The 10 sales training essentials your team needs to succeed
Adapted from: http://blog.close.io/unstoppable-sales-team
Effective sales training can cover everything from how to create a sales plan to getting over your fears of rejection, staying motivated every day, and more.
The goal here is that each individual component of your sales training helps your team grow and progress, so that nobody feels like they’ve hit a ceiling in their career.
If you need some inspiration on what to include in your own sales training program, or want to make sure you choose the right facilitator, here are 10 essential pieces of sales training you should bring to your team:
1. How to become an effective listener
As the Greek philosopher Epictetus so succinctly explains, “You have two ears and one mouth—you should be using them in that proportion.”
In the rush to explain features and benefits of what you’re selling, it’s easy to talk over your prospect. This is a common mistake many inside sales rookies make. And the problem is, the second someone thinks you’re not listening, you’ve lost them.
Active listening is truly the silent skill of sales. Throughout the sales cycle, prospects will drop hints about what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, or problems they need solved. Addressing these can make or break your sale.
But you’ll miss them if you’re not listening.
Here are a few tips to incorporate into your sales training that’ll help your team team to listen more intently:
2. Using empathy and training yourself to think like a problem-solver
It’s probably a pretty safe bet that robots aren’t taking your sales job any time soon. That’s because working in sales requires constant problem solving, empathy, and the ability to think fast and act accordingly. To instill these qualities in your team, they need to adopt a problem-solving mentality—which can thankfully be done through proper sales training.
This one starts with empathy, seeing the world through the eyes of your prospect. Listening only goes so far and you should always assume the problem your prospect communicates isn’t necessarily the real issue they need solved. Look at the bigger picture.
Great salespeople go beyond simply solving their customers’ problems and actually find the problems their customers are unaware of.
As Daniel Pink, author of To Sell is Human, said in a recent interview: “If customers know precisely what the problem is, they can find a solution. Where you’re more valuable is when they don’t know what the problem is, or they’re wrong about the problem, and you can identify a problem they don’t realize they have. Or you can look down the road and say ‘Here is a problem you’re going to confront. You’d better get ready for it now’.”
To do this, you need to develop both a problem-solving and problem-finding mentality that, when combined with empathy, will let you find the problems your customers really need solved. Start by asking a few simple questions:
Solving these invisible problems your prospects have is a powerful tool in getting the sale. Reiterate the importance of keeping these questions top of mind throughout your sales training process.
3. Crafting scripts to deal with the most common objections
Knowledge is power. And the best salespeople always have a solid foundation to work from.
Use your sales training to get your team ready for identifying objections that come up time and time again. You can collaboratively craft scripts to help them deal with these issues. Now, the idea of using scripts is a contentious one in the sales community. No one wants to sound like a robot, and this isn’t what you should be advocating for here. Instead, these scripts should help you assay client fears and move onto the real issues more quickly.
Think of it like a basketball team. They spend hours upon hours practicing the basics—dribbling, shooting, defending, rebounding—so that when it comes to game day, they don’t have to think about it and can focus on adapting to the team they’re playing.
In the same way, scripts help your sales team get past common objections quickly and move onto creative ways to close the sale. Not only that, but you’ll have a template you can share across your team and help them level up their sales game quickly.
As part of your sales training, have your team:
4. Identifying the red flags of bad customers
Time wasted chasing after the wrong prospects can crush your sales efforts and even your company. Large accounts can sometimes take 6–18 months to close. But that’s only if they do close. And sometimes a bad client can be even worse than a lost sale, wasting your time, asking for refunds and generally speaking poorly about your company.
Your team needs to know what to look out for to make sure they’re going in the right direction—which is where good sales training comes into play. And as someone experienced in selling your product or service, you’ve seen first hand the signs that led to a sale, and the ones that made you get off the phone as quickly as possible.
Here’s a few key red flags you should be using sales training to teach your team what to look out for:
5. The basics of cold emailing
If you’re using cold outreach over email as one of your main sales strategies, you’ll want to have some form of training on the basics of how you connect with prospects over email.
First off, why email? Well, despite doomsayers spouting off about social selling killing email, email is 40X more effective at getting new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.
