Deliver Better Sales Training: The Top 7 Steps

How to Deliver Better Sales Training
We know from sales assessment data that far too many sales teams lack the proper business sales training, sales coaching, and sales support to consistently meet or exceed their sales targets.  Research from RepVue agrees; they found that less than 50% of sales reps. achieved quota last year. Most organizations need higher sales rep. performance to survive and thrive.

Sales leaders know that an underperforming sales force misses opportunities, loses deals, and negatively impacts customer loyalty.  The good news is that when a sales force puts the customer first, adds meaningful value, and builds trusted advisor relationships, they grow revenues, margins, deal sizes, and relationships.

 7 Steps to Deliver Better Sales Training
To truly add customer value throughout the whole buying process, sales leaders must:

1. Ensure that the Sales Strategy is Clear Enough to Win
   While customized solution selling training can improve sales skills, its value is diminished if your sales strategy is not clear, believable, and implementable enough to succeed. Our organizational alignment research found that strategic sales clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams.  A winning sales strategy has clarity and agreement regarding ideal target clients, unique value propositions, strategy success metrics, and activities correlated to superior sales performance.

   Is your sales strategy clear enough to set your sales team up for success?

2. Ensure that Your Sales Culture is Healthy and Aligned Enough
   Once your sales strategy is clear enough, your next step is to ensure that your sales culture is helping, and not hindering sales success. That means making sure that the sales culture is healthy enough to fully engage, motivate, and retain top sales reps.  It also means making sure that the way business gets done (i.e., pricing, contracting, marketing, product developing, territory planning, account managing, rewarding, and recognizing) supports and drives sales success.

   Do you have a sales driven culture required for high growth?

3. Define Your Ideal Sales Rep
   Not all sales reps. perform well in every sales environment. Think of your highest performing sales rep. What critical few sales skills, traits, and mindsets do they have?  Use a combination of interviews, training needs assessments, focus groups, win/loss reviews, and sales simulation assessments to identify what matters most for sales success.  For example, most high performing sales reps. excel at a unique combination of sales competencies such as the ability to:

   — Build Insight: (e.g., challenge customer thinking and think through solutions)

   — Communicate: (e.g., communicate clearly and speak with charisma)

   — Put the Customer First: (e.g., seek to understand, set the stage for questioning, and uncover needs)

   — Engage Others: (e.g., listen actively and show caring)

   — Negotiate and Influence: (e.g., adapt sales strategy, build strategic relationships, create urgency, influence others, make a compelling case, negotiate well, and overcome individual resistance)

   — Prospect: (e.g., focus on strategically selected targets, qualify opportunities, and take a strategic perspective)

   The key is knowing what matters most for your unique situation and then investing and reinforcing accordingly.  Do you know what constitutes a high performing sales rep?

4. Understand Your Sales Process
   With your ideal sales rep. profile defined, the next step is mapping out your sales process from the initial prospect interaction through to creating a loyal customer advocate. A well-defined sales process enables you to customize training to the critical few sales skills and sales scenarios for each stage in the buying process. It also makes it easy for sales reps. to immediately apply what they learn to real sales opportunities.

   In general, understanding your sales process involves:

   — Outlining the key stages of the customer’s buying journey and decision process.

   — Identifying qualification criteria and exit criteria for progressing opportunities through each stage.

   — Determining the optimal customer touchpoints, channels, content, and tools to leverage at each step.

   When done right, your offerings should be easy to try, sell, and buy.  Does your sales process map to your customers’ buying process?

5. See Where People Stand
   To deliver better sales training, this step needs to be an in-depth, data-driven analysis to ensure you are addressing your team’s true capability gaps and setting everyone up for success. Each sales team is unique, with its own strengths, weaknesses, processes, and growth objectives. An effective sales training needs assessment allows you to design laser-focused, customized training that drives measurable results from day one by zeroing in on the skills and behaviors that will truly move the needle.

   Are you taking a data-driven approach to pinpointing your sales team’s development needs?

6. Implement Effective Sales Training
   With a solid foundation in place, the next step is to implement an effective consultative selling training program. This involves designing impactful content, optimizing delivery methods, and fostering a culture of continuous learning. The most impactful sales training is grounded in proven, research-backed methodologies that are tailored to today’s buyer expectations and selling environment.

   Just remember that a “one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf” training approach rarely drives meaningful behavior change or results. Customize your approach around your unique environment, incorporate real-world scenarios that your sales team faces, align to company-wide strategic priorities, and contextualize for your offerings and target buyer personas.

   Use gamification and learning reinforcement tools to incentivize participation and knowledge retention while focusing on hands-on activities, simulations, and action learning assignments tied to active deals in the pipeline.

   Is your sales training designed for your unique goals, problems, and needs?

7. Reinforcement Sales Capabilities and Mindsets
   We know that one-and-done sales training events do not create lasting sales performance improvement. To ingrain new skills and behaviors, sales training must be reinforced through a culture of continuous learning that includes:

   — A sales coaching culture where frontline sales managers actively develop and coach their teams.

   — Ongoing peer coaching, mentorship, and knowledge sharing through internal champions and communities of practice.

   — Incentives, gamification, and celebrating wins to motivate participation and reinforce desired behaviors.

   — Targeted refresher training, microlearning, and ongoing learning opportunities aligned with evolving business needs.

   Is continuous sales development a core part of your sales team’s DNA?

The Bottom Line
To deliver better sales training, you must have a “change initiative” mindset, not a “training event” mindset.  Changing sales behavior and performance requires a thoughtful and comprehensive approach that puts the customer first, adds meaningful value, and builds trusted advisor relationships.

To learn more about how to deliver better sales training, download The 6 Top Reasons Business Sales Training Initiatives Fail