This post was originally published by Mitch Causey on lessonly.com
No matter what business you’re in, the goal is to make sales and turn a profit. However, your company’s sales team is only as strong as its weakest link. If you’re unhappy with your sales team’s recent performance, you may need to consider the possibility that your workers lack the resources to reach their full potential. Fortunately, there are a few simple training sessions you can hold to boost your sales team’s performance.
Sales enablement training
First of all, understand that your employees won’t stand a chance at making more sales if they don’t know your product or service inside out. Unfortunately, many employees are more-or-less thrown into their sales positions and expected to learn about the products or services they’re selling on their own time.
As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to provide sales enablement opportunities to your employees. Take the time to sit down with your sales staff and go through the features, benefits, and other aspect of the goods or service you expect them to sell. This way, they can have the information they need to lock in a sale.
General sales training
In addition to knowing about the products and services you’re trying to sell, your employees also need to have some general skills when it comes to selling techniques. This includes having great interpersonal communication; your sales employees should know how to approach a potential customer courteously and how to treat them with respect. A great thing to do is create a performance improvement plan for your employee to help measure your sales employee’s growth.
Furthermore, make sure your employees know how to answer common questions about your services or products accurately and succinctly. If they don’t know the answer to a question, they should be trained to seek it out rather than guessing.
Finally, a great sales employee will be able to communicate well not only in person, but via telephone and e-mail as well.
Training on your sales operations
Finally, you can’t expect your sales team to be successful if they’re not in total understanding of how your company’s sales system is set up. Your workers need to know which internal operations are available to help make a sale.
For example, if a product a customer wants is out of stock in your store, he or she should be able to find it at another location or be able to have it shipped from another store. Your employees should also be aware of:
- CRM software
- company financing options
- payment methods accepted
- add-on products and services
- interdepartmental communication
By providing your sales team with regular training and sales enablement, you’ll be well on your way to more sales and greater profits.
Learn how companies are using Lessonly by Seismic to enable their sales teams here.
