Today’s cutthroat marketplace calls for sales teams with the right skills and knowledge. As such, ongoing learning seems to hold the key to helping your reps keep up with the latest trends. However, getting your workforce to embrace learning can take time and effort. Here are the top five tips from the best sales course to help you ignite a passion for learning in your employees’ hearts.
Lead By Example
A study by the U.S. National Library of Medicine has found that leading by example has positive effects on the cooperation of followers at corporate and personal levels. As such, investing your own time and effort in personal training and development is likely to create a trickle-down effect. Letting your team see you use the new skills and knowledge for the company’s good can fire them up to follow suit.
In addition, your sales reps may be more likely to uphold you as a credible role model and have more faith in your guidance if they see your own efforts to grow. When you clinch a win, giving due credit to the recent classes you sat through can be a subtle way of nudging your team toward similar training. In addition, linking your job satisfaction and career growth with the course can stir the workers’ curiosity and make them want to learn, too.
Show Them the Benefits
As great as sales training might be, your team may still be grappling with the question, “What’s in it for us?” Showing how such learning aligns with the company’s goals and the team members’ common good can allay such fears. Helping them see how the program will polish their skills, boost confidence, and promote overall growth can be an easy way to help them clear their minds.
On top of that, sharing real-life success stories in which salespeople pulled off epic feats thanks to such courses can help prove how the classes will help them cross their own sales hurdles. Here are some simple methods courses often include that you can use to give your employees a taste of the skills they’ll learn:
- Role-play exercises
- Sales workshops
- Customer-facing simulations
- Group extracurricular activities
Set Clear Goals
Josh Bersin, an HR expert, says companies that set goals quarterly get 31% higher returns from their performance process than those who do it yearly. He adds that those who do it monthly enjoy even higher results. Taking a keen look at your reps’ performance before setting learning objectives can help you identify strengths, weaknesses, and other areas that could use a tune-up. Also, reviewing key metrics, such as conversion rates, average deal size, and sales cycle length, can clearly show your team’s knowledge gaps.
With such insight, you can set specific goals for the program, such as scaling up revenue, widening market share, or improving customer retention. Dividing the goals into smaller, actionable steps that can be achieved one after the other and assigning timelines for each step can help the learners track progress and stay upbeat.
Provide Ongoing Feedback
Ken Blanchard, a renowned American author and business consultant, once referred to feedback as “the breakfast of champions.” Regular check-ins with the participants of a training course can be a great chance to see their progress, challenges, and triumphs. These check-ins can occur once every week, fortnight, or month, depending on your team’s needs.
Giving specific and actionable feedback can help your staffers see their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, encouraging your employees to offer feedback on the course’s content and structure can let them know you value their opinions and ideas. Some of the topics to request input on are:
- Sales approaches.
- Product knowledge.
- Communication style.
- Objection handling.
- Closing techniques.
Recognize And Reward Milestones
A recent survey of employees across the U.S. and Western Europe by Gallup found that 73% of those who worked with companies with regular recognition and reward programs were less likely to burn out. The perks of showing gratitude to workers can also find a place in sales training. Some benefits of giving workers tokens of praise during a training course are:
- Boosting learning morale.
- Building self-esteem.
- Encouraging higher engagement and motivation.
- Fostering peer learning and collaboration.
- Improving staff retention and loyalty.
Popping the champagne for your team members’ learning milestones can add excitement to their pursuit of further learning. Also, giving a thumbs-up to peer support among workers and cheering on each other’s efforts can create a culture of positive recognition within your sales force. This can be done via a notice board, a media channel, or regular team meetings where colleagues can share success stories. Rewards can also be more than public recognition; they can include financial incentives or even promotions.
By putting these tips to work, you can create a culture of continuous training, motivation, and success within your team. This will likely make your team more engaged and rocket toward their full potential and long-lasting success.
