8 Sales Training Ideas That Empower a Team

Bob Dylan once (and continues to) croon:

“… The times, they are a-changin’.”

Sales, their related sales topics, and your sales-process training change with those times. And you cannot expect those changes and evolutions to disappear any time soon. In fact, you cannot expect sales training activities to ever stop changing at all.

Consumers want different things. Different technologies are always ripe for plucking. Your team grows, dwindles, and grows again.

How do you expect your team (and you, for that matter) to keep up and remain confident in their selling skills?

You need a reserve of sales training ideas. And we have them for you, right here.

What Exactly is Sales Training?

Understanding what sales training is, is the first step in knowing what sales training ideas to implement in your business.

Sales training is the training program (or programs) you adopt in your company to ensure your sales team stays on top of the ball. You have to pick one that makes sense for your team.

You have a variety of training for sales to choose from. Several sales training topics can comprise any one program. There are some that focus on key sales skills. Others yet highlight sales methodologies. You have product training, sales enablement and sales training tools, and more.

There are also different ways your team can learn these training programs and put them into action. Online programs, in-person experiences, and on-site lessons are just some of your options. The best sales training will offer some sort of combination with interactive touchpoints to make sure your team is absorbing the content.

When you are looking for quality sales training ideas, you want someone to deliver the lesson content with experience, dedication, and empowerment.

How Do You Empower a Team?

You cannot avoid the fact that there is always room for growth among your sales department. With your sales training ideas, you need to empower your team. You want them to feel that empowerment so they want to grow and succeed in the first place.

Let’s take a look at some things to be on the lookout for with your sales training ideas that prioritize empowerment:

Ensure your sales managers take active ownership of overarching sales team success.
Show your team that you trust them to handle their own growth. (With some help from you, of course!)
Practice what you preach.
Reward your team members for a job well done.
Start putting work into your working relationships to show that you care about your team members’ well-being and success.
Communicate constantly and consistently.
Offer helpful feedback and be receptive to feedback on your performance too.
Most important of all, provide sales development training that works for your team members’ learning styles.

What Are the Advantages of a Well-Trained Sales Team?

Maybe you keep hearing about how all these sales training ideas (yet to come…) are going to help you. And while a well-known fact that they will, how will they help you? What are the top advantages of having a well-trained sales team?

Here is a broken-down list with a handful of those reasons:

Sales training can drive revenue right into your business. The right program will hone your team members’ selling skills to convert more leads every time.
Your sales department’s productivity levels will skyrocket. They can learn the tactics that will let them prioritize their time to get the right things done at the right time.
Sales reps will soon learn how to turn more sales into more profit for your company. This means you will not only have more revenue, but more revenue from each individual closed sale.
Clients will want to stay longer to do more sales with your company. You will heighten your customer retention efforts because clients will feel as though you care about the approach your reps take when they sell to them.
You also boost top talent retention. Your top talent will feel like you care about their professional success and want to stay and grow with your business.
Investing in a premier sales training program is an investment into your organization’s future. Invest now, and you can save the success you get through it for a rainy day when you may not be performing as well.

Sales Training Ideas That Fuel Team Readiness

Have you started your hunt for the perfect sales team training ideas? Have you been looking everywhere for the most effective training programs?

The list you find below will help you on that journey. Sometimes, you just need a push in the right direction to ramp up your sales team readiness. Or maybe you are starting from scratch. Either way works for us.

Here are our top eight sales training ideas to benefit your organization and your individual sales team members.

1. The Diverse Workforce

No two people are alike. Just the same, your sales reps will vary depending on their needs, their goals and everything else.

You want to have a diverse workforce. It shows you as you are: A professional who values their team, their environment, and their client’s and internal success stories.

But if you do not let your training activities reflect and uphold that diversity, you are in for a less-than-desirable outcome. Nip it in the bud right now.

Do your team members respond well to microlearning? Here, they can go back to it as they need, when they need. This sort of content also helps with your employee engagement and retention. Then, your employees can focus on their professional development.

2. Think of Creative Strategies for Cold Calling

The modern buyer has heard it all before. This is a big reason why they are not always so willing to answer the phone for a cold call or reply to a cold email.

You want to think about your cold outreach efforts from the perspective of your target market. And you want to get creative while you do so.

3. Consider Public Speaking Activities

Speaking of cold outreach, a lot of salespeople flop when it comes to the way they approach their leads and prospects.

The reason behind that could be fear of public speaking and talking to people who they do not know.

This is where public speaking activities could play a huge hand in improving your sales efforts.

4. Practice Handling a Lead’s or Client’s Objections With Your Team

Objections and conflict are a mere part of life as a salesperson. But to face it, you have to go for sales training ideas that show your reps and managers how to address objections and conflict.

Roleplaying scenarios and real-world examples are a great way to go about this. An objection to your selling approach does not mean a prospect is not willing to close a sale. Most of the time, it just means they need more information to make an informed decision. You need to equip your team with informed decisions to match.

Quality training courses can help you equip your team with the necessary skills and information, whatever that may be.

5. Develop Buyer Personas in All Training Sessions

The entire point of your training is to win more sales, right? And you cannot win more sales if you do not know who you are selling to.

You need to develop your buyer personas as you train your staff. There is valuable information in each training session. If there is not, there should be. And that information can directly reflect on who your buyers are in their detailed personas. Your buyer personas and your training sessions go hand in hand, so take advantage of that.

6. Practice Positivity and Optimism

There is a difference between a “Yes Man” and a positive, optimistic leader.

If you go for the constant, ineffective “Yes Man” approach with your team, you will find a lot of annoyed reps on the frontlines of your sales operation. But a positive, optimistic attitude from you and your leaders? That goes a long way.

Believe in what you are teaching them, but be realistic too. There is always room for a healthy combination of realism and optimism.

7. Create a Win/Loss Report

Wins and losses are a part of life. They are more so a part of the selling culture.

But are you losing more than you win? What does that ratio look like for your business and your sales team?

To avoid informational silos, overloads, and confusion, you need a win/loss report. You can add these to your training course for optimal results. To do this, get a trusted sales team member to ask a new customer some questions, like the following:

What pain points were you experiencing?
How did our rep get you to close the deal, specifically?
In what ways did our value proposition land for you?
How did our solution stack up to that of our competitors? And what sealed the deal, making you choose us over that competition?

8. Implement Training Assessments

Effective training is not a matter of closing your eyes, shooting, and praying that you hit your target. You need to see if your chosen program is working. If it is not, you have to see where you can improve.

This is where training assessments will work in your favor. Consider requiring your reps to take interactive quizzes after a training module. Then, you can figure out where they stand with content knowledge and absorption.

Also, think about implementing observational learning and role-playing simulations after each lesson.

Conclusion

Remember: You cannot avoid the fact that there is always room for growth among your sales department. You also cannot avoid the fact that sometimes you need help to get your sales department to grow.

Do you need sales training ideas, but do not know where and how to start your search?

Now you do: With Wizard of Sales.

Wizard of Sales is your destination for better leads and higher conversion rates. But we are also your go-to for the best sales training for sales representative success. And we have the resources to bring that success right to you.

Click here to book a call with Selling Revolution’s leading experts today.