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Sales Training: How To Do It Right

Why do some sales teams hit their targets effortlessly while others struggle? It all has to do with sales training AND coaching.

The thing is, sales training isn’t just a one-off thing you check off your list. Nope. It’s an ongoing journey. It’s about building a foundation for your team and giving them the skills and knowledge they need to consistently produce results.

But training is more than just a single session or workshop. Effective sales training keeps your team sharp and ready to tackle any challenge on the job.

Keep in mind though, that your sales team will never achieve their peak performance if you’re not also coaching them. Because in fact, sales training and sales coaching are two completely different things.

Sales Training vs. Sales Coaching – Know The Difference

Imagine you’re a basketball player. Training is what happens during practice – hitting the gym, running drills, all that stuff. But coaching? That happens during the game when you’re in the heat of the moment, and your coach gives you live feedback.

Here’s the thing: a lot of managers do coaching, but they won’t do training; they skip the training part. And as you can imagine, that is a big mistake.

Training for sales teams needs to happen off the field, at a separate time, and on a consistent schedule. It could be every day, once a week, or even once a month. We recommend you conduct sales training sessions at least twice a month.

The big takeaway: The goal is to make sales training a habit, and each training session should follow a formal, structured approach.

What Is Sales Training Really About?

The secret to effective sales training is about breaking down the sales process into structured, bite-sized pieces. You can’t just have a trainer come in, do a two-hour session, and talk about closing, tonality, and objection handling in one go. It would be too overwhelming and, frankly, not that useful.

The best approach is to focus on one aspect at a time. Each lesson should aim to cover a specific topic.

So, for example, you can spend one session just on how to open up your cold calls, then another session on how to do a good discovery call, and so on. And then, repeat, as many times as possible. Yes, you read that right. Go over the same lesson again and again.

We reassure you it’s completely ok to go back, revisit the same lesson and hold the same class over and over again. Going through the same, exact lesson multiple times means your team will always find new takeaways to experiment with over and over. This repetition is what helps them really nail down each skill and eventually turn it into a habit.

The Smart Way To Train Your Sales Team

Practice One Thing At A Time

Think about it like this – athletes don’t become great by trying fancy moves right off the bat. They master the basics by doing the same drills repeatedly. It’s the repetition that makes them second nature. And that’s exactly how sales training should work too.

Whether it’s handling objections or starting a call, the idea is to practice one thing at a time, over and over, until it becomes a part of your team’s DNA. And yes, this applies to both simple and complex sales techniques.

Incentivize Your Sales Team To Take Action

We all know practice is key, but how do you get your team to do it? You offer incentives. For example, once you’re done with the lesson, you’ll leave them homework. These are a couple of ideas:

“Show me five messages where you put what you learned today into action.”

“Show me five call recordings where you put today’s lesson into practice.”

Assigning homework after each training session is important because they’ll know they owe you something. The team will owe you those sales recordings and LinkedIn messages you exchanged with prospects.

You could also throw in some fun incentives. For instance, offer a reward to the first person who books a meeting using one of the objection handling techniques you just covered during the session. Incentivize behavior regularly. It’s amazing how a little motivation can spark action.

If you happen to do door-to-door sales, try giving an incentive to whoever sales rep gets the most “no’s” throughout the day. Most of us are good at getting “no’s” anyway, so your team has nothing to lose in going out and knocking on as many doors as possible to get that incentive. And who knows, one of those knocks can turn into a “yes.”

Effective Sales Training Thrives On Consistency, Not Innovation

The thing about sales training is that it’s not a one-and-done thing. It’s not about innovating or overhauling your approach. There’s nothing to innovate about sales training. You just have to do it and do it as many times as you can.

Many managers struggle to see their teams hit quota. They don’t realize it’s because they’re not training their teams enough, or they’re not training them at all. Make sure your team has the skills needed to succeed through consistent, repetitive practice. Remember that the goal of sales training is to build habits, not just impart knowledge.

Recognizing the role of continuous sales training in building habits and achieving quota is just the beginning. If you’re looking for ways to translate your training efforts into measurable revenue growth, our team is ready to step in.

We’ve been helping tons of B2B companies generate revenue by building a scalable and predictable sales pipeline. Take a look at some of our success stories.

Spread the word and share this post with your network!

Sales Training: How To Do It Right

Sales Training vs. Sales Coaching – Know The Difference

What Is Sales Training Really About?

The Smart Way To Train Your Sales Team

Practice One Thing At A Time

Incentivize Your Sales Team To Take Action

Effective Sales Training Thrives On Consistency, Not Innovation

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May 16, 2024

11am PT