We put together a collection of 17 sales email tips that work you can check out, but here are the main pieces you should be covering in your training:
How to write subject lines that get opened: It might be just one line, but it’s the one that matters the most. Write like a human, avoid slogans, use lowercase text, and include your recipient's name if you can.
How to write effective email copy: Don’t waste your prospect’s time. Be brief. Give context. And end with a clear call to action. Each sentence needs to show your value props and push your prospect closer to the next step.
Unusual ways to make your emails stand out: We all have overflowing inboxes. So to stand out, try a few tricks like: Adding value in your signature by including recent blog posts, news, or videos; include a personal note or some company humblebrag in the P.S.; and use formatting to your advantage by bolding important information and using bulleted lists.
Email experiments to run: Even the best email templates go stale. Start by deciding what you want to test: open rate or response rate/action. Then, try a few experiments like A/B testing subject lines, changing the ‘From name’, using personalization, or sending at a different time.
How to follow up properly: If your cold prospects aren’t responding, implement this follow-up formula into your sales training process:
6. The basics of cold calling
If your salespeople are picking up the phone, you’ll for sure want to be training them on what to do when their prospect answers.
Your cold calling strategy should start with a funnel that looks something like this:
To help your team get the most success from this funnel, you’ll want to provide them with some simple tools and training around lead sourcing, sales call scripts, and how to handle objections.
Remember to incorporate teaching your team to keep it simple and focus on one step at a time throughout your sales training.
Can you reach one person? Qualify that person? Demo a prospect? Close a deal? The training should focus on pushing through and getting each prospect to the next step. So don’t worry if the conversion numbers are bad to start.
7. How to clearly articulate value to prospects
Nothing kills a sale faster then not being able to tell someone why they need what you’re selling. People buy results, not just products or services.
Your salespeople need to know how to clearly articulate the value that your product or service will provide for the prospect. They need to be educators and storytellers, explaining why what you’re selling is so great and then getting the prospect to imagine themselves in a better life because of you.
Start by going through your customer profiles. Why are they good prospects for what you’re selling? How can you show them the value you’re providing? Do you have case studies or testimonials you can use?
Role play and get your team to practice articulating the value of your product until they can do it without even thinking.
8. Dealing with fear in cold sales
If you’re dealing with sales training for new or less experienced salespeople, you’ll want to train them not only on how to sell, but how to feel good about doing it.
Calling up or emailing strangers and asking them to buy what you’re selling isn’t something we normally do. And fear is only natural when you’re put into an unfamiliar place. Taking the time to train your team about how to handle that fear will make them more confident, friendly, and ultimately happier.
Start by looking at all the places in your sales process where your team might be feeling anxiety or fear and how to address it:
9. How, when, and the frequency of following-up
Most people might assume there’s no interest in what they’re selling if they don’t get a response. But the follow-up is your key to higher conversion rates, and without it you’re not likely to close many deals in the long run.
Steli, the CEO of Close.io here, follows a simple follow-up philosophy: Reach out as many times as necessary until you get a response. If a prospect says they’re busy for two weeks, he sets a reminder for 14 days.
Now, your own follow-up philosophy will come from your values and sales process, but the key here is that you need to have something your team can follow. Decide what frequency you’re going to follow up, how you’re going to track your messages, and which medium you’re going to use. Then, teach your team to use their judgement and experiment.
10. Ways to ask for the close
One of the most important pieces of sales training your team needs is how to close the deal.
Without providing guidelines and processes for asking for the close, you’re basically giving your team liberty to ask whenever they want. And unfortunately, too many salespeople wait until that nonexistent ‘perfect moment’ to ask.
Here are a couple techniques you can try adding to your sales training:
The virtual close: As soon as you’ve qualified your lead and given them your pitch, ask for the sale. At this point, you basically know they’re going to say no. So follow up by asking, "What’s the process we need to go through in order to get you ready to buy?" With this simple question, you’re getting them to draw you a roadmap to the sale you’ll eventually get.
Take the sale away: When objections arrive at the 11th hour, it’s easy to get desperate and make promises you can’t keep. Instead, teach your salespeople to "take the sale away" by being decisive on pricing, emphasizing that you’re building a long-term relationship, and imposing a break in the conversation. By using this technique, you’re not only pushing people to close, but showing them that you value the service or product you’re selling.
The learning never stops
Sales training never really ends.
