Sales training isn't just for your sales team. It also benefits all customer-facing employees. Further, your top sales professionals probably need training they haven’t yet received. Understanding these situations will go a long way toward improving your overall operation and long-term success.
Even when individuals don't know they're selling for their company, they really are performing the tasks of a salesman. Their mannerisms and ability to deal with the public sell the company and its product.
Everyone could use a little sales training.
Sales Training Critical to Customer Interactions
When the time comes for you to perform a business health check, you'll most likely see the holes that make your company inefficient or less effective. Many of these relate to the experience your customer has when interacting with your employees outside of “Sales.” [quotesright]Among the changes that you will propose, consider the potential positive impact of sales training for non-sales personnel. [/quotesright]
Ordinarily, you probably wouldn’t consider training non-sales employees in sales, right?
Some people have a gregarious, charismatic personality. The world of sales was made for these natural-born sales professionals. They seek the sales field or the sales field finds them, and they ultimately find success.
But not all workers have the same skill set. What about the accountant who prefers to stay in his cubicle and crunch numbers or the human resource manager that wants to just help with the psychological needs at work?
Sales training will help these otherwise cloistered workers know how to handle customers with the ease and grace of the natural salespeople in the office.
Customer-Facing Employees Need Sales Skills
[quotes]Anyone who faces customers represents your business.[/quotes] They are the face of your business, and their ability to handle customers will determine the likelihood of a sale, regardless of if that individual is a salesperson or not.
Any employee can learn some basic sales techniques that give them sales skills if you provide the right training.
Teaching Communication Skills
Communication consists of more than just talking. Great salesmen understand that communication means listening as much as talking, and sales training will teach these effective skills.
Sales training will teach individuals how to listen, how to understand what people both want and need, and how to ask the right questions. With effective training, individuals will ultimately learn how to communicate with all types of people and cultures.
Developing Sales Methodology
Trained salespeople understand that selling a product takes more than luck and finesse. It takes a methodology.
When you take the time to teach your customer-facing people good sales methodology, your employees will get the ball rolling on what could become a large sale. You will retain more clients because everyone will know the proper methods for starting to close a sale.
Dealing with Objections
No one understands objection and rejection like salespeople. [quotesright]They know that hearing "no" is just a part of the sales game they play every day. Your other employees view “no” quite differently. [/quotesright]
Customer-facing employees do not receive rejections on a regular basis. Teaching them how to deal with objections, how to not accept "no" or even just to expect it, will unify your team as a whole.
A trained salesperson knows to not just give up and stop selling. They expect objections and can teach others how to anticipate objections. Great sales training will also teach customer-facing employees the techniques to overcome objections.
Often, effective training will include role-playing where a person will object repeatedly and give the trainee the chance to respond. Make it a game, you’ve already gotten a “no” so how much worse can it get?
Developing Administrative Skills
Being an effective salesperson means more than just making the deal. It means tedious administrative tasks that improve the company overall.
Effective sales training teaches individuals how to track daily activities, keep accurate records, and analyze closing ratios. It also teaches salespeople how to use efficient software that can save them time.
[quotes]For non-sales employees, what they learn in interactions with customers can be invaluable for the sales team and management.[/quotes] Having a way for them to summarize their conversations with customers in the CRM the sales force is using will be appreciated by the sales team and the sales manager.
Sales Managers Need Special Skills Training
The flip side of this coin is that our most successful sales professionals often need additional training as well. You see, when salespeople do a great job, they receive big commissions. But when they do exceptionally good work, they're frequently promoted to sales manager.
[quotesright]Yet just because an individual knows how to make a sale (or several hundred of them), he or she may not necessarily know how to manage a sales team. [/quotesright]
Sales managers are leaders. They're the guys and gals who understand how to work hard, but they're not necessarily the best leaders by nature.
In fact, a Career Builder survey revealed that 26 percent of managers weren't ready to lead, and 58 percent didn't receive management training.
Because they're no longer just selling but rather leading, sales managers need effective training in areas such as the following:
- How to Deal with Co-Worker Conflict. Salespeople understand how to deal with reluctant prospects. They do not necessarily understand how to deal with interpersonal conflict. Sales management training will teach them how to manage the team when the team members do not get along.
- How to Motivate Team Members. Salespeople are often acclimated to working alone and fighting for the job. They now need to teach their team how to work together. Effective sales management training will teach them how to motivate their team members to work together and produce a great product.
- How to Conduct Performance Reviews. Sales managers have to make sure they have the best team members on their team. [quotesright]Good training will teach them how to conduct unbiased and effective performance reviews, so they end up with the best team possible and not just a bunch of buddies. [/quotesright]
- How to Find Team Resources. Salespeople understand how to find resources to make a sale. Now they will need to know how to find resources to help their team. Sales management training will teach them the best software and other resources that will make their team meld.
- How to Create Career Paths for Team Members. If you care about your team, you will find a way to make the sales position just a steppingstone. Great sales management training teaches that you're looking out for both your business and your team members. Team members who can see a carrot dangling in front of them will work even harder.
Hidden Advantages of Providing the Right Training
When you take the time to give everyone the right training in your company, you will end up with an amazing work culture.
Everyone will understand sales and sales language, and everyone will be working toward the single goal of improving your company. [quotesright]You will have this unified spirit in the office and a company-wide sales culture. [/quotesright]
You will be creating a place where people want to come to work, and that will make others want to work there as well.
Invest and Grow
Not many companies understand the value of providing sales training to all members of their organization. When you invest in all of your people and train all of them with effective sales techniques and give sales management the leadership skills they need, you will see your company improve and grow.
Check out the articles below and shoot us an email if you have more questions about company culture and sales training. Brian Tracy USA: 877.433.6225 Email Me