It looks like you’re ready to start investing in your sales team and begin the process of hiring the best sales training company you can find. However, when figuring out how to choose a sales training company, they can all seem like a positive return on investment on the outside. Yet, not all sales training programs are equal. That’s why we’ve created this article explaining how to do just that (and get great results!)
What is Sales Training?
Sales training provides participants with the application skills, knowledge, and tools they need to optimize and maximize their sales results. In general, there are two types of sales training. The first is Sales Methodology Training, where salespeople learn various sales approaches for each stage of the sales process. The second is Sales Skills Training, where salespeople develop and refine their selling ability by learning new techniques to complete each sales process step and lead their prospect to the finish line.
Why is Choosing the Best Sales Training Program so Important?
When figuring out how to choose a sales training company…
It’s shocking that many sales teams have never gone through formal sales training. Yet, the company relies on them for revenue. Without proper training, coaching, and a standard sales structure, teams are left to trial and error to figure out what works—leaving some team members to excel while others struggle.
In any business, sales are the lifeblood of the operation. When companies invest in training their teams on effective sales techniques, results quickly go from lackluster to spectacular. That’s because many salespeople don’t know how to sell effectively. They might close some deals because the price offered was low. If the brand message is strong, a good sales professional can take someone who never knew they needed your product or service into a paid customer. We’re not talking about unethical voodoo magic; we’re talking about properly discovering needs, demonstrating your offering expertly, and knowing what it takes to close a deal.
Sales training helps everyone get on the same level. Functioning at the same rate and quality as much as possible makes sales results more predictable.
Also read:
- Is VR Training in the Workplace The Future Of Upskilling Sales Teams?
- How To Reinforce Sales Training In The Workplace To Maximise ROI
How to Choose the Best Sales Training Company for Your Business
With so many choices available, we understand the need for a comprehensive system to easily choose the best sales training company for your business. Therefore, below you’ll find everything you need to decide on the best sales training company for you.
1. Determine who should be involved in the buying decision
Determining who will be involved in the discussions and decisions is your first step in choosing a sales training company or program. Many companies involve multiple stakeholders who understand your current training objectives. Not to mention your sales leaders who work directly with said participants.
2. Key areas to consider
When investing in sales training, you want to be sure that your results will be substantial. To do this, you must consider several key aspects of the program to decide on the best sales training company for your business. Check them out below:
The curriculum
Before you commit to any sales training program for skills improvement, you must establish whether the program’s curriculum aligns with your needs. We all know how frustrating it is to invest in something that fails to deliver on expectations. Ask for a detailed curriculum outline before deciding which program to proceed with. With this, you’ll be able to see all of the topics they plan to cover so you can confirm it has everything you need and nothing you don’t.
Professionalism & Responsiveness
Next, you must consider how you feel about meeting or conversing with the sales training company. You can evaluate and compare companies by how responsive they are to your emails and phone calls. Furthermore, how good are their sales reps at building rapport and selling to you? In particular, how well-informed are they about your business? More so, do they seem invested and interested in learning about your needs?
Customization abilities
Every sales training program should have some degree of flexibility to customize modules following your needs, especially if you’re looking for sales training that applies to various roles across your company.
Therefore, if your sales training requires a high degree of customization, you’ll need to opt to find a sales training provider who truly understands your wants, needs, and training objectives. In this instance, you can always ask the potential sales training provider to arrange a call with the proposed account team you will be working with.
References
You should always ask to speak to references, mainly for your reassurance and to evaluate how well other clients’ needs have been catered to, how well they achieved their training objectives, and their overall experience working with the sales training provider.
Reputation and thought leadership
When browsing sales training providers, you want to consider the business’s reputation and thought leadership. You can do this by reading its content, such as blog posts, webinars, white papers, reports, videos, or infographics, to gauge its level of authority.
Training delivery
Ultimately, you need to consider three elements when thinking about training delivery:
- Who will deliver the training?
- How many salespeople will participate in the training?
- Where the salespeople are.
Furthermore, there are three main ways to deliver sales training: in-person, online with a facilitator, and online without a facilitator. Most sales training companies will offer a blended learning approach.