There are always new techniques, better scripts, new objections to overcome, new issues to address, another competitor entering the market that you and your team will need to learn how to combat.
The best salespeople have a drive to learn and be the best, and your sales training will help them get there. Invest in it early on and you’ll have a team that can’t be beat.
Effective sales training can cover everything from how to create a sales plan to getting over your fears of rejection, staying motivated every day, and more.
The goal here is that each individual component of your sales training helps your team grow and progress, so that nobody feels like they’ve hit a ceiling in their career.
If you need some inspiration on what to include in your own sales training program, or want to make sure you choose the right facilitator, here are 10 essential pieces of sales training you should bring to your team:
1. How to become an effective listener
As the Greek philosopher Epictetus so succinctly explains, “You have two ears and one mouth—you should be using them in that proportion.”
In the rush to explain features and benefits of what you’re selling, it’s easy to talk over your prospect. This is a common mistake many inside sales rookies make. And the problem is, the second someone thinks you’re not listening, you’ve lost them.
Active listening is truly the silent skill of sales. Throughout the sales cycle, prospects will drop hints about what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, or problems they need solved. Addressing these can make or break your sale.
But you’ll miss them if you’re not listening.
Here are a few tips to incorporate into your sales training that’ll help your team team to listen more intently:
- Practice active listening: This means listening to what your prospect is saying, understanding it, and then responding with a brief summary of what they’re saying. Doing this not only shows that you’re listening and respect what they’re saying, but also will help you zone in on the clues you need to close the sale.
- Mentally echo what a prospect is saying: One of the barriers to good listening is getting excited and starting to formulate a response before the other person has stopped talking. And of course, as soon as you’re thinking about what they’ve said, you’re now tuning out the rest of what they’re saying. To combat this, try echoing what they’re saying in your head as they talk and wait a few seconds after they finish speaking before responding.
- Summarize what they’ve said: Once they’re finished speaking, take a moment to summarize and repeat back what they’ve said. For example, “It sounds like you’re happy with your current CRM but would like something a bit more user friendly for new teammates.” This will help clarify any misunderstandings on the spot and is a great technique for getting more insight from your prospect as they’ll usually go one step deeper now that they know you’re listening.
2. Using empathy and training yourself to think like a problem-solver
It’s probably a pretty safe bet that robots aren’t taking your sales job any time soon. That’s because working in sales requires constant problem solving, empathy, and the ability to think fast and act accordingly. To instill these qualities in your team, they need to adopt a problem-solving mentality—which can thankfully be done through proper sales training.
This one starts with empathy, seeing the world through the eyes of your prospect. Listening only goes so far and you should always assume the problem your prospect communicates isn’t necessarily the real issue they need solved. Look at the bigger picture.
Great salespeople go beyond simply solving their customers’ problems and actually find the problems their customers are unaware of.
As Daniel Pink, author of To Sell is Human, said in a recent interview: “If customers know precisely what the problem is, they can find a solution. Where you’re more valuable is when they don’t know what the problem is, or they’re wrong about the problem, and you can identify a problem they don’t realize they have. Or you can look down the road and say ‘Here is a problem you’re going to confront. You’d better get ready for it now’.”
To do this, you need to develop both a problem-solving and problem-finding mentality that, when combined with empathy, will let you find the problems your customers really need solved. Start by asking a few simple questions:
- What are the problems my customer is not yet aware of?
- How can I solve them?
- How can I sell the solution?
Solving these invisible problems your prospects have is a powerful tool in getting the sale. Reiterate the importance of keeping these questions top of mind throughout your sales training process.
3. Crafting scripts to deal with the most common objections
Knowledge is power. And the best salespeople always have a solid foundation to work from.
Use your sales training to get your team ready for identifying objections that come up time and time again. You can collaboratively craft scripts to help them deal with these issues. Now, the idea of using scripts is a contentious one in the sales community. No one wants to sound like a robot, and this isn’t what you should be advocating for here. Instead, these scripts should help you assay client fears and move onto the real issues more quickly.
Think of it like a basketball team. They spend hours upon hours practicing the basics—dribbling, shooting, defending, rebounding—so that when it comes to game day, they don’t have to think about it and can focus on adapting to the team they’re playing.
