how you want to train new salespeople, the range of options may be overwhelming. No single format is right for every company or team, so determining the most effective way to train your sales team can help you save time and effort.
If you’re stuck on which format to choose, consider the size of the team. If you’re an early-stage startup with a lean sales team, compiling a few short courses or holding workshops may work better than formats that cater to larger teams.
During the sales team training
Once the preparation is ready, and you have done your homework before the new members will arrive, it’s time to take the actual training in practice. The following are a few things to keep in mind as a golden rule of training.
Begin with the basics
It’s wrong to assume that the new salespeople will know the basic foundations of selling and sales. There may be the unicorn hire that has a leg up and has already familiarized themselves with these basics but starting from the bottom gives a much safer bet.
To truly train your team from the bottom up, have them work with the tools and software, such as your CRM software, your salespeople are currently using.
Starting from the basics (such as admin or technical tasks), you’ll save your team time and frustration. The basics are more than just admin. Believe it or not, email is not a dying format. Hold a session on cold email outreach for your team and teach them the foundations of an effective and professional cold email.
Another training session you can hold is one about the product or service you are selling. If your product constantly undergoes development or improvements, it may be wise to continually send out teamwide updates to keep everyone up to date.
Laying out your product’s features from day one gives new hires the needed knowledge to sell with confidence.
Tap into the e-learning content
There are hundreds of options to choose from when it comes to e-learning. The internet holds a practically unlimited amount of resources on helpful sales techniques.
Companies everywhere are embracing the beauty of e-learning. With resources like blogs, online courses, podcasts, and webinars, you can educate your team on things like company procedures, policies, and products in development.
The best part about e-learning is that your team can learn about new sales techniques wherever they are. If they have a pressing question, they can reference a blog post or a YouTube video to get the answer they need in an instant.
Make learning real-world based
The best part about e-learning is that your team can learn about new sales techniques wherever they are. If they have a pressing question, they can reference a blog post or a YouTube video to get the answer they need in an instant.
The best part about e-learning is that your team can learn about new sales techniques wherever they are.
If they have a pressing question, they can reference a blog post or a YouTube video to get the answer they need in an instant. In other words, they will feel more motivated and fulfilled for the task, if they can call it in action.
Encourage the use of data while learning.
Because sales are the ultimate results-driven position, the sales team should make a habit of reflecting on past performance. An easy way is to look back on the past performance, (calls, emails, etc..) and think what was good and where is still something to do.
Collecting and reviewing accessible data to measure performance can be helpful to many departments, not only sales. It’s no secret that big data is becoming an essential part of business development.
In conclusion
In the end, sales training will likely never be complete. If you take anything away from this article, always give your team access to appropriate and effective resources, be open to answering questions, and create a culture where learning is recognized.
If you can do all three, you’ll support your sales team and give them the knowledge and confidence to succeed. All of this might sound a little bit tricky but in the end, it will be rewarding for the whole company, not just the sales team.