3. Ask potential sales training providers these questions
Let’s be honest. No one has the time or money to make mistakes when investing in sales training programs. Therefore, when considering partnering with a sales training company, you must do your due diligence and ask the questions that matter most. Below are several questions you need to ask sales training providers:
How is sales leadership involved?
You need to know the sales leadership team’s role in the training program. If sales leaders don’t reinforce the learning after training, there’s less chance the new techniques will be implemented.
For example, here at SOCO/, we offer sales leadership training. We not only train leaders to lead their teams to achieve maximum results, but we also train them to reinforce the learning post-training.
Do you have experience in our industry?
It may seem obvious, but sales training providers must know how to teach you how to apply your new sales skills to your industry. If your sales team can’t understand or relate to case studies or examples, your training is likely to not ‘stick’ as well as training that includes industry-specific examples.
What sales methodology do you use?
There are a plethora of different sales methodologies out there. Some are new, some are old, and some work for different industries and sales roles. The right methodology needs to be chosen based on the needs of your team.
Can you train our regional team?
If you have teams spread worldwide, it’s far better to train all teams in the same methodology and sales skills instead of each region doing its own thing. When choosing a sales training provider, find out if they have experience in different markets and have trainers who can train in different languages.
For instance, our sales training programs at SOCO/ are also available in Mandarin, Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese.
How is training reinforced?
Sales training only works if your team implements what they learn. It’s important to know how to reinforce the learning. Some ways to reinforce training include one-on-one or group coaching, e-learning, reinforcement emails, checking implementation in daily sales activities, and discussions at team meetings. Therefore, you’ll need to determine whether this aligns with your sales team’s needs and the sales leaders’ abilities.
4. Interview potential providers
Lastly, when figuring out how to choose a sales training company or program, and you have a shortlist of top sales training providers you think can meet your needs, start to connect with them individually and identify the best match for your business’s needs. When you connect with them, use your conversation as an opportunity to observe how effective their sales representative is at selling to you!
How much does sales training cost?
You know you need to spend money to make money, but how much should you invest in your sales training? According to ATD Research, most organizations invest approximately $2,326 annually per salesperson. However, multiple factors may influence this guideline price, such as:
- Pre-Training Consultation
- Training Materials
- Customization
- Delivery Methods
- Trainers
Here at SOCO, our sales training rates start at $349 per person for a complete 5 sales course e-learning pack, but rates vary depending on whether it’s e-learning, Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) or in-person, as well as the size of the team.
When does sales training fail?
In over 15 years of business, we’ve identified the main reasons why sales training often fails. By discovering them below, you can ensure you avoid them – and make your sales training program a success from the offset:
- Unclear goals: Some companies believe that ‘sales training’ answers their problems. Sales training isn’t a 1-size fits all kind of thing. The program needs to be tailored based on the team, your industry, who you sell to, average deal size, and average sales cycle. Sales Training for a retail team differs greatly from sales training for a SAAS team. To get the best results from training, you first need to be clear on what goals you want from the training: increased close rates, increased number of leads, increased order value, or decreased sales cycle.
- Lack of coaching and reinforcement: It doesn’t matter how practical or helpful sales training is if, after the training, the sales team returns to an environment that doesn’t promote implementing the new skills. To do this, there must be adequate post-training learning and reinforcement, as well as checking in with the team to see if they’re implementing the new skills. To build a high-performing sales team, provide ongoing sales coaching to reinforce and get feedback on their new skills.
- Lack of stakeholder involvement: Sales training often fails without key stakeholders’ alignment on the new sales strategy. All decision-makers should be committed to implementing the new techniques.
5 common mistakes companies make when Implementing sales training
Implementing a sales training program can be one of the best investments a company can make in a sales team. When done right, closing rates and the average amount per sale can drastically increase, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Yet too many companies don’t know what to look for in a sales training program, which can result in less than desired results.
Here are the 5 most common mistakes companies make when implementing sales training and how to avoid them.
1. Sales training isn’t customized
Not all sales training programs are created equally. What works for someone selling to consumers (B2C) in a retail store won’t work for a sales representative selling to businesses (B2B). The prospect you’re selling to is different, the decision-making process is different, and the sales cycle is completely different.
When deciding on a sales training provider, ensure they fully understand your company’s selling process, backed up by years of proven experience increasing conversion rates in your industry. The training needs to be customized to your industry, to say the least.