In the same way, scripts help your sales team get past common objections quickly and move onto creative ways to close the sale. Not only that, but you’ll have a template you can share across your team and help them level up their sales game quickly.
As part of your sales training, have your team:
- Come up with a list of common objections they hear from prospects (like ‘it’s too expensive’ or ‘we’re happy with our current service’)
- Brainstorm solutions or questions to respond to these objections
- Come up with short scripts based on these answers on how to move past the objections
4. Identifying the red flags of bad customers
Time wasted chasing after the wrong prospects can crush your sales efforts and even your company. Large accounts can sometimes take 6–18 months to close. But that’s only if they do close. And sometimes a bad client can be even worse than a lost sale, wasting your time, asking for refunds and generally speaking poorly about your company.
Your team needs to know what to look out for to make sure they’re going in the right direction—which is where good sales training comes into play. And as someone experienced in selling your product or service, you’ve seen first hand the signs that led to a sale, and the ones that made you get off the phone as quickly as possible.
Here’s a few key red flags you should be using sales training to teach your team what to look out for:
- Prospects who get nasty during the sales process: When a prospect hasn’t signed on the dotted line, there’s generally no reason for them to not be on their best behavior. So if you see signs of a bad attitude early on, you can be sure they’re not going to get any better once they’ve put money on the table and closed the deal.
- No respect for boundaries: Call me now. Need to speak right away. Emergency. If you’re getting emails with subjects like this at any time of the day (especially at night or on weekends) from a prospect you’re talking to, they’re probably not worth the trouble.
- The guarantee-er: Unless you specifically have some form of guarantee, you can’t commit to hitting goals for a prospect. And if they’re trying to get you to say you will, they either don’t trust you or don’t know the complexity of their own problem. Either way, you’re headed for trouble.
- The quick to close: This might seem counterintuitive, but a prospect willing to jump into bed with you before the first sales call is even over can turn into a nightmare. These impulsive buyers usually don’t have a full understanding of what they’re getting into or what you’re offering, and will after you (even though they’re at fault). Here you might want to slow down the process and suggest another call or spend extra time explaining everything (in writing if you can).
5. The basics of cold emailing
If you’re using cold outreach over email as one of your main sales strategies, you’ll want to have some form of training on the basics of how you connect with prospects over email.
First off, why email? Well, despite doomsayers spouting off about social selling killing email, email is 40X more effective at getting new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.
We put together a collection of 17 sales email tips that work you can check out, but here are the main pieces you should be covering in your training:
How to write subject lines that get opened: It might be just one line, but it’s the one that matters the most. Write like a human, avoid slogans, use lowercase text, and include your recipient's name if you can.
How to write effective email copy: Don’t waste your prospect’s time. Be brief. Give context. And end with a clear call to action. Each sentence needs to show your value props and push your prospect closer to the next step.
Unusual ways to make your emails stand out: We all have overflowing inboxes. So to stand out, try a few tricks like: Adding value in your signature by including recent blog posts, news, or videos; include a personal note or some company humblebrag in the P.S.; and use formatting to your advantage by bolding important information and using bulleted lists.
Email experiments to run: Even the best email templates go stale. Start by deciding what you want to test: open rate or response rate/action. Then, try a few experiments like A/B testing subject lines, changing the ‘From name’, using personalization, or sending at a different time.
How to follow up properly: If your cold prospects aren’t responding, implement this follow-up formula into your sales training process:
- 1 day after your cold email at a different time: Follow-up 1. A modified version of your original email.
- 2 days after you send your second email: Follow-up 2. Restate your call to action only.
- 4-5 days after your third email: Follow-up 3. Say goodbye to the prospect (this is betting on their loss aversion and that they’ll feel compelled to respond).
6. The basics of cold calling
If your salespeople are picking up the phone, you’ll for sure want to be training them on what to do when their prospect answers.
Your cold calling strategy should start with a funnel that looks something like this:
- Dial phone numbers
- Reach prospects
- Qualify prospects
- Demo the prospects
- Close the deal
To help your team get the most success from this funnel, you’ll want to provide them with some simple tools and training around lead sourcing, sales call scripts, and how to handle objections.
Remember to incorporate teaching your team to keep it simple and focus on one step at a time throughout your sales training.
