Sales Training Techniques for Small Business Owners
“Sales training is a valuable investment for small business owners who want to improve their sales performance and grow their business.”
Are you worried that your sales team is essentially “winging it?” Throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks? Doing random and different activities that are inconsistent across the company, brand, departments, or that are not always in alignment with your values? For example, in healthcare I always wondered why companies tried to sell with alcohol – drinks out, booze-focused events, wine, LCBO gift cards. Yet, alcohol-related behaviors and health events are a major concern for the healthcare system. How does using booze then to “sell” healthcare make sense? That always seemed inconsistent for me. Let’s think more intentionally about sales efforts and how training can help.
Building a Strong Foundation
Effective sales training is crucial for small business owners who want to improve their sales performance and grow their business. Whether you’re training yourself or your sales team, the right techniques can make a significant difference in your ability to close deals and generate revenue. In this blog post, I explore proven sales training techniques that can help you and your team sharpen your skills and achieve better results.
Why Sales Training Matters
Sales training is not just for large organizations with dedicated sales teams. It’s equally important for small businesses, where every sale counts. And in healthcare and service-based businesses, it is essential as providers are great at their “service” but are rarely trained how to sell it in the first place. Here’s why sales training matters:
Improved Performance: Sales training equips you and your team with the knowledge and skills needed to sell more effectively. This leads to improved performance and higher sales numbers. Like any competency, if you want to improve you need the skills and training to learn the competency in the first place.
Consistency: A well-trained sales team delivers a consistent message to prospects and customers, which enhances your brand’s reputation and builds trust. Trust is essential to get people to engage with your team, your product, and your service.
Adaptability: The sales landscape is constantly changing. Ongoing sales training ensures that you stay up-to-date with the latest techniques, tools, and industry trends. Many service-based businesses, especially those offered by professionals, are poorly leveraging social media. That is usually because of time constraints, lack of understanding, or because they haven’t adapted to current ways of promoting themselves.
Confidence: Confidence is key to successful selling. Sales training helps you and your team feel more confident in your abilities, which translates into better interactions with prospects. Personally, I sell business competence and confidence to those that feel this is lacking. Confidence will get you there, sales included.
Essential Sales Training Techniques
To get the most out of your sales training efforts, it’s important to focus on techniques that are practical, actionable, and relevant to your business. Here are some essential sales training techniques to consider:
Practice: Practice through role-playing is one of the most effective ways to improve sales skills. By simulating real-life sales scenarios, you can refine your approach, test different strategies, and receive feedback. You can also develop language to navigate different responses, and to make sure that the conversations you are having are comfortable and values aligned with the organization.
Product Knowledge Training: In-depth knowledge of your product or service is essential for effective selling. Ensure that you and your team are well-versed in the features, benefits, and unique selling points of what you’re offering. If you are bringing in a new line of business, a new service offering, or a different way of doing something, does your sales team and messaging showcase this?
Objection Handling Training: Objections are a natural part of the sales process. Training on how to handle common objections, such as price concerns, reputational questions, or indecision, can help you overcome these barriers and close more deals. Listing the common objections and how to respond to them, then practicing them, is essential.
Consultative Selling: Consultative selling involves understanding the prospect’s needs and providing tailored solutions. Train your team to ask the right questions, listen actively, and offer value-based solutions that address the prospect’s pain points. Basically this means you train your team to consult with the potential customers and to offer solutions, even if your business isn’t one of them.
Sales Process Training: A clear and defined sales process is essential for consistency and success. Train your team on the steps of your sales process, from lead generation to closing, and ensure that they understand how to navigate each stage.
Task Management Skills: Sales professionals often juggle multiple tasks and leads. Training on time and task management techniques, such as prioritization and task batching, can help your team stay organized and focused on high-value activities. To implement structure here, the leader or owner needs to provide guidance on how much time people need to spend “selling” versus all the other activities in front of them.
Incorporating Technology into Sales Training
Technology can play a key role in enhancing your sales training efforts. Here’s how to incorporate technology into your training program:
Customized Sales Training: Hint – I do this. Hiring the right person to talk to your team about sales, the pipeline, and converting leads can get your team there faster. And? It is one less thing for you as the owner to do, oversee, manage, or learn.
Sales Training Platforms: Use online sales training platforms, such as LinkedIn Learning or Coursera, to access a wide range of courses and resources. These platforms offer flexible learning options that can be tailored to your team’s needs.
CRM Training: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are essential tools for managing leads, tracking sales activities, and analyzing performance. Ensure that your team is fully trained on how to use your CRM system effectively. Have internal system ambassadors to be super users and to help others leverage these tools.
Sales Enablement Tools: Leverage sales enablement tools, such as email templates, presentation software, and analytics platforms, to streamline your sales process and improve efficiency. Your CRM should have these, or should be able to add them.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Sales Training
To ensure that your sales training efforts are results-driven, it’s important to measure their effectiveness. Here are some key metrics to track:
Sales Performance: Monitor changes in sales performance, such as conversion rates, deal size, and sales cycle length, before and after training. Get a baseline before you invest in training, coaching, or consulting so that you can see the return on your investment.
Knowledge Retention: Assess how well your team has retained the information from training sessions. This can be done through quizzes, assessments, practical exercises, results, or performance conversations. Have exceptional sales people train and mentor the others that are learning behind them.
Customer Feedback: Pay attention to customer feedback and satisfaction levels. Well-trained sales teams tend to create better customer experiences, which is reflected in positive feedback.
Employee Engagement: Track employee engagement and satisfaction with the training, coaching, or consulting programs. High levels of engagement indicate that the training is resonating with your team and contributing to their professional development.
The Lasting Impact of Effective Sales Training
If sales is not your thing? Hire a sales training, consulting, coach, or fraction sales leader to get you and your team comfortable and exceptional at sales. In Ontario, you can use the Job Grant to fund a lot of these initiates.
Sales training is a valuable investment for small business owners who want to improve their sales performance and grow their business. By focusing on practical techniques, incorporating technology, and measuring effectiveness, you can create a training program that delivers real results. Remember, sales training is not a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and improvement. With the right approach, you can equip yourself and your team with the skills needed to succeed in today’s competitive sales environment.
Interested in learning more or in working together to make this happen for you? Reach out.
Adapted from “Module 4, Sales” by FocalPoint Coaching and Training Excellence, Copyright 2018, by Brian Tracy and Campbell Fraser. Reprinted with permission.