2. Lacks ‘buy-in’ from participants
No salesperson wants to be taken away from selling to be forced to attend a sales training program. Instead, the training needs to start with buy-in from the participants. They need to feel part of it from the beginning by having a say in what will be covered. This can be done in the form of a survey or as simple as asking what skills they need to help them increase sales. Every salesperson wants to learn how to make more money.
3. Training is content focused instead of implementation focused
When in-person training only focuses on content, such as how to make phone calls, how to present your solution, and how to ask for the sale, and skips role-playing and brainstorming activities, the most valuable aspects of in-person training are missed. Instead, in-class time needs to incorporate practicing new skills. If the team needs to learn how to schedule more appointments on the phone, they need to practice their phone skills with a partner and get feedback from the instructor.
When the team needs to learn how to demonstrate value instead of offering discounts, they need to practice answering price objections with confidence instead of shying away from them. If sales reps need to learn how to follow up with prospects more effectively, brainstorming ways to follow up and then practicing the phone call is much more effective than just being told they need to follow up with prospects.
4. Knowledge isn’t tested
Once sales training is complete, how will you know if it was successful? Post-training, learners need to be tested through a quiz and on the job. Have they started booking more appointments? Are they more effective during a sales presentation? Do they overcome objections more easily than before? Start by focusing on small improvements, ultimately closing more deals.
5. Training isn’t reinforced
Training shouldn’t end when the in-class learning does. Learners need to follow up on materials, tips, and videos to reinforce what they have learned and to continue the learning. An online sales training system is also a great way to reinforce learning.
Weekly or monthly meetings reviewing materials and new skills should be held to maximize investments in sales training. Accompany that with one-on-one coaching to address individual needs, and you’ll be well on your way to implementing a sales training program that delivers real results.
What is the long-term sales training plan?
Lastly, when choosing a sales training program, you must consider the long-term plan for implementing sales training. Here at SOCO/, we believe that training is not a one-off approach. Instead, it requires a constant and complete system. That’s why all our sales training programs include team assessments, pre-training work, sales process analysis, ROI maximizer for leaders, post-training evaluation, and post-training reinforcement. Our programs often span months with a combination of sales training and coaching to get the best results.
Upskill your most valuable resource
Nothing is more demotivating than not having the skills to excel in one’s role. By providing corporate training for your personnel, you can ultimately develop their weaknesses into strengths, allowing for increased productivity, motivation, and adoption of new technologies while reducing employee turnover.
We’re the leading corporate training provider—and for good reason. Our diverse training courses are interactive, fun, memorable, and, most importantly, effective.
“We never want someone to lose a sale because they can’t sell”
We believe in creating solution-focused, goal-oriented sales specialists who take pride in their profession. The SOCO® Selling™ methodology includes our nine pillars of selling and our exclusive top-to-bottom sales funnel methodology.
Every sales team begins the program by being evaluated with pre-training assessments. This allows us to build a custom training experience ensuring our program provides the most effective results for your company.
Don’t just take our word – see what others are saying!
“We recently had [SOCO] conduct a virtual external Sales Training Program for our entire commercial organization at Carousell Group for our different brands in 5 countries.
Tom shared great insights on consultative selling and needs analysis to win new customers. He energized and fuelled our sales & trade marketing teams to apply the concepts they learned into their day to day interactions with customers. Throughout the session, all 200+ attendees were fully engaged and inspired to apply the concepts shared into their interactions with clients.
At the core of Carousell, we constantly raise the bar, growing and inspiring one another. Thank you Tom for helping us raise the bar. “
– Vishal Salunkhe | Head of Sales Operations & Enablement Carousell
“I had the pleasure of working with [SOCO] to deliver a live webinar to our customers across 3 continents! From the discovery and planning meetings right down to customizing content to meet our objectives and engage our audience, Tom is a pro. He is energetic and has the ability to cut through – so it feels as though you are right there in the room with him.”
– Kiera Kramer | Brand and Experiences Marketing for QuickBooks
“I had a great sales training with [SOCO]! I have learned so much especially on the prospecting part. He gave me more motivation in making cold calls and building better relationships with my clients.”
–Mathilde Ramoisy | SaaS Enterprise Business Development at Perx Technologies