Can you reach one person? Qualify that person? Demo a prospect? Close a deal? The training should focus on pushing through and getting each prospect to the next step. So don’t worry if the conversion numbers are bad to start.
7. How to clearly articulate value to prospects
Nothing kills a sale faster then not being able to tell someone why they need what you’re selling. People buy results, not just products or services.
Your salespeople need to know how to clearly articulate the value that your product or service will provide for the prospect. They need to be educators and storytellers, explaining why what you’re selling is so great and then getting the prospect to imagine themselves in a better life because of you.
Start by going through your customer profiles. Why are they good prospects for what you’re selling? How can you show them the value you’re providing? Do you have case studies or testimonials you can use?
Role play and get your team to practice articulating the value of your product until they can do it without even thinking.
8. Dealing with fear in cold sales
If you’re dealing with sales training for new or less experienced salespeople, you’ll want to train them not only on how to sell, but how to feel good about doing it.
Calling up or emailing strangers and asking them to buy what you’re selling isn’t something we normally do. And fear is only natural when you’re put into an unfamiliar place. Taking the time to train your team about how to handle that fear will make them more confident, friendly, and ultimately happier.
Start by looking at all the places in your sales process where your team might be feeling anxiety or fear and how to address it:
- Fear of rejection: When cold calling or emailing, it’s natural to be afraid of rejection. But hearing ‘no’ is no small part of selling. Don’t ignore or squash this fear. Instead, embrace it, verbalize it, and instead of trying to avoid failure, have your salesperson aim for failure and get motivated to push past the rejections. Give them the liberty to fail spectacularly a few times and get comfortable in that space. Those few lost leads are worth it in the long run.
- Fear of presentation: If you’re scared of getting in front of a group and pitching solutions, you might think you’re not cut out for sales. But getting over this fear of performance isn’t as hard as you might think. Try coming up with a hard script so that there’s no room for error. It might come across as robotic the first few times, but once your salesperson feels comfortable their fear will disappear and the presentation will loosen up.
- Fear of asking for the sale: Some salespeople are great at small talk, but can’t bring themselves to ask for the sale. This goes back to the fear of rejection, but if you’ve come this far you don’t want to just toss away the sale. Instead, give them a few textbook techniques for closing the sale. Once they feel comfortable with the basics, upgrade to more advanced tricks.
9. How, when, and the frequency of following-up
Most people might assume there’s no interest in what they’re selling if they don’t get a response. But the follow-up is your key to higher conversion rates, and without it you’re not likely to close many deals in the long run.
Steli, the CEO of Close.io here, follows a simple follow-up philosophy: Reach out as many times as necessary until you get a response. If a prospect says they’re busy for two weeks, he sets a reminder for 14 days.
Now, your own follow-up philosophy will come from your values and sales process, but the key here is that you need to have something your team can follow. Decide what frequency you’re going to follow up, how you’re going to track your messages, and which medium you’re going to use. Then, teach your team to use their judgement and experiment.
10. Ways to ask for the close
One of the most important pieces of sales training your team needs is how to close the deal.
Without providing guidelines and processes for asking for the close, you’re basically giving your team liberty to ask whenever they want. And unfortunately, too many salespeople wait until that nonexistent ‘perfect moment’ to ask.
Here are a couple techniques you can try adding to your sales training:
The virtual close: As soon as you’ve qualified your lead and given them your pitch, ask for the sale. At this point, you basically know they’re going to say no. So follow up by asking, "What’s the process we need to go through in order to get you ready to buy?" With this simple question, you’re getting them to draw you a roadmap to the sale you’ll eventually get.
Take the sale away: When objections arrive at the 11th hour, it’s easy to get desperate and make promises you can’t keep. Instead, teach your salespeople to "take the sale away" by being decisive on pricing, emphasizing that you’re building a long-term relationship, and imposing a break in the conversation. By using this technique, you’re not only pushing people to close, but showing them that you value the service or product you’re selling.
The learning never stops
Sales training never really ends.
There are always new techniques, better scripts, new objections to overcome, new issues to address, another competitor entering the market that you and your team will need to learn how to combat.
The best salespeople have a drive to learn and be the best, and your sales training will help them get there. Invest in it early on and you’ll have a team that can’t be beat.