Making Sales is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Although it seems easy because you just have to describe the product features, it’s not so. Every customer has unique needs, and it’s the salesperson’s job to understand them. This job has the highest attrition rate because the employees quit due to not being able to meet the targets. Hence, sales training is needed.

If employees don’t like cold calling, like talking to strangers, it’s better to take after-sales customer service. But for that, they have to take the manager into confidence. For example, an employee can talk to your manager about this; he may shift him to something else rather than cold calling, like email marketing.

When companies are going through a recession, the hiring prospects for a sale professional are not so bad. The companies believe they can easily sell products with a good employee in this domain. When organizations find it tough to get clients, salespeople are a ray of hope for them.

For sales training, the managers can also analyze those with the best performance and check their key performance indicators. If they have these skills, then it’s better that the low-performing employees also have them.

Personalised sales training for different employees!

Sales training also needs to be personalized for different kinds of employees depending on their skill gaps. You can ask the employees to assess themselves, which is useful. They could be asked for evaluation for skills pertaining to their roles. The employees could give themselves ratings of 0-4 on all individual skills. The managers could also be taken into consideration and give ratings to employees between 0-4.

Once all data has been collected, it’s better to analyze the skill gaps of employees with those who have low ratings against the highest rating in a category. Then training can be delegated to each employee based on his skills gaps. These are the following rules through which salespeople can be made strong enough to handle any situation:

Lack of positivity:

The sales employees need to be strong. They can’t lose their optimism. Even when things are not going in their favor, they must continue. But you mustn’t cold call anyone. It’s better to call someone who has at least seen the marketing material.

Therefore the most important aspect of sales training is prospecting. Sometimes, you are targeting the wrong person; possibly due to the immense pressure you face to complete the targets.Those who have not opened your marketing email are definitely not interested in the product.

Lack of preparation:

Also, their research on a product must be sufficient so that even if customers ask them some technical questions, they are willing to answer them. When the lead is convinced that you are knowledgeable enough to sell the right product, he will buy from you.

The salesperson might not have sufficient knowledge about the product, which prevents them from making sales. The salesperson must go to the job after making a thorough preparation. The salesperson should have answers to all the questions that a lead might ask.

He can also practice mock calls before someone before going to attend a customer. This way, he won’t be confused about answering customers when the latter are too well informed and ask technical questions.

Overexcited sales people:

The plan of a salesperson should not be to make sales all the time. If he should become a source of credibility for the lead so that in the future, he buys from him. A highly excited salesperson can also be a cause of the problem. It’s because he is too eager to sell a product and does not listen to what the lead desires. If they listen instead of talking more, they would actually be able to get sales.

Conclusion :

Sales jobs are not bad jobs, but you must conduct ample research about the product you are willing to sell. You must know its pros and cons.

The salesperson may also be facing issues at work. It could be that the boss is unwilling to listen to any problems; he just wants targets to be attained. In that case, the management should understand the issues the sales employees face. But the salesperson must make the management believe they are suggesting changes for the betterment. There could also be problems with the management’s strategy, like they are adopting the wrong reason to convince the customers.

Sales have become a tough job for companies now, given the inflation. The customers need to see the need for the product before buying it. The companies need to create sales training programs for their executives so that they can meet the threshold sales levels to stay in the market. Today, consultative selling can only get the results for a business because of recession. Sales training can get the business the necessary cash flow when customers are not willing to spend due to inflation.

So, these should be the key factors of such sales training programs:

What is Consultative selling?

Now what’s it all about. It’s about selling the right product to the customers based on their requirements. So, for making such sales, an executive has to be super-attentive and listen to what are the problems of a customer. The sales executive aims to make the customer happy and not sell any product to him. There are 6 stages of such a process and the executive as receive sufficient training to become adept in all of them:

Stage 1:Choose the prospects carefully:

The salesperson has to talk to the customer to identify his problem. Then he should suggest a product which can solve this problem as per his knowledge. Now, sales are not about telling customers which products have discounts, but about empathizing with them.

Stage 2: Provide the customer with resources:

Then the salesperson should give a chance to customers to evaluate their problem. The customers should know how big the problem will grow in the future.

Hence the sales executive can offer a solution to them and be helpful by sending them relevant content links. The customers must know how the advised product can help them in rectifying the problem. You can provide them with testimonials of customers who have faced such problems e.g., hair fall and used your product.

Stage 3:Let the customers know why your product is the best

Customers will only buy when they know how your product is the best. This is important because there are a plethora of products waiting for customers to shell their money on. Hence, the customers must know how your product will solve their problems. For example, you can provide customers with case studies of how your product helped solve the hair fall problem given the age, stress, diet, and other factors of the same demographics.

You must also enlighten the customer on why the products of competitors won’t be useful in their situation.

This is why sales training programs are crucial to justify to the prospect why they should choose you over others.

The sales executives must have sufficient information about why customers would benefit from their product.

Stage 4: Check with your operations team :

The customers who have ample knowledge of the market know the costs. Apart from that, they also know the delivery times, and all this knowledge is also required for B2B sales. Also, sales executives must know how the buying process happens especially in B2B sales which happens after the approval is taken from the senior like the finance team. After knowing about this process, you must ask your operations team to be prepared for supply. Hence before completing the deal, sales training must involve the production team i.e. ask the operations to be prepared with the supply till a certain time given by the prospective customer.

Stage 5: Sales training programs teach being with the lead in the final stages:

You should never abandon a lead when the sales are about to close. This is because the customer might still have some questions. In B2B sales, the customers can get objections from any department, and hence it’s the job of the executive to directly deal with the decision-maker. The senior management can raise some red flags and hence it’s the job of the sales team to pacify them. They can’t start focusing on another lead, till the sales are made for one. For example, someone from the senior management can have doubts about the costs, and hence it’s better that the sales team directly talks with them.

Stage 6: Provide adequate post-sales support:

The customers need support when sales have been made. That’s why you must be in touch with them after the sales have happened. If the customer has any problem in using the product, the sales executive must get it remedied on time.

The future of your relationship with the customer depends on post-sales support too. If no post-sales support is there, no referrals will happen in the future. The sales executive must get sales training but the job of the marketing department is equally important too.

This department should provide the salespeople with the leads who are interested in a purchase. Once the sales department has good leads and ample insight into them i.e. their budget, they can use that information to make the buying process happen.

Tag: sales training programs

3 Reasons why sales training is needed

What should be the sales training process during the recession?

This is why sales training programs are crucial to justify to the prospect why they should choose you over others.