The 10 Most Vital Sales Training Topics to Empower Your Sales Team
Your sales team is the backbone of your organization. The marketing team can help bring people in, but your sales team will convert potential customers into paying clients.
In a market that’s becoming flooded with new products and services, you need to make sure your sales team is empowered and prepared. Having a highly trained team of salespeople can be the difference-maker in you landing a client over your competitor.
Are you training your sales team effectively?
Does your sales team have the skills and knowledge they need?
Wondering what the most critical training topics for sales teams are?
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the sales enablement training topics that are a must for any sales team. Read on to learn all about the top sales training topics.
→ [Request Demo] Spoke® LMS: Employee Training Platform ←
The Top 10 Sales Training Topics for 2021
The better trained and prepared a salesperson is, the more effective they’ll be when the time comes to make a sale.
Ready to start training your sales team using the top sales manager training ideas?
Here are ten sales skills training topics you should consider that will empower your sales team.
1. Sales Training and Enablement Platform
Just as selling is done virtually, so is training.
The first thing you’ll want to do before starting training is to find a good virtual training platform. To effectively train your sales employees, a sales enablement platform is crucial.
A virtual sales training and enablement platform provides:
- Easy, remote access
- Personalized training content
- Unique training modalities
- Two-way communication
- Real-time tracking and reporting
As you think about training your sales team, think about how you’ll do it and what technology will suit your needs. Once you have a virtual platform, you can start creating and delivering valuable training content.
2. Virtual Soft Skills
Virtual selling was already becoming the norm before 2021, but now it’s securely cemented as the new normal for sales.
As your sales team takes to video conferencing, it’s essential to train them in virtual soft skills. Soft skills are non-technical skills like personal skills, communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving.
Consider what soft skills are vital for your sales teams and what they might need to know when making a virtual sales call. An excellent way to train employees in virtual soft skills is through games. Fun, relational exercises designed to teach soft skills provide a great way to learn and retain vital information.
3. Prospecting
Another one of the top training topics for sales teams is prospecting clients. If you have a marketing or advertising team, then some clients will come through inbound methods. But outbound methods like cold calls and networking are still valuable ways to reach new clients.
- Have you spent time training your sales team to generate high-quality leads?
- Does your sales team know how to make cold calls or send emails?
- Are your sales reps trained in getting referrals?
Take time to train your team in prospecting. Spend time working through cold calls or even writing up a cold call script. Help them understand the importance of networking, and share your best practices for getting referrals.
4. Analyzing Customer Needs
Before connecting with a potential client, it’s valuable to understand their needs. Finding out a customer’s needs can help you know how to best position your services.
Asking questions can help with analyzing a customer’s needs:
- What industry are they in?
- Why might they come to us for help?
- What do they need from us?
- What problems do they have that we can offer solutions to?
- How will our product/service benefit them?
When your sales team knows how to examine a client and their needs, they’ll be more prepared to best position your company’s solutions.
5. Asking the Right Questions
‘Asking the right questions’ is one of the best sales training topics to include in a training. Specifically, you’ll want to train your sales team in active listening and asking open-ended questions.
Active Listening
Active listening is hearing what the client is saying, internalizing it, and asking questions in response. Three of the easiest ways to incorporate active listening into sales conversations are:
- Asking clarifying questions
- Saying, “Can you tell me more about that?”
- Summarizing in your own words what the client said
Regularly using any or all of these techniques in a sales call will make the client feel heard and valued.
Open-ended Questions
Open-ended questions give the client room to talk. They’re questions that require more than a simple yes or no answer. By asking open-ended questions, sales reps encourage clients to speak and divulge a large amount of information about themself, their business, and their needs.
Asking open-ended questions and practicing active listening will help you gain a deeper understanding of the client’s business and needs.
6. Making Effective Proposals
Personalization is key. Business owners get offers, promotions, and proposals every week. Training your employees to make personal proposals will elevate your value proposition and help you stick out.
If you’ve already trained your sales team in analyzing client needs and asking the right questions, they should have a good understanding of the client. This foundation will help them tailor-make proposals for each client.
Some proposal elements may be standard across all clients, but adding personalization will make your proposals most effective.
7. Communication
Communication takes many forms in our modern selling processes. There’s email, social media platforms, text messaging, phone calls, and video chat. It’s important to know how to communicate effectively and professionally across all platforms.
Like proposals, communication may take different shapes and forms depending on the client and the relationship you have with them. You may need to take a more formal approach for some clients, while others might be more informal.
Train your employees to recognize the best tone, voice, and language to use with each potential client.
8. Differentiation
We mentioned earlier that we live in a world engulfed with similar products and services. Your value proposition is what sets you apart from others in your industry.
Provide training opportunities for your employees to help them deeply understand your value proposition and clearly communicate it to your clients.
Taking time to train your sales employees in your value proposition will help them be more confident sharing it with potential clients. A good training exercise is to take your value proposition and practice aligning it with a customer’s needs.
9. Positioning Against a Competitor
Next, you’ll want to train your sales team on how to position you and your products/services positively against your competitors. Positioning yourself against your competitor will include:
- Creating a compelling story about you and your company
- Mentioning your competitors while highlighting the advantages of your offerings
Teaching your team how to position your services above the competition gives them the ability to platform your value proposition in a way that’s attractive to clients.
10. Asking for a Sale
At the end of an entire sales process, your sales team needs to know how to ask for the sale. However, asking for a sale can often be the most challenging part.
Some ways to practice and prepare for the ask are:
- Role-playing sales meetings
- Reviewing past sales opportunities and talking about what could have been done differently
- Thinking of common objections and talking through responses
As you work with your team and workshop the asking process, they should become more comfortable and prepared to handle the ask.
→ [Request Demo] Spoke® LMS: Employee Training Platform ←
The Best Ways to Deliver Training Topics for Sales Teams
Training your sales workforce is necessary but time-consuming without the right tools and resources. By taking advantage of the training topics for sales teams mentioned in this article, you can expect your employees to grow in competency and confidence. And using a virtual training platform can provide an easy and effective way to deliver your team’s training.
Want some help creating and implementing a high-quality training program?
At Unboxed Training & Technology, we’re all about training and empowering sales teams. We’ve developed some tried and true ways to train your sales team effectively. Here are two ways you can provide your salespeople with the training they need to succeed:
- Request a demo of ReadySet Training Sell: ReadySet Sell is a turn-key sales training program you can purchase and begin using today. It features eight micro-learning courses that equip learners with action-oriented content.
- Request a demo of our Custom Training: Different industries need different types of sales training. Our custom training offers you the opportunity to create personalized training for your unique workforce.
You can start with ReadySet Training and then move to a custom training solution. Or, you can dive right into a personalized training program. Either way, we know your employees will benefit from our training solutions.
