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Improving Sales Growth Through Training

Improving Sales Growth Through Training

Pareto Principle states that 80% of an outcome is the result of 20% of the work.

In sales, this principle is seen through the performance of the sales employees – often, sales teams are kept afloat by a handful of high performers. These high performers make up a small portion of their sales teams, but typically make up a large portion of sales revenue.

As a result, sales growth strategy often revolves around asking recruiters to identify and hire “sales superstars.”

This strategy is not cost-effective and leads to high turnover in sales. In fact, sales can be brutal – there’s about a 34.7% average turnover in sales positions, and about two-thirds of sales turnover is involuntary.

It’s time companies adopted a growth mindset for their sales teams, rather than hoping they find a “superstar” who can come in and save the business.

When companies approach sales growth as a team effort and focus on the skills their sales employees need to succeed, they’ll see better results, a more sustainable sales team, and be in a much better position to achieve their sales targets.


1. Training the team beyond sales performance basics

When sales performance is down, it’s tempting to take your focus away from development and just keep pushing people to do more.

But just doing more often results in spinning wheels that aren’t moving the company anywhere. That’s because working smart is just as important as working hard – and how do people get smarter? They will learn!

When your teams are focused on learning the multitude of skills that will help them become more effective at their jobs, the results affecting sales are plentiful.

High-quality sales training translates to:

  • More employees hitting and exceeding the limit
  • Higher win rates lead to higher morale and motivation
  • Being able to align solutions to customer needs. It increases higher customer satisfaction
  • Less turnover on the sales team helping reduced turnover costs and better culture

2. How to be a better coach?

To be a good sales manager, you can listen to a sales call, identify what could be improved, and then ask the right leading questions to help your employee figure out what went wrong or could be improved.

In Dale Carnegie’s best-selling book How to Win Friends and Influence People, he writes that an effective way to persuade people to do something is to, “Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers. By doing so, the idea will stick with the person and he or she will take more away from the idea since it is ‘theirs.’”

This is exactly how good coaches operate – when you apply to coach into your sales employees’ training, you’ll see your employees improve their sales numbers across the board.

3. Train the behaviors you want to see in your employees

In an effort to drive sales performance, you must first identify behaviors that work against sales goals, and reinforce behaviors that work towards sales goals.

Consider every step of the sales process – from the time that a lead goes from prospect to opportunity, to negotiations, and to be a customer, how many interactions occur, and what behaviors should occur during those interactions?

Sales managers should find the skills and behaviors needed for each stage. For instance, if your organization relies on cold calling to source new opportunities, it’s important you teach employees how to sound friendly and open on the phone.

It takes time and a great deal of patience to work with employees and identify what skills could be improved. But a focused effort on individuals will lead to higher retention in your sales team and better results.

4. Train the behaviors you want to see in your employees

A sales team that grows through learning, rather than through recruiting, is more sustainable and effective, but giving employees the tools they need to learn on their own, through just-in-time learning, can transform your results in a powerful way.

Your sales staff likely sit near each other and hear every sales conversation that goes on. They likely ask each other for and willingly offer advice to one another. An online learning platform can be a new source of information sharing, one that contains only the best information curated by you or by your content provider.

Empowering employees to share good information creates a sustainable culture of learning where information flows freely, empowering individuals to succeed.

Source: bizlibrary.com