Investing in sales training can improve your team’s performance, increase confidence, and contribute to your business’s success. If you’ve never created a training program, it may seem daunting. However, creating an effective training program only requires identifying your reps’ daily selling activities and outlining the details.
A consistent and scalable sales readiness solution can save you time and money, allowing you to onboard and train your team more efficiently while keeping all of your team’s training material in one library.
Connecting your training to your team’s sales outcomes is invaluable for knowing how effective your training is and who is participating and clearly benefiting (or not!) from staying up to date with training modules.
Reasons to Invest in Sales Training:
- Improve sales skills, including prospecting, communication, negotiation, and deal-closing, leading to higher conversion rates and more revenue.
- Increase confidence and job satisfaction when salespeople have a clear understanding of your products or services and how to sell them.
- Boost productivity by providing your team with time-saving techniques and best practices.
- Retain talent by demonstrating your investment in your sales team’s development, which can help to increase employee satisfaction and reduce turnover.
- Adapt to change by staying up-to-date with market changes, industry trends, and new products or services to remain competitive.
Steps to Building Sales Training for Your Team:
Identify training needs:
Conduct a training needs analysis (TNA)* to evaluate the current knowledge, skills, and competencies of your sales team members, comparing them with the knowledge, skills, and competencies required to achieve your business goals. Prioritize training needs based on their importance and urgency.
Set training goals:
Set clear and measurable training goals that align with your business objectives, following the SMART method: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, if your business goal is to increase sales revenue by 10%, set a training goal to increase the sales team’s closing rate by 15% within the next 6 months.
Develop training materials:
Develop engaging, interactive, and relevant training materials that cover the required skills and competencies. These materials can include training manuals, videos, e-learning modules, job aids, and other resources.
Select delivery methods:
Choose the best delivery methods for your training materials, such as classroom training, e-learning, peer-training, coaching/mentoring, or combining them all using a sales readiness platform. Consider your sales team’s learning preferences and needs when selecting delivery methods.
Implement training:
Schedule training sessions, assign trainers or coaches, and ensure that all sales team members complete the training. Provide ongoing support and feedback to help your sales team apply their new skills on the job.
Evaluate training effectiveness:
Collect feedback from participants, measure performance improvements, and analyze business outcomes to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. Use this feedback to refine the training program and make it more effective over time.
Continuously improve:
Assess and improve the training function regularly to ensure that it is meeting the needs of the sales team and contributing to the success of the business. This may involve updating training materials, introducing new delivery methods, or revising training goals as business needs change.
*Training Needs Analysis (TNA):
To perform a TNA, collect data on the current performance and knowledge level of your sales team through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and performance reviews. Identify gaps in knowledge, skills, and competencies, and prioritize training needs based on their impact on the business and the level of urgency. The SMART method can help you set clear and achievable goals for your sales team training program.