Your sales team is the beating heart of your business. The performance of each team member will be critical to your growth and ongoing success. Perhaps you feel that your colleagues are already performing very well? There is always room for improvement, as this blog will explore. Training is one of the most effective ways for you to boost outcomes and profits.
We’ll teach you how to make more profits for your business with an effective sales team. We’ll also show you how to draw on exclusive information from experts in the field. Coaches at The Sales Coach Network have experienced almost every type of sales scenario during their distinguished careers, and now we are passing this knowledge on to you.
The key aspects we will cover are: How can you make your sales team more productive? And what is the best way to train a sales team? We will reveal 10 strategies below to improve sales performance.
You are looking to assemble a salesforce – not merely a sales team.
Your sales team isn't necessarily making money for your business. They could be spending too much time trying to make sales and not getting results. You can train your sales team to make more profits for your business by using the right strategies, tools and techniques.
It is important to train your sales team so that you can keep up with the ever-changing market. The Sales Coach Network can help businesses like yours to have a flourishing sales team.
So then, what is the best way to train a sales team? Pay careful attention…
1. Know your sales process
Being wise about your own processes, from start to finish, is an essential jumping off point as you seek to maximise profits. There is no way that you can provide coaching to your team if you don’t first know your product and processes inside-out. You should be familiar with every step your team needs to take in order to complete a sale. Subtle changes to your team’s approach might be all that is needed, or the process might require a thorough shake-up. Either way, it’s best to undertake a proper assessment of where your team is at before you proceed any further.
2. Setting realistic goals
Goal setting is important for any business, but if you get carried away too early you might set unrealistic targets, and when you don’t hit your goals, you will be left feeling unfulfilled and disappointed. It is a better idea to set more moderate goals that can be accomplished by your team. Be mindful too of timeframes. If you set a goal for too far away, you might lose focus, while setting it too soon might cause your colleagues to rush and do a haphazard job.
3. Create a communication channel
We all know that communication in business (and indeed in every walk of life) is key. Ensure that you can be there for your colleagues – be approachable. If your sales team is left to its own devices, it might not be clear what you are striving towards. You can create a dialogue via an in-house messaging service, so that any team member can come forward with queries at a time of their choosing. WhatsApp groups are another option, but be wary of this, as your people might already have a number of chats on the go. Separation might be important in this case.
4. Provide initial sales training and mentoring
The onus is on you to kickstart your people on their sales training journey. As you progress you might be able to ‘train a trainer’, but initially you should set out your stall and set the expected standard yourself. Remember, there is a difference between training and mentoring: training is all about passing on core skills, while mentoring allows your team member to forge their own path as you guide them along the way.
5. Coach and don’t micromanage
As coaches, we can find it hard to let go. Eventually it will be time to remove the stabilisers and allow your trainee to freewheel it and ride on their own. That’s not to say that you won’t be right behind them to catch them when they fall. If you don’t give them the space to operate independently, it will create a further draw on your time and resources.
6. Keep up with the latest trends in sales processes
Sales processes and strategies are in constant flux. Nothing ever remains still in the sales coaching industry, so you’ll want to stay on top of all trends. Of course, not all of them will be right for your business, so you can cherry pick the ones that are most pertinent to your situation. You don’t need to rule anything out; it’s OK to implement a strategy short term to see whether it might work for you.
7. Teach your sales team how to overcome objections
Your team is bound to come up against barriers as they make their way along the sales process. It’s your job to remind them that a) this is normal and b) there are ways round it. Remember, you either win or you learn. If you get everything right all the time, you’ll not be taught anything. It is also important to remind yourself that an objection isn’t a straight ‘no’ – instead it is a pathway to getting it right next time.
8. Encourage growth and development of employees
Growth and development are the cornerstones of sales coaching, and where does this lead? To higher profits, of course. The idea of ‘encouragement’ cannot be overstated. Sales team trainees are highly unlikely to get everything right first time. Your role is to pick up the pieces and suggest ways that they might be able to improve outcomes next time. Growth and development are not linear; it can be a messy journey to arrive at your destination. Be patient and lend an ear when a team member is struggling.
9. Reward them for high performance
We’ve spoken so far about what might happen when your sales team members get something wrong. But it is just as important (if not more important) to acknowledge when they have succeeded in their endeavours and got it right. Perhaps they have taken onboard something you’ve said to them and ran with it, leading to strong results. Perhaps they came up with their own unique approach in finding a solution to a niggling issue. As the saying goes: credit where credit’s due. Don’t dish it out when it is unwarranted, however if it needs to be said and you are seeing favourable results from your coaching, the team should be informed and praised.
10. Use proven sales training programmes to train your sales team
What is a proven sales training programme, we hear you ask? At The Sales Coach Network we use the Sales Accelerator Method, a combination of principles, mindsets, skills and tools that are proven to create value for some of the largest and best-known organisations in the world. We know that starting a new sales coaching journey can be daunting – that’s why we’re here to guide you every step of the way. If you’d like to learn more about how we work and how we might be able to help you, book a call today and speak to one of our experienced coaches.
To summarise: be realistic in what you are hoping to achieve; set goals; know when to mentor and when to sit back; praise regularly; foster growth and development and keep up with the latest trends.
Get in touch with us as soon as you are ready to begin your journey or undertake the next step on your path to profit.
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