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Your sales team serves as the primary means of earning new customers. Unless the team members are well versed in how to accomplish this task, the results will be less than satisfying. Even when you hire seasoned professionals who have worked in some sort of sales capacity for years, you still want to provide them with a well-organized sales training program. Here are some examples of key elements to include. Covering the Basics It doesn't matter if your new salespeople have years of experience or if they are coming to you fresh from college. All new people should be walked through the basics of the sales process. For those who have only known this process through classroom activities, this portion of the program helps to give them a little more practice before pursuing real clients. Seasoned professionals also benefit from going back over the basics from time to time, since it provides the opportunity to regain perspective and possibly learn how to relate their past experience to this new selling environment. The basics will focus mainly on learning how to generate leads, how to qualify those leads and move them on to prospects, and how to ultimately close a deal. As part of the process, this portion of your sales training program will help the team members explore the different ways to go about making connections with prospects that ultimately help them become customers. Product Knowledge Equipping your sales team with a solid working knowledge of the product line is a must. Even the best sales person will falter if he or she does not know how a product works and what it is designed to do. Being aware of all the uses and applications related to a good or service make it much easier to identify specific ways that a prospect can put that product to good use. For example, a seasoned salesperson who has never sold teleconferencing services before will need to know the difference between reserved and on demand services. In that same vein, you want them to know when a client may have the need for something simple that they can manage on their own, or when an operator driven format would make life easier. By instilling product knowledge in each of your salespeople, you increase their ability to help prospects find the ideal solutions for their conferencing needs. The Sales Funnel Understanding the concept of the sales funnel or pipeline is also a must for new team members. For this part of the sales training program, focus on using different strategies to track the progress for each new contact. Explain the company's criteria for moving a raw lead to qualified status, then on to prospect status, and finally to that of customer. If a specific software program is used for this purpose, train each new salesperson on how to log contact information, schedule reminders for calls, emails, and letters, and ultimately how to communicate the fact that a deal is closed. Training is not just an investment in your sales team. It is also an investment in the future of your company. By making sure your team has all the resources needed to find, cultivate, and ultimately acquire new customers, the business will prosper and everyone will benefit. If you're in need of sales training, Portland, Oregon residents recommend: http://www.pcc.edu/climb/training/sales/
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