“Proper preparation prevents poor performance.” Now say that five times, fast! It’s a quote that my dad shared with me during hours-long batting cage sessions. These words of wisdom can apply to almost any area of your life. After all, success isn’t given–it’s earned!
The B2B sales world is no different. Practice makes perfect and there are countless ways to go about it. If your organization is rethinking or fine-tuning its sales training and coaching strategy, we’ve got you covered. Lessonly by Seismic is designed to help learners build the skills and confidence they need to sell effectively and hit their targets.
In this post, we’ll share five of our top sales training principles along with tips so you can implement them in your organization. Let’s get to it!
Create a list of core skills and knowledge
What skills make your top sales reps successful? What do your reps need to know about your company, its products, and services in order to sell effectively? For starters, there is likely a list of sales topics that your sellers need to be proficient in before they can engage buyers.
So first things first—make a list and check it twice! By partnering with your best sales reps, you can pick their brain about the sales training topics they find to be most impactful.
Get started with onboarding!
Training and coaching a successful salesforce starts on day one. The first 30, 60, and 90 days for a new sales rep are the window of opportunity to develop mission-critical knowledge and skills. Think broadly: what do they need to know about your product or service? How should they present a demo? What should they know about your buyer personas?
The first 90 days are a chance to introduce new reps to your organization and ensure that they assimilate to your sales culture. By aligning sales training topics and lessons with core skills and competencies, your sales leaders can understand the strengths and weaknesses of new reps. Once you have an understanding of where each rep is, you can personalize learning paths for their ongoing development.
In addition to onboarding sessions, connect your new sellers with experienced reps who can help them navigate challenges and answer questions as they get acclimated.
Make sales training and coaching an interactive experience
If you don’t take away anything else from this post, leave knowing this: lengthy PowerPoint presentations are not engaging learning experiences. Sales reps don’t learn by simply listening. They learn by doing. The way that they train and receive coaching should be no different.
Interactive training and coaching experiences give sales reps the chance to engage with their lesson plans and training content. Activities like role plays and mock calls give your reps an opportunity to test drive and kick the tires on their sales skills. By practicing with peers, your sellers can learn from one another what works and what doesn’t.
Empower learners to train at their own pace
Remember that tidbit about lengthy PowerPoint presentations? The same goes for days-long onboarding programs. It’s natural to space out after consecutive presentations and training exercises. What if there was an easier way for sellers to learn and retain best practices? We have good news—there is!
It’s important to train learners in the ways they like to learn. Short, engaging learning modules or courses allow sales reps to gain knowledge in bite-sized sessions where they can quickly and easily digest new information. By pairing lessons with short quizzes, you can reinforce new knowledge and ensure that learners understand newly learned information.
Measure, measure, and measure again
Each of your sales reps learns at their own pace. One rep may be strong at demos while another is stronger at first calls. Monitoring which lessons have been completed, as well as how reps have performed on quizzes and practice exercises helps to baseline and tailor training and coaching plans.
Monitoring progress allows your reps to get more of what they need and less of what they don’t. For example, your sales rep who excels at first calls, may not need additional training and coaching in that area. They may need to brush up on their knowledge of a specific or they may be ready to tackle new learning paths that will help them take the next step in their sales career.
Our best sales training advice
Sales training is an essential part of success. But for it to truly have an impact, it has to be done right, and we’re here to help. Lessonly by Seismic’s training and coaching software makes it easy for you to put the principles and tips we shared into action. Interested in learning more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show the ropes!
