Sales Development Training

Include Sales Negotiation Training

How to help your sales staff improve their results? Provide sales development training and sales negotiation training as part of your sales development plan. Career sales training will increase sales.

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Use a career sales training program to increase your sales.

Training your sales staff will improve their ability to adapt quickly to market conditions and product or service changes.

Sales development training for your sales team needs to be a continual process.

Your sales development plan and training needs to start when new sales people are hired and continues as new products or services are added or changed; and continues as the marketplace, and competitors, adapts.

Sales training is often overlooked. When you hire an experienced sales person, you expect them to be trained. However, if you want your newly recruited employees to be quickly effective, it is important to train them on your products and services and train them to sell in a way that complements and supports your small business plan, your strategy, your marketing plan, and your business operations plan.

Employee development training is a high return investment in your resources.

If your new hires are experienced sales people, you may have to re-train them to work in a way that is more conducive to your business vision and to your business values; and to have them focus on your unique value proposition (also known as unique selling proposition).

If your new hires are inexperienced, consider basic sales skills and career sales training first, then develop a more comprehensive sales development plan that provides for more in depth advanced sales techniques and sales negotiation training.

If you feel that you do not have the time to train, you need to understand that the investment of time and resources will pay off significantly if you develop an outstanding and outperforming sales staff. And that is true whether you have a sales staff of one, ten or hundreds.

If you feel that you do not have the knowledge to provide sales training, consider the advantages of outsourcing (find a sales training specialist capable of training effectively and efficiently) and hire a sales training consultant.

I advocate hiring a sales training consultant over sending your sales staff to general sales workshops or courses because you can, and should, engage the sales training consultant to develop a custom course and sales development plan specifically for your business, and to develop it in such a way that it can be eventually taught by those who have completed the training.

Sales development training needs to focus on increasing awareness, understanding, and acceptance. It also needs to focus on why people buy; if your sales staff can figure out why your customers buy, and then deliver on that 'why', you will greatly increase your sales.

Sales Development Plan and Sales Development Training

Some Reasons People Buy:

• The buyer has a need and you can deliver on that need; even better if you are the only one who can deliver (in this competition-based age we live in,
  that is rare).
The buyer understands what they are buying; particularly important in complex sales or sales where the buyer will compare one product or service against another.
• The buyer believes and accepts the unique value proposition you are selling.
• The buyer believes and trusts the sales person. In all successful relationships, you need to build trust and credibility. And you need to live up to the expectations that you build.
• The price is perceived to be fair for the value received.

To develop a strong and successful sales program, focus the sales development training on solutions to problems. These need to be genuine solutions to genuine problems that your customers face.

Homework for your sales staff: Have your sales people define some problems their customers face that your business can help to solve. If the training is focused on new, inexperienced sales staff, then have them develop a proposed (rather than actual) problems/solutions list. Let them be creative. Do not discount their ideas; help them to build a good list. Make sure that the solutions address the problems comprehensively. Have your sales people keep that list with them until they are very comfortable presenting solutions to your customers.

No matter how effective your sales development training program is, or is not, you must recognize that selling is primarily about having the right person in the sales job. You can train and develop employees to do the sales work, but if they are not capable of doing a good sales job for you (that is, fear of rejection, fragile ego, fear of public speaking, disorganized and unfocused, and more) no amount of training will help.

Invest in developing your sales staff by building a strong sales development plan and giving them ongoing training to improve their sales techniques and your sales results